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‘Like Food Nazis’: Did a Calif. Health Dept. Come to Homes to ‘Confiscate’ Contaminated Raw Milk?

May. 21, 2012 4:28pm Liz Klimas

Did Health Department Officials Try to Confiscate Contaminated Raw Milk in California?

(Photo: kthread/Flickr)

Organic Pastures, a dairy farm run by the McAfee family near Fresno, is California’s first raw milk dairy farm that has certified organic land as pasture for its herd. Earlier this month, though, the farm was placed under quarantine due to reports of harmful bacteria found in samples of some dairy products and cow manure.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture cleared the farm on Friday after eight days of quarantine as now meeting all food safety and sanitation standards. What some found unusual, however, is how individual customers of the dairy products were contacted, some even saying officials tried to “confiscate” their legally-purchased milk. Although, officials have said they did not try to take milk for individuals but were simply informing all people about the recall of the contaminated milk.

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Natural News reports the founder of Organic Pastures Mark McAfee said he was told by one of his customers during the quarantine time frame that she was called repeatedly by the health department of L.A. County and told to give up her raw milk. Here’s more of McAfee‘s account of the events as told to him by one of his customers that has milk dropped off at her home from the dairy farm via UPS:

[...] they showed up at her house and demanded that she give her raw milk to them. She was getting ready to call 911 for the Sheriff’s department and have them removed from her front doorstep, and she was threatening to use her camera to take a picture of them and post it on Facebook for harassing her over her raw milk… The investigators left after she told them she was not going to give them the raw milk and to get the Hell off her property.

This is what’s going on, it’s like food Nazis, it’s incredible what these people are doing, trying to collect food from people’s houses, that have not made them ill!

McAfee stated that a secretary had mistakenly given out his customer’s contact information. Later, he said, the San Diego health department contacted him to for names and addresses, but he refused to provide them.

The Blaze contacted the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which gave the farm the green light to start distributing its products again on Friday. It said it was standard protocol for customers to be contacted during a time of contamination. A spokesperson for the CDFA wrote in an email, “Generally, during a recall, it is standard practice for health officials to use a dairy’s distribution list (usually retail outlets, but may include individuals) to verify that the producer has notified its customers in compliance with the provisions of the recall.”

The Blaze has also contacted the L.A. County Health Department for more details on their protocol in food contamination situations. Angelo Bellomo, director of environmental health for the department, emphasized that this issue was not between raw and pasteurized milk but about informing the public on a potentially contaminated product during this time period. Similar to any food recall, Bellomo said contact is made to sites that may have the product in question. Usually these are commercial entities, but in the case of Organic Pastures, eight individuals were on the list. Bellomo said phone calls were made to ensure they knew about the recall. One site visit was made, but he said no one was at home at the time and the inspector left.

Raw milk, according to the Real Milk campaign that is run by the Weston A. Price Foundation, is unpasteurized, unprocessed, straight-from-the-cow dairy. Advocates of raw milk say it tastes better and preserves more of the health benefits than the average gallon jug consumers can get from the grocery store. The group states that concerns about contamination over milk not being pasteurized — a process that heats the milk for a length of time to kill pathogens — are exaggerated.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control maintains that pasteurization is necessary to make milk safe and states that studies have shown it does not degrade the product’s nutritional value. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also debunks what it considers “myths” about pasteurization’s effect on dairy and also believes milk products should be pasteurized.

Where and how raw milk is available for purchase in the United States varies by state. (Image: Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund)

Legality of raw milk sales in the United States varies. Most recently, raw milk dairy farmers in Minnesota — a state that allows for raw milk sales at the farm where it is produced, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune — are in a legal battle where a 2-year-old got seriously ill from a bacterium he obtained after drinking the milk given to him from his parents. The parents are seeking damages for medical expenses associated with the incident, which happened two years ago. The Star Tribune reports a judge recently said the parents should have been aware of the risks associated with raw milk but still ruled that the farmer had been negligent. It is expected the case will be heard by a jury.

Although law varies by state, in California where raw milk sales are legal, those cartons must contain the following warning: “Warning – raw (unpasteurized) milk and raw milk dairy products may contain disease-causing micro-organisms. Persons at highest risk of disease from these organisms include newborns and infants; the elderly; pregnant women; those taking corticosteroids, antibiotics or antacids; and those having chronic illnesses or other conditions that weaken their immunity.”

Natural News considers the recent events in California as “food police” reaching “right into your refrigerator.” In a separate case, a Wisconsin judge ruled in Oct. 2011 that individual families owning their own cow are subject to the rules and regulations of the state. If the milk was not pasteurized, they couldn’t drink it:

“It’s always a surprise when a judge says you don’t have the fundamental right to consume the foods of your choice,” said [Pete] Kennedy [with the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund].

Oregon is going through its own legal issues over raw milk due to a recent E.coli outbreak that sickened 20, including four children. The Oregon Dairy Farmer’s Association is pushing for a crackdown on unpasteurized milk, according to the Oregonian. Only small farms can sell the raw milk within the state.

Watch this video profile from The Oregonian of a mother telling why she and her children are fans of raw milk:

What are your thoughts on the raw milk debate?

This story has been updated to reflect that McAfee’s customer said it was L.A. County Health Department officials who came to her house to “confiscate” the milk. The Blaze spoke with an official and updated the story accordingly to reflect the department’s protocol, which includes contacting those who may have contaminated products but did not involve confiscation of the milk.

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Comments (124)

deeberj
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 3:37pm
The gov’t has no business to stop you from drinking raw milk.

So it can contain bad things. So what. That’s my decision to drink it or not. The water from my tap contains flouride. It’s bad, but the gov’t put it in there and it is gov’t approved! How smart are they?

If we think it’s fine for the gov’t to ban us eating foods that may be bad for us, then goodbye french fries, pizza, meat, etc. Eventually we’d have a gov’t approved food list. That they decide is healthy, via their so efficient gov’t agencies. Yeah, right…they’ll have us eating soylent green if we let them.

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nelan72
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 2:50pm
If this farm holds to the standard of a “Class A” dairy farm there should be no problem with selling milk in a raw form. Farm boys and girls who grew up drinking milk from the bulk tank are healthier. These socialist who carry the banner of the democrat party are going to continue spread its mental illness.

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ihaveagun
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 9:03am
Every kid should eat a spoonful of dirt!

We need germs to help with some of our bodily functions and to build immunities.
You can’t find a kid that does not have a bottle of hand sanitizer in his/her bookbag.
Between this obsession with germs and the chemicals they put in our food, it is a wonder we’re not dead yet!

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bumfuzeled
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:34pm
Like many of you I feel the government has no right to tell us what to eat or not to eat. Those of you who like raw milk be aware that listeria and E.coli can be present and if the milk is stored incorrectly these bacteria multiply exponentially resulting in severe gastrointestinal illness, kidney failure and death. But drink up if you so choose.

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cosack
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:50pm
almost seems like ther is an organized effort to weaken the human immune system. how did our grandparents ever live long enough to have children

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- bumfuzeled
  Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:36pm
  before pasturization of milk the average life expectancy was 54 years, now 81. Science is amazing
  
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- cosack
  Posted on May 22, 2012 at 5:27pm
  key word expectancy. u say 54 before pasturization and 81 now. what was expectancy after pasturization. or better yet what are the real averages befor, after and now. no need to post facts i agree we are living much long now.
  but like i said seems with all the advances we are weaken our immune systems
  
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lamarwilly
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 3:31pm
The one think I miss from the first 20 years of my childhood was the fresh milk every day. One of us kids would drive to the neighbors house each day and bring back fresh still warm milk, we would put it into the fridge and then skim the cream off the next morning. Nothing in this World tastes as good as this. Sometimes we even sneak the cream out and put it straight onto our Cheerios. Sure wish my wasteline would still allow me to do that. Our same neighbor would also make raw (oh my gosh) cheese about once every two weeks. Another horror story, we drove to the neighbor for years before we were old enough to have a licence and still survived to this day.

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AndersonGary
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 1:06pm
like Dawn said I am shocked that people can earn $5306 in a few weeks on the computer. have you seen this web site (Click on menu Home more information) http://goo.gl/w6HYe

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awestruck
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 10:07am
Clean, fresh, raw milk from healthy grass fed cows is really good for you. Fermented products, such as yogurt and kefir from raw milk provide excelent probiotic benefits. Raw milk sours and ferments, pasteurized milk rots. The proteins are damaged and made harmful by the pasteurization process.

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OneTermPresident
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 9:44am
How is a recall put in place with …. “potentially” contaminated? Doesn’t that suggest they can recall anything by calling it POTENTIAL?

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endgamer
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 9:32am
I think it’s more than that.. I think the contamination is radiation still pouring on California and the west coast from Japan.. No pasteurization is going to remove that. Still a smokescreen. Radiation levels are off the charts there. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/03/california-slammed-with-fukushima-radiation/

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- OneTermPresident
  Posted on May 22, 2012 at 9:46am
  Tin foil hat… nobody died. If you research it you’ll find a little radiation is actually beneficial.
  
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LASTCALL4LIBERTY
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 9:13am
All I can say is thank you for standing up to these Government thugs. We all must come together to do the same in order to prevent tyrany. lets start by kicking obama and all of the other establisment candidates out (both parties). Change the faces by voting in the primaries!

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Viper1
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 8:27am
Good for the person that told them to go away. Cass Sunstein needs to be hung up by his thumbs. When Mitt Romney takes over the Whitehouse he is the first person that needs to be fired. I am volunteering for the job of replacing him and I will do it for free. I am disabled and I will spend 12 hours a day just throwing out all of his stupid regulations. Including this one.

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knownokoolaid
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 4:45am
At one time, I believed that Soy Milk was the way. But soy had me on death’s door. Within months of switching to real raw milk I have no allergies or digestive problems. If every generation of man (but the last 2 or 3) have thrived on natural milk -why tinker with how we evolved to nourish ourselves?
Infanticide is a choice but what you choose to eat is a crime? This is what happens when the milk of human kindness is outlawed.

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anji_s
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:53am
If you <3 raw milk, check it out on facebook – http://www.facebook.com/findrawmilk – and join an active community of 15,000+ raw milk fans. It's a great way to keep on top of local events and raw milk politics and legislation. For local raw milk news, check out your local Alliance for Raw Milk (ARM) do a search with your state and it should come right up. There is a growing trend to get milk fresh from the farm. Joining this page will also help with pointers on how you can make an informed choice as a consumer to make your own decision – what you should ask your farmer, what to look for, etc. I grew up milking a Jersey cow in Idaho, and spent all last year milking a herd of goats so my family could have fresh milk. Some people may be surprised, but a seeming majority of the people on the raw milk page are actually very conservative, not 'bleeding heart' liberals as some comments here state. Come join us, you might be surprised!

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ZAB
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 2:33am
As a grade schooler I remember some fuss I didn’t understand about the milk that was delivered to our door. My mother didn’t change her mind. I also remember that every Spring we had to drink ONION MILK. Yuk!! I wonder if the calves care about onion milk???

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- deeberj
  Posted on May 23, 2012 at 3:41pm
  I’m 58 and I remember my uncle the milk-man leaving quart jars of milk on our doorstep in a small metal cooler. The bottles had a cardboard lid and the cream was at the top of the milk. Yum
  
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