Updates: New York
Worcester Dairy Resumes Raw Milk Sales

August 17, 2007 – Worcester, NY – Autumn Valley Farm announces that it has received a clean bill of health from the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets and will immediately resume on-site raw milk sales to its consumers. Autumn Valley Farm holds a Department permit to legally sell raw milk, and had voluntarily suspended sales after the Department’s Food Laboratory detected the presence of Listeria monocytogenes in a routine sample taken on July 16, 2007. No illnesses were associated with Autumn Valley Farm milk, and suspending sales was strictly a precautionary measure. The Department’s subsequent testing has not detected any additional pathogens and the Farm has been given permission to resume sales.

“We would like to thank all our customers for their patience and understanding while our milk sales were suspended, and to welcome everyone back now that we’re up and running again,” states co-owner Lori McGrath. “We pride ourselves on our clean operations and run an immaculate farm. Our customers love our milk and were a bit upset when we had to stop sales, but everyone understands that the state has to be pacified because the Agriculture Department is deathly afraid that any kind of an outbreak will hurt the commercial milk industry,” continues McGrath. “What people may not realize is that Listeria is virtually everywhere in the environment and in our homes – it’s probably in many people’s kitchens, and other people may be disease-free carriers. Of all the Listeria strains only monocytogenes actually causes disease in humans, and even that is
pretty rare. And in fact, the Center for Disease Control reported that from 1973 to 2005 there were absolutely no Listeria illnesses at all from drinking raw milk,” says McGrath.

The Department’s web site indicates that Autumn Valley Farm is the third raw milk permit holder in the state to suspend sales in 2007 due to possible L. monocytogenes contamination, and an additional farm suspended raw milk sales due to possible Campylobacter contamination. However, no illnesses were reported from consumption of any milk or milk products from the affected farms and all are presumed to be back in operation.

“I’m a little concerned that the Agriculture Department may be crying ‘Wolf’ a bit too often,” states McGrath. “There’s always a danger that the public may just start ignoring all these warnings after they realize that no-one is actually getting sick, and that might be problematic if there ever is a serious contamination issue in raw milk or milk from the grocery store.” “Clean raw milk from pasture-fed cows really is an amazing food,” states Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. “Clean raw milk can have lower bacteria counts than pasteurized milk and contains the healthy bacteria of lactic-acid fermentation, not the bacteria of spoilage. These probiotic bacteria, active enzymes and other defense mechanisms out-compete any invading pathogens, causing them to simply disappear from the milk. You might be able to barely detect them at first, but within a day they’re just gone. These probiotics nourish your digestive system, contribute to your over-all good health and keep you from getting sick,” continues Fallon.

According to the FDA’s manual for detecting and enumerating L. monocytogenes in foods, the samples first undergo an enrichment and incubation process in order to culture a detectable amount of bacteria. During the enrichment process the samples are chemically altered to specifically encourage the growth of Listeria and prevent the growth of competing bacteria, but the process also disables the protection mechanisms present in the raw milk. The samples are then heated to 86 degrees Fahrenheit and are cultured at that temperature for two days. Autumn Valley Farm reports that an independent laboratory tested raw milk samples taken from the farm’s bulk tank on July 23rd, and as an extra precaution the samples were cultured for an additional day beyond the FDA’s requirements. The independent laboratory detected no viable Listeria cells or other pathogens, and the state’s subsequent test samples were also free of contamination.
“The state’s detection methods don’t take these special properties of clean raw milk into account and treat the samples like any other processed and lifeless food,” says Fallon. “Raw milk from small family-run farms is immediately refrigerated after milking and is typically sold within a day or two – the freshest milk you can find. The conditions and the stress that the milk undergoes during testing bear no resemblance to how the milk is treated in the real world, which explains why they can claim to find contamination but nobody ever gets sick. Since all raw milk permit-holder samples are now apparently being handled in the state laboratory in Albany using an older manual measuring process I’m hoping that these unnecessary contamination alerts will stop with a little education at the state level.”

About Autumn Valley Farm
Autumn Valley Farm has forty-four cows grazing on 160 acres and is owned by Lori and Darren McGrath. Autumn Valley Farm has been in operation for the past six years and has held a raw milk permit for eight months.

About the Weston A. Price Foundation
The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price, and is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism. It supports a number of movements that contribute to this objective including accurate nutrition instruction, organic and biodynamic farming, pasture-feeding of livestock, community-supported farms, honest and informative labeling, prepared parenting and nurturing therapies. The Foundation has local
chapters in all fifty states and in over ten countries.

Contact Information:
Autumn Valley Farm
1644 County Highway #39, Worcester, New York, 12197
Phone: (607) 397-7741 | Email: LMcGrath@stny.rr.com

The Weston A. Price Foundation
Sally Fallon, President
PMB 106-380, 4200 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington DC 20016
Phone: (202) 363-4394 | Fax: (202) 363-4396 | Email:
info@westonaprice.org | Web: www.westonaprice.org

NEW YORK CASES

Harassment Of Raw Milk Farmers In Pennsylvania And New York

A consistent pattern of harassment against raw milk farmers is emerging in Pennsylvania and New York. Since April, a total of nine farmers have been told that their milk tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes. The positive tests appear to coincide with the FDA’s issuance in March of a Powerpoint presentation on the “dangers of raw milk.” There are no reports of anyone getting sick from drinking the milk of any of these nine farms. Please note that the generic bacteria listeria are ubiquitous and not harmful, although its presence in milk is considered a red flag. Only one strain, Listeria monocytogenes (L-mono), is considered pathogenic. The standard protocol is to test milk for listeria and, if the test is positive, to then test for the specific bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, a process that takes five days or more.

According to a lab technician employed by Mosely Laboratories in Indianapolis, which uses the standard protocol for detecting L-mono, results are 100 percent accurate. The technician stated that of the fifty tests on raw milk that he has run for L-mono over the past two years, not a single one has been positive.

In New York, five different farms have tested positive for L-mono, according to the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. The first involved an Allegheny County farmer whose milk tested positive for listeria, and which prompted a December 26 warning from the New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick H. Brennan against drinking unpasteurized milk.

One case involved Dawn and Jeffrey Sharts of Beech Hill Farms. The farm has sold milk in the conventional market for over thirty years. Last year the farm obtained a permit to sell raw milk, at which time, says Dawn Sharts, “the inspectors suddenly began treating me like I was selling toxic waste.” When the milk from the Sharts’ farm tested positive for L-mono last spring, the department put a press release on its website announcing the positive test. Several weeks later, when subsequent tests showed the milk to be negative, the department refused to take the press release off the website. Unlike Pennsylvania, the Sharts believe the problem with testing in New York is that the department uses antiquated manual measurement methods to test instead of electronic measurement. A sample taken by the state and tested for somatic cell count had ten times the level than did a sample taken that same day tested by a lab for Sharts’ pasteurization plant. They also accuse inspectors of using careless testing methods, for which they have videos of the inspectors’ actions at the farm to back up this claim.

A Weston A. Price Foundation member has filed a Freedom of Information request in Pennsylvania, asking for all relevant laboratory tests results and other data regarding the cases there. We need someone to do this in New York as well.

We are also asking all members to alert their farmers about what is going on. Any time the state takes a test sample, the farmer should send his or her own sample to an independent laboratory. It is probably not a bad idea to videotape any sample taking and inspections. If the farmer is accused of having L-mono in the milk, he or she should immediately contact the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund at (703-208-FARM).

Finally, we are asking our members to contact the following officials by email. If you live in Pennsylvania or New York, it would be very good to send a snail mail letter to the officials in your state. The tone of the letter should be polite but concerned. Points to include:

• Describe how you and your family depend on raw milk for your health.
• Protest the unfair treatment to farmers doing their best to comply with the law (this is especially true in Pennsylvania, where the PDA has campaigned to get farmers to obtain licenses).
• Demand that the state issue a press release when the farm has been given permission to resume sales, to be posted on the department’s website and sent to the same media list that received the initial press release.
• Point out that the present testing for listeria is an overreaction to a problem that does not exist. According to a certified report from the Centers for Disease Control on foodborne illness caused by raw milk 1972-2005, there is not a single outbreak due to listeria in raw milk or raw milk products other than three cases involving Mexican-style raw milk cheeses smuggled over the border (known as “suitcase cheese”).
• In Pennsylvania: Ask that only the preferred methodology as outlined by the FDA be used in testing forL-mono, which has a greater accuracy than the new testing system used by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. In New York: Ask that inspectors use careful and standardized testing procedures.

PEOPLE TO CONTACT

Honorable Edward G. Rendell
Governor, State of Pennsylvania
225 Main Capitol Bldg./Harrisburg, PA 17120
governor@state.pa.us
717-787-2500/717-772-8284 (fax)

Honorable Dennis C. Wolff
Secretary of Agriculture
2301 North Cameron Street/Harrisburg, PA 17110
dwolff@state.pa.us
717-772-2853/717-783-9709 (fax)

Mr. Bill Chirdon
Director, Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services
2301 N. Cameron Street/Harrisburg, PA 17110
wchirdon@state.pa.us
717-787-4315/717-787-1873 (fax)

Honorable David A. Paterson
Governor of New York
State Capitol/Albany, NY 12224
Email through website - http://161.11.121.121/govemail
518-474-8390/518-474-1513 (fax)

Patrick Hooker, Commissioner,
New York Department Agriculture and Markets
10 B Airline Drive/Albany, NY 12235
Patrick.hooker@agmkt.state.ny.us
518-457-8876/518-457-3087 (fax)

Will Francis, Dairy Division Director
New York Department of Agriculture and Markets
10 B Airline Drive/Albany, NY 12235
will.francis@agmkt.state.ny.us
518-457-1772/518-485-8730 (fax)

A Campaign for Real Milk is a project of The Weston A. Price Foundation
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Phone: (202) 363-4394 | Fax: (202) 363-4396 | Web: www.westonaprice.org
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