20 Comments
Mar 4Liked by Liz Reitzig

Don't Spill on Me. That would be gross.

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https://yourfamilyfarmer.com/raw-milk-safety-faqs

A PA farm who does it right. I’ve seen something similar years ago up here when an “alternative” doctor got hauled up by the provincial health board, and everyone got up in arms about health freedom. Thing is WE went to this “doctor” and he was rude and unprofessional. The fact he was loosing his license was because he was a lousy doctor who wrapped himself in the “alternate” flag to give himself cover.

This smells similar.

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author

You've got some idea of what might be going on here....

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Except in this situation, it has been reported and repeated that no customer of Amos Miller had a formal complaint. If he’s rough around the edges and hard to deal with, it doesn’t matter. He’s a farmer. Public relations should have nothing to do with whether or not we feel this person can continue doing business.

And furthermore, it’s absolutely absurd to think that other farms, who operate similarly, will be penalized for victimless “crimes”committed by another farm.

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Yes, my concern is that more farms will be in trouble now.

But I guess Liz is cool with that, since they're not permitted. She's in love with the PA Dept of Ag apparently.

Wait, if you're permitted, aren't you only allowed to sell raw milk, not any other products? I really like kefir... that could be an issue!

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2 curiosities to me...

1. This latest Listeria positive test...It says samples were taken from his farm and then they were told there was listeria. Are we back to blindly taking governments word on things? Did they collect and handle the samples responsibly? Did they sit unrefrigerated for any period of time outside of Miller's farm? Where are the transparent reports on this listeria case?

2. Redding winning the respect of the farmers isn't necessarily a vote of confidence. Most farmers are using poor practices that drain the land; they are spraying glyphosate and producing food that is sub optimal from a nutritional standpoint. They are using govt subsidies to grow commodity crops and contributing to the degradation of the environment. Is that who's support Redding won?

Once again, I commend you for following up with the suggestion that people get out there and do it on their own. It's quite a task, but it's the correct answer. At the end of the day, I don't think Miller's farm should be as large as it is, but I also think it's absurd to believe people cannot choose their own food source, when pasteurized dairy is responsible for 99% of dairy related foodborne illnesses.

If a farm screws up and people get sick, word will make its way around. People take these things very seriously and do not need FDA or any other regulatory agency to "save the day." If anyone can produce food, then anyone else can tell the community if they are screwing it up. Word of mouth. Then, the person either gets better or goes under. Natural, organic evolution.

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Thanks for stating the, to my mind, obvious point. How do you trust the “experts”, who clearly show they lie and cheat when it is convenient? That Amos’ members continued to buy speaks volumes. And who could really believe a human being, an organism built to survive, would be shoving himself, and his family, full of contaminated products?! He’d be too busy sitting on the toilet than farming!

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Mar 4Liked by Liz Reitzig

Pasteurization is easy and in the case of Amos' buyers, a good idea.

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Sure, if you don’t like vitamin A,D,K and probiotics/enzymes in your milk. Nobody has confronted the elephant in the room about the supposed listeria tests and how they were conducted and by whom. Don’t you find it relevant?

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I find it so relevant that I went through the lengthy court document. I grabbed this snippet for the curious. Apologies for the formatting.

44. In November 2015, samples of raw chocolate milk produced by MOF that contained the

Listeria bacteria were collected.

45. Testing by the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) determined that the

Listeria bacteria from the MOF raw milk sample was closely related genetically to Listeria bacteria

from two unrelated individuals in Florida and California who had become sick in 2014.

46. Both individuals were hospitalized, and the Florida individual died as a result of the illness.

47. Public health officials determined that both individuals had consumed raw milk before they

got sick, and that the family of the Florida individual had purchased raw milk from MOF.

48. In late January 2016, the FDA reported to the CDC that the bacteria among the

infected individuals and the chocolate milk sample were the “likely source” of the infections.

49. On or about March 16, 2016, the CDC issued an internet posting about MOF which

provided the factual background regarding the California and Florida illnesses, and stated that

the CDC was “concerned that contaminated raw milk and other raw dairy products from this

company could still be on the market and make people sick.” March 16, 2016 CDC Web

Posting, https://www.cdc.gov/listeria/outbreaks/raw-milk-03-16/index.html, attached as Exhibit 5

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Not only are those examples eight years old, it has, since been reported that the person who died first off had cancer, secondly, reportedly never drank the milk.

And when we say stuff like “outside labs” we are immediately assigning trust to them, even though we don’t understand what type of arrangements, working agreements, rotating doors, or conflict of interest may exist between the state, and the so-called third party.

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Well, few people have the skills to sample and grow bacteria themselves. If I was a dairy farmer, I'd probably use a local lab out of convenience to test my product. When I said, outside lab, I mean 3rd party. The other option is to drink the milk and see what happens. Raw milkers are a hardy sort, so they'd probably be ok most of the time. These are the labs in PA, I think. https://www.cfsanappsexternal.fda.gov/scripts/ims/mkex/ims/imslb-br1.cfm#PA

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Also, in PA, outside labs that conform to the PDA's standards test milk.

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Is the listeria test as reliable as the COVID PCR test???

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A few thousand customers and 300+ cows spread over 10 farms is really not that big.

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Liz--I’d like to see you go on Del Bigtree’s show, the Highwire, and discuss this with him. His recent take on it seems to miss the point, but Del strikes me as someone who is happy to admit he’s made a mistake.

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This makes me so mad. All of the science shows raw is best and the other is toxic. The judge COULD have done the right thing but our system is so beyond corrupt. If I was Amos I would go back to just doing what he was doing and tell the gov where to stick it.

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author

I think you must not have read the actual article....?

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Bottom line is that he can't sell his raw milk, right? Or did I miss something?

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That's right, he can't, even though not one single member ever had a complaint, nor was one single illness proven to be connected to ingestion of his raw milk.

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