Press Conference: Organic Pastures Dairy Company - Fresno, California, Friday, September 29 at 2 pm

Our access to raw milk is at stake! Please join fellow raw milk drinkers for a press conference at Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno, California, Friday, September 29 at 2 pm.

On Sept 21st Organic Pastures Dairy (OPDC) received notice from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) of a "possible" link to bacterial contamination of OP milk and milk products. As of 9/22 all pathogen tests by state investigators, outside labs and OPDC have proven negative for the suspected human pathogen E. coli 0157-H7. Yet raw milk is still being withheld from the marketplace.

Organic Pastures is holding a press conference at 2:00 PM tomorrow, Friday September 29th. We need each and every one of you to show your support for raw milk. The address is 7221 South Jameson Avenue Fresno, California 93706

IF THERE IS ANY POSSIBLE WAY THAT YOU CAN TRAVEL TO THE DAIRY FOR THIS CONFERENCE, PLEASE ATTEND. Your presence is critical to maintaining access to the healthful milk you and your family have been enjoying.

At the conference, Mark McAfee will be speaking to the national and international press about your right to drink safe, fresh, unprocessed milk from grass-fed cows. The media and the public will be provided test results and comprehensive documentation.

In continued partnership with the CDFA, the FDA, and other government regulatory agencies, Organic Pastures is fully dedicated to the safe production of raw milk, and to guaranteeing the future of raw milk for the citizens of California.

Organic Pastures looks forward to joining the CDFA in issuing a comprehensive press release tomorrow at 2PM. Meanwhile, Organic Pastures has agreed to limit information to the public. At the conference, the entire story will be told.

In addition to your attendance at the Press Conference, your phone calls and emails are urgently needed. For those living in California, please contact your elected representatives and the governor's office. In particular, please mention Dr. Stephen Beam and Dr. Richard Breitmeyer, the CDFA officials responsible for taking away your raw milk.

Contact: Elected Officials
Contact: California Governor

Your presence is vital to the future of raw milk in California.

Other news on this from the San Diego Union Tribune. The quarantine started on Thursday, Sept 21, 2006. Originally, the owner of McAfee expected it to be lifted on "Wednesday", which would have been Sept 27, I guess. Now he has sent out an email claiming the state has gagged him - which some government spokesman denied.

Raw milk products still quarantined

4 kids, including 2 in county, got sick
By Cheryl Clark
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 29, 2006
State officials yesterday continued their quarantine of raw, unpasteurized milk products produced by Organic Pastures of Fresno because four children, including two 8-year-olds in San Diego County, became ill after consuming them.
The quarantine began Sept. 21 after stool samples from three of the four youngsters revealed 0157:H7, a type of E. coli bacteria. People affected by this bacteria can suffer severe diarrhea and other potentially fatal complications.
Mark McAfee, the owner of Organic Pastures, last week said he was convinced the children did not acquire 0157:H7 through his company's products, which include raw milk and cow colostrum (a high-protein fluid secreted by the mother after the birth of her calf).
Instead, he said, the youngsters had eaten tainted spinach and a variety of other foods that sometimes cause illness.
McAfee said state officials told him the situation would be resolved by Wednesday, when Organic Pastures' products would be cleared for renewed distribution to various supermarkets and health-food stores in California.
In an e-mail yesterday, McAfee said he could no longer discuss the issue because state officials had imposed a “gag order” on him.
“We did not impose a gag order,” Steve Lyle, spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture, wrote in a subsequent e-mail. “The investigation continues, as does the quarantine.”
One of the affected children drank colostrum; the other three drank raw milk, state officials said.
Two of the patients – a 7-year-old boy in Riverside County and a 10-year-old girl in San Bernardino County – remain hospitalized at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
Organic Pastures' Web site carries a statement saying the company “has rigorous safety and testing procedures in place to ensure the purity of our milk. We are confident that further investigation will prove (our) products to be safe.”
State officials urge people who recently purchased Organic Pastures' raw milk products to return them to the retailer for a full refund.

And yet more, from Business Week. The state says they want two consecutive clean samples, and each one takes five days to run. It has only been 8 days since the quarantine started.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2006

By David E. Gumpert

Getting a Raw Deal?

A small farm caught up in a bacteria-contamination scare says it's battling a bureaucracy with a bias
If you're in the food-production business, the worst thing that can happen to you is that customers become ill and regulators decide you may be at fault.

Inspectors swoop in, shut your business, force a recall of your products, and inspect every crevice of your operations looking for evidence of contamination.

RAW MILK. That is what happened recently to Organic Pastures Dairy Co., a small farm in Fresno, Calif., that is the state's largest producer of raw milk, after four children who drank the milk or ate milk products became ill, all of whom tested positive for E.coli. (Raw milk is milk that isn't pasteurized or homogenized. Advocates maintain the milk has a variety of health benefits, including strengthening the immune system and being more easily digested by individuals with lactose intolerance.)

The 300-cow dairy was founded six years ago by Mark McAfee and his wife, Blaine. Their son, Aaron, is the operations manager and daughter, Kaleigh, is a marketing assistant. Previously, the McAfees had produced organic vegetables from the farm.

So far, California's Food and Agriculture Dept. hasn't found a "smoking gun" in the form of E.coli in the farm's milk products that would incriminate it in the children's illness. "They did hundreds and hundreds of tests," Mark says. "They even tested the manure of our cows. They found zero pathogens."

The question now seems to be how far the state will go before giving the farm a clean bill of health.

CUTTING A DEAL. McAfee says that on Sept. 22, a day after issuing "a statewide recall and quarantine order" affecting Organic Pastures' products, state officials promised him that if he cooperated and refrained from speaking with the media or triggering an appeals process while further tests were conducted, the order would be lifted and he would be back in business "in a few days."

A few days have come and gone, and on Sept. 27 state officials showed up seeking more evidence and wanting to do more tests. That convinced McAfee to end his silence and go on the offensive. "We had a contract with the state of California," he says, though apparently nothing was conveyed in writing. "They're changing the target on us. We are going to defend the right of citizens to access this life-giving milk." He is threatening a $100 million lawsuit against the state for harming his brand and reputation.

A spokesperson for the California Food and Agriculture Dept. says there was no specific agreement on when Organic Pastures might reopen. "We have stated all along that it is quarantined until further notice," says the spokesperson. The state right now is seeking "two consecutive clean samples of his product." It takes approximately five days to complete each test, and "we are in the midst of that process now."

VAGUE EVIDENCE. The spokerperson adds that because two of the four children who became sick "had to go on kidney dialysis," the department is being especially cautious, even though the only evidence pointing to Organic Pastures is "epidemiological"—meaning that all four children consumed Organic Pastures' milk products.

Organic Pastures and the state are also in disagreement about another possible cause of the children's illness: fresh spinach, which has made nearly 200 people ill in the last several weeks around the country. The state spokesperson said that as far as he knew, there wasn't a connection, since "lab samples from one of the children shows a different strain [of E.coli] than the one found in the spinach outbreak," and only two of the four children were known to have consumed spinach.

Yet Mark McAfee isn't so sure. He says he met with families of two of the children who got sick and that both of the children had consumed fresh spinach. "Who's to say it's not some other E.coli" from the spinach that sickened the children, he wonders.

Mark McAfee says the state is using the vague evidence of "epidemiologic data" to keep him shut down and, in the process, tarnish his brand and endanger the viability of his entire business.

RISKY PRODUCT. Raw milk has long been a touchy subject among state and federal regulators. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on its Web site states that federal and state agencies "have documented a long history of the risks to human health associated with the consumption of raw milk." Most states outlaw its sale in stores, only allowing it to be sold direct from farms. California apparently has one of the nation's most liberal policies in allowing sale of raw milk in stores; according to McAfee, 100,000 California residents each week drink raw milk.

When I asked McAfee if he was simply in a business with an unacceptable risk level, he responded, "There isn't risk from the product. The risk is political. This is a war against raw milk…They're trying to destroy us."

He points out that farms without the right farming processes shouldn't be trusted to produce acceptable raw milk, but he says he has taken exceptional precautions, including feeding his cows only grass and implementing special clean-milking procedures that guard against contamination.

ADVOCACY. Unfortunately, if you're going to be in a business that the regulators have a bias against—and there are a number among alternative health products and providers—you'd better be prepared to add one additional hat to all the hats small-business owner must wear: advocacy. McAfee sounds as if he's ready to counterattack. He says his Web site has had "millions of hits" since the story about his farm broke and that he has received "thousands of e-mails of support."

He'll need all the advocacy strength and support he can muster to shake the army of regulators who have his farm in their sights.

Gumpert is author of Burn Your Business Plan! What Investors Really Want from Entrepreneurs and How to Really Start Your Own Business. His Web site is www.davidgumpert.com.

It is very dangerous to consume unpasteurized milk. It is just not worth the risk.

And if I get cardiovascular disease, cancer or diabetes from pasteurized milk, who pays for that?

I'm serious. As best as I can tell, and I'm willing to bet my good health and life on it, carefully handled raw milk is healthier than any pasteurized milk, and the over heated fats and oils in most super market items, including pasteurized milk, are a major contributor to the radical increase in cardiovascular disease, cancer or diabetes over the last 50 years.

I'm deadly serious.

I'm not drinking it out of some libertarian protest, and I'm certainly not drinking it because it is cheaper or more convenient. There is only one store within 50 miles of me that has it, and then it only gets shipments once a week, and it costs three times ordinary milk.

I am confident that my odds of living a longer, healthier life, with less burden on public health money, are better with this raw milk.

The basic problem here is that government, big universities and main stream media have too much power. When that happens, the deepest pockets can gain favored advantage, including bending regulations and their enforcement, research, news stories, publicity and public statements of what is healthy or not, to favor the deep pocket.

Your understanding that it is very dangerous to consume unpasteurized milk comes from untrustworthy sources.

Rather like our understanding that the Tet offensive was a major loss, and the Viet Nam war unwinnable came from an untrustworthy source - the likes of Walter Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America."

Good news - quarantine lifed !

From the Organic Pastures Dairy Company website:

To our Dear Friends and Customers,

Thank you for your concern and support over this last week. We understand that the young people who were sickened are now recovering. All of us here at Organic Pastures have so appreciated hearing how much our raw dairy products mean to you.

We are pleased to announce that the quarantine on our products has been lifted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Many thanks to the CDFA for the opportunity to work with them to ensure the health and safety of consumers.

We know there is confusion about what has happened in the last days, and want to share with you the information we have. Here is the course of events:

On September 21st we received word from the California Department of Food and Agriculture of possible bacterial contamination of our milk and milk products. We immediately initiated a recall to ensure the safety of our customers. We began working with state and independent investigators to determine if, indeed, our milk had been contaminated by E Coli.

The families of the four children struck with E-Coli (and are recovering well, we are pleased to say) reported that among the foods they had recently ingested were raw milk or raw colostrum, which pointed food inspectors to our dairy. However, 100% negative test results suggest another cause.

State investigators tested samples acquired from the families, and conducted what we understand were over 600 tests of our farm, cows, pasture, milking equipment, and milk products. No E-Coli was found.

So, after all this testing, it remains a fact that no E-Coli has ever been found in any Organic Pastures product.

It has now been determined without question that our health conscious consumers may continue to enjoy our pure, unprocessed, nutrient-rich milk. We will do our very best to ensure our milk is on your market shelves as soon as possible.

America is a country that first and foremost, honors freedom. While we deeply respect and value the work of government agencies to keep us safe, and appreciate our partnership in supporting this mission, we sincerely believe in the right to choose ones' food. But with freedom comes responsibility. Organic Pastures fully recognizes the great responsibility we have in providing a whole, unprocessed food that is safe, delicious, fresh, and always – I'll say it again: always – found free of dangerous pathogens.

For hundreds of thousands of years before industrial agriculture, humans were blessed with perfect, natural, unprocessed food sources. We believe that raw milk, with its multitude of beneficial properties, is one of Creation's biggest gifts to mankind. Our milk is produced according to Nature's blueprint, and for the sake of people everywhere, we hope to keep it that way.

Thank you again for your concern – let's stay in touch!

Mark McAfee
Founder OPDC

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