Raw milk: 'media coverage far beyond its importance'
Here’s the most important point in a column written by long-time Toronto Globe and Mail medical reporter Andre Picard:
The trial of Ontario raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt has garnered media coverage far beyond its importance.
Oh, and the outcome is largely irrelevant.
It seems somewhat absurd to jail a man for selling a product that clients desperately want and which, on the surface at least, seems harmless. But, hey, it happens to pot dealers every day.
What is not harmless is Mr. Schmidt's attack on pasteurization and on food-safety regulations more generally.
Under the guise of civil liberties and freedom, he and his supporters have uttered all kinds of nonsense and portrayed themselves as martyrs for pure food. …
Farmer Schmidt and his acolytes can suckle the milk from the teat of a cow, a goat, a cat, or any other lactating mammal to their hearts' content.
Their rights and freedoms are in no way compromised.
What the law restricts is the commercial sale of raw milk.
Mr. Schmidt tried to circumvent this fact by selling "cow shares" and arguing that his clients were actually proprietors and free to consume raw milk from their own cows.
Whether that little manoeuvre exempts him from the law is up to the courts to decide. But it seems unlikely. After all, bar owners tried this technique to sidestep anti-smoking laws, selling "shares" in their establishment and arguing that patrons were smoking in a private club. Judges saw through the subterfuge. …
Another argument is that meat - which can also contain pathogens - is sold raw, so why not milk? The practical reason for this is obvious. It is easy and efficient to pasteurize milk; it is not practical to cook meat before selling it, but its refrigeration (designed to minimize the growth of bacteria) is mandatory and regulated.
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/admin/trackback/115572
I just need to vent this I guess. Raw Milk vrs Pasteurized. We need to move on. We have the technology to identify the bacteria (culture) which may or may not be beneficial in raw milk, we have the technology to identify the enzymes (proteonomics) which may or may not be beneficial in raw milk. Identify these, add them back to pasteurized milk so pathogens are excluded and have a safe product. Can we not simply apply this, charge an arm and a leg for the product, which they seem to charge now I am happy to see, and exploit the niche market.
The world is crazy enough, the egg marketing board wants uninspected eggs made available for sale in BC and eggs are cheap. There is enough insanity out there, move on, use science. Leave the rhetoric for the politicians.
I am finishing off 2 years working on a project in China and have survived drinking melamine laced milk (not joking here) eating fish raised in pig effluent ponds and sooo many other things. If we have the science why do we persist in the argument.
Sorry, feel better now,
Jane