Loading summary
Amazon Representative
Hey prime members, have you heard? You can listen to your favorite podcasts ad free.
Interviewer
Good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of Ad Free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com ad free podcast that's Amazon.com ad free podcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.
Cheryl Atkison
Hi everybody. Cheryl Atkison here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure. After Hours. Today, the growing battle over the quality and healthfulness of our food and whether the government is limiting Americans choices through regulation. One focus is the dispute over raw milk. There is a growing national battle over our food. On one side are consumers who claim the government's making it hard to buy food that's safer and more nutritious while force feeding us a diet that's unhealthy and causing chronic diseases. This, as you know, became a focus in the recent presidential campaign with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. An advocate for all things regarding children's health, health, better, safer medicine, and so on. When Kennedy joined the Trump campaign with a promise to make America healthy again, we'll have to see what steps are taken. But Kennedy in advance has said that he wants things such as a safer food supply, better choices for our kids when it comes to school lunches, the halt of pharmaceutical advertising on television. Some have suggested that we're now learning processed food is extremely dangerous in many respects. As dangerous, some say, as tobacco, and that it should come with warning labels. I tend to think that some of the companies, rather than have to put warning labels on their food, might go ahead and start changing their ingredients voluntarily because they already produce what's considered safer food without some of the troublesome ingredients. In Europe, they could switch to that. In the United States, they just haven't been forced to do that. And these other ingredients that they tend to use that are considered more dangerous tend to be more profitable and cheaper or make it where they can sell foods for more profit by making them last longer with preservatives and so on. In any event, there are a lot of people now who are insisting that things are pretty backwards, that the government is forcing us to eat food that's dangerous while prohibiting us from buying food that is safer or more healthful. Today we're going to hear in this podcast both views when it comes to one flashpoint in this debate, and that's raw milk versus pasteurized milk. First, the pro raw milk viewpoint from a farmer who produces raw milk products, cheese and milk and other things. Her name is Sally Morrell in Brandywine, Maryland, owner of PA Bowen Farmstead. And then after that, you'll be hearing from Sarah Sorsha, who has a different view. She's with the center for Science in the Public Interest, a food watchdog group which is against a growing push to put raw milk on more of America's grocery shelves. So first, here's Sally Morel.
Sally Morrell
So we produce about 6,000 pounds of cheese a year.
Interviewer
Per year?
Sally Morrell
Per year. How much milk do we produce, Brian? Per year, about 25% of our business is the milk. About 18,000 gallons. 18,000 gallons of milk. And we do about 50 or 60 pigs per year. Probably 2,000 meat chickens and I don't know how many eggs. Yeah.
Interviewer
Is the milk. Is all of the milk that you sell unpasteurized?
Sally Morrell
That's correct.
Interviewer
Is that what raw means?
Sally Morrell
Just under raw means. And it's sold as milk for dogs.
Interviewer
And cats, but people probably drink it.
Sally Morrell
I don't know.
Interviewer
Okay.
Sally Morrell
It's not my business. None of my business.
Interviewer
Can you explain in short form to people who aren't familiar with this controversy what both sides say about raw milk?
Sally Morrell
Well, the conventional side, the industry says and the regulators say you have to heat treat milk to make it safe. Our side says when you heat treat milk, you make it very hard to digest the enzymes that are in the milk for the 100% assimilation of the nutrients. They are destroyed. The milk can become actually very dangerous for some people. We have 20 to 30 deaths from anaphylactic shock to pasteurized milk per year in this country.
Interviewer
Has the government, do you feel, gotten more aggressive about warding people off of raw milk?
Sally Morrell
Well, recently there's been this big push to tell people that raw milk is dangerous. But we have probably 20 million people drinking raw milk in this country who know that that's not true.
Interviewer
If the government gives. They've sent us some material. The government will give statistics that show a certain number of people get sick and die from the relatively small amount of raw milk we know about or that's documented. So they do make it sound like there are risks. Are there risks?
Sally Morrell
Well, we believe that pasteurized milk is more risky. What they're not telling you is that there's been a lot of illness from pasteurized milk and pasteurized milk products and a few deaths. They say there's been two deaths from raw milk since 2000, but there actually haven't been any. They're kind of making those deaths up. One of them was in a family that drank raw milk. But the person who died was a cancer patient who didn't drink raw milk. But they're counting that as a death. So you have to be very careful about the government statistics. Another thing they say is there's more hospitalizations from people who drink raw milk. But the thing is, if they ask you, did you drink raw milk and you're sick, they send you to the hospital. So they're manufacturing that statistic.
Interviewer
Are you allowed to, just as a free citizen, drink raw milk?
Sally Morrell
There is no law anywhere against purchasing, possessing, or consuming raw milk.
Interviewer
Do you drink raw milk?
Sally Morrell
I do, every day.
Interviewer
How has the bird flu scare factored into all of this?
Sally Morrell
Raw milk sales have gone up since this started, some say by 60%. But it certainly hasn't hurt anybody's business.
Interviewer
The government has issued warnings saying now more than ever, do not drink raw milk. Because they imply you could get bird flu from it.
Sally Morrell
Yes. Yes.
Interviewer
Can't believe that.
Sally Morrell
No, they're just making that up. They've never found a bird flu virus. The cows that are getting sick, and there is something going on. There are certain herds where they've had a lot of illness and lowered production. But there's so many other things that could cause that. The feed, the noxious gases in the confinement dairies. It could be stray electricity. Maybe they put WI fi in the barns and that could affect the cows. So many things that could cause this illness, but they're not looking at that. They just make the virus the fall.
Interviewer
Guy when it comes to the Amish. You know, there have been measures taken against some Amish farmers, specifically, very aggressive measures. And you, it's my understanding, have joined in, trying to speak out for them. What is your stake in that, and.
Cheryl Atkison
What are your thoughts?
Sally Morrell
We just support small farmers everywhere. The small family farm. And part of the campaign against raw milk is really a campaign against small farmers. What's interesting was the one farmer that they raided, and then they had a hearing where I testified. Amos Miller. They did find some things that I didn't consider very sad on that farm. But you know what? Nobody got sick. And that just shows you how safe raw milk really is. I'm for producing very clean raw milk. But for centuries, people have thrived on milk that we wouldn't think is particularly clean. And that's because there's so many antimicrobial factors in raw milk that make it safe.
Interviewer
What do you think is behind the government's. Let me ask you a different way. What do you think is motivating the government to try to stop people from drinking raw milk?
Sally Morrell
I Think it's several things. You know, people are invested in the germ theory, invested in this idea that this pasteurizing we've been doing all these years is a good thing when in effect it's put thousands and thousands of dairy farms out of business. But I also think it's the industry. So. So they are paying farmers about $1.50 a gallon for their milk. It's the same price they got in World War II. Whereas a farmer doing raw milk gets anywhere from 5 to 25 dollars a gallon. And the industry doesn't want to compete with this. If they had to pay their farmers more, the whole system would not work.
Interviewer
So do you believe industry lobbying is in part behind the government?
Sally Morrell
I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear that.
Interviewer
In the bigger picture, when we look at our food supply beyond milk, it seems to me the government tolerates and in some cases requires toxic things to be put in the food as it's grown or processed.
Sally Morrell
You know, we've become more and more concentrated in the food industry, more mechanized, more industrial, and people are getting sicker and sicker. The future is what we're doing. The future is small grass based farms. And if you talk to anybody in the Department of Agriculture, they'll say, oh, we will all starve if we do that. But that's how people live for thousands of years. That's how we fed people in World War I and World War II with thousands of small farms. What you get is actually abundance. When you spread things out and you get food security because your food's right there.
Interviewer
Critics might say, well, centuries ago we fed people water that wasn't purified or clean. And why not do that now? Well, the reason is we can make water safer and presumably that has saved lives. Couldn't the same argument be applied with milk?
Sally Morrell
Actually, we have made water safer. We've made our cities safer. We have sewers now, we have refrigeration, and we have much, much better living conditions than we used to have. But the 50% death rate among children in New York city in the 1800s, it was blamed on the milk. But there was manure piled high in the streets and no sewage, no sanitation. That's the culprit. And once that was cleaned up, you know, the death rate went down and people lived longer. The pasteurization was not necessary.
Interviewer
A couple more questions. What do you think is the key to keeping your milk safe?
Sally Morrell
Well, we test it every day for coliform. We.
Interviewer
What is coliform?
Sally Morrell
Coliform bacteria levels, usually we get zero. That's a very good way to test if we're doing things right on the farm.
Interviewer
Would that show Barkley?
Sally Morrell
How do you show Burcher? I'm using a PCR test that's bogus. That doesn't show anything. They can set it at 30 cycles and you get a negative. And 40 cycles you get a positive. What kind of test is that? I mean, they should be. I don't know.
Interviewer
Go ahead with your answer. So you test it every day?
Sally Morrell
We test for coliform every day. We are extremely clean. We clean the udders, we clean the cows. Then we immediately chill down and keep things very cold. And that's what's required to produce good, safe milk.
Interviewer
What is the federal and what is the state law regarding raw milk right now? Human consumption, okay.
Sally Morrell
The Constitution says anything not put in the Constitution specifically is regulated by the states. So milk production is regulated by the states. And whether you can sell raw milk or not is dependent on state law.
Interviewer
And what do they say here in Maryland?
Sally Morrell
Okay, so Maryland, my husband and I tried to get them to open up raw milk for human consumption years ago, and they turned us down.
Interviewer
So in Maryland, you cannot sell raw milk for the purpose of human consumption.
Sally Morrell
But then about eight years ago, we got the pet license, and now there's probably 20 or 30 dairies doing the pet milk.
Interviewer
Pet milk, okay.
Sally Morrell
Other states, it's different. In 13 states, you can go into a store and buy raw milk. That's the goal. That's our goal. We want to see raw milk in stores all over the country. And little by little, we're working to liberalize these laws in the various states. We just got Delaware. There used to be 2, 300 dairy farms in Delaware. Now there's only 10. And that was the argument they used in the legislature. We're not going to have any dairy at all in Delaware unless we open it up to raw milk.
Interviewer
For people who are trying to navigate this controversy and they don't have all the information, what is your advice to them?
Sally Morrell
Go to our website. Website realmilk.com There are a lot of articles there on the health benefits and the safety of raw milk. And we have a map showing what the laws are in every state and a map where you can find it. Put in your zip code. You can find it. That map. Milk finder map gets 100,000 new visits per month. Wow.
Interviewer
Any other thoughts or takeaways on this?
Sally Morrell
This is the future. Raw milk is future. It will mean that we have healthier children, healthier farms, healthier rural economy.
Interviewer
One More question.
I'm sorry, I thought.
I wanted. When you talk about the health benefits, can you be specific? You did touch on this. But what it can do to a child, that's beneficial in your view?
Sally Morrell
Yes. Well, in animal studies, when they compare animals fed on raw milk versus pasteurized milk, the animals on raw milk have denser bones, better teeth, they don't have calcium in the soft tissues. It's all put in the hard tissues where it belongs. The animals are less stressed. And then in human studies, and these were done in Europe in the last couple of decades, we have less asthma, less respiratory disease, and less allergies. Fewer allergies in children brought up under raw milk.
Interviewer
What is the idea? That there's something in the milk that stimulates the immune system in a good way?
Sally Morrell
Or do we know we are discovering new things in milk every month? First of all, milk has all the vitamins and minerals that the child needs to grow. It is the food in nature for the growth and development of mammals. And it has special enzymes to ensure 100% assimilation. No other food is like that. Then it has substances that build the immune system. It has everything that's in your blood except raw blood cells. It creates the immune system, strengthens the gut wall, kills pathogens. I mean, it's just an amazing substance. And when you tinker with it, it's the one food that you really cannot heat. Many other foods we can cook or ferment or whatever. And of course we can ferment milk too, but you don't have to do anything to it to make it safe. And of course it's extremely nutritious.
Amazon Representative
The holidays are all about sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan pie recipe. And now you can also share a cart. With Instacart family carts, everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are. So you don't have to go from room to room to find out who wants cranberry sauce or whether you should get mini marshmallows for the yams or collecting votes for sugar cookies versus shortbread. Just share a cart and then share the meals in the moments. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply.
Klaviyo Representative
You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you. Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Memorable moments like these are key to building your business and your brand. Klaviyo turns your customer data into real time connections across AI powered email SMS and more. Making every moment count so you can continue to build smarter, more meaningful relationships with your customers. Build smarter digital relationships with your customers and make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more@klaviyo.com BFCM I think it's a.
Sarah Sorsha
Really interesting moral question about how we operate as a society and how we balance harm to individuals that can be really severe and life changing versus giving a large group of people the ability to buy products they prefer.
Interviewer
Interesting. So why is this an issue today, the notion of raw milk and its safety?
Sarah Sorsha
Yeah, I would say we made a lot of progress in the last century on public health, and pasteurized milk really was a huge victory in terms of reducing foodborne illness. We don't have a lot of magic bullets in food safety, but pasteurization is one of them. It's something that doesn't really impact the nutritional value of the product, but it can make milk a lot safer. And it's become an issue recently because a number of states are passing laws that open up the market for retail sales of raw milk. It's often possible to buy raw milk directly from the farm, which really limits the scope of the practice and helps ensure that people really need to be educated before they make that purchase. Well, it doesn't ensure they're educated, but it provides them more opportunity to be educated. But when we're talking about putting it on grocery store shelves, you have consumers who may have no experience with the product being exposed to that risk. And we're going to see more illness, more hospitalization, and potentially more deaths as a result of these policies.
Interviewer
What's potentially in the raw milk and why?
Sarah Sorsha
So milk in its raw state contains bacteria that can be harmful. So we have pathogenic E. Coli, the same E. Coli that caused the Jack in the Box outbreak. It's present in ground beef that can be found in raw milk. Salmonella, campylobacter, brucella.
Interviewer
Is that because our farms dirtier than they were 100 years ago, or were there always a lot of problems with raw milk?
Sarah Sorsha
There were always a lot of problems with raw milk. I would say farms have probably gotten cleaner, but those problems haven't resolved. These bacteria are invisible. They can live on healthy animals and there's no safety practice that can really eliminate the risk other than pasteurization.
Interviewer
And there's no test that can be made of the raw milk once it's put into a container to see if it has these things in it.
Sarah Sorsha
You generally can't test your way out of a food safety problem. You can Use tests to try to verify that the milk is as clean as it can be. But a negative test in one batch of milk won't guarantee that bacteria aren't present in another batch or even that batch. The test could miss the bacteria.
Interviewer
Why do you think this is becoming. Seems to be becoming a bigger issue the past decade.
Sarah Sorsha
I think there's.
Interviewer
I know people that have told me that they can only tolerate raw milk for some reason. I don't know if it's. They have. They claim they and their families have allergies or something. I don't know what the pasteurization has to do with that.
Sarah Sorsha
But yeah, I would say there has been a social movement to expand the sale of raw milk and it's driven by both the farms that produce the raw milk and consumers who see it as a healthier product because they feel that it's less likely to cause intolerance or trigger intolerance, and because they feel that it's higher in nutrients. A lot of the claims around raw milk haven't really been backed up by strong science, but certainly there are both customers and sellers of raw milk who are firm believers in its value. And because the people who will be the most hurt by raw milk aren't really known yet, it can be hard for them to weigh in in these legislative debates. And I mean it's impossible for someone who is going to be harmed in the future to weigh in. And so oftentimes the public health voice is being drawn out by the proponents.
Interviewer
Who want to see it sale if properly warned. Does your organization feel like people have the right to choose to buy unpasteurized or raw milk?
Sarah Sorsha
Well, I think one of the challenges is it can be really hard for a customer to understand what that impact is of having that foodborne illness. Because when you see kids who are hospitalized for E. Coli, it's just such an extreme circumstance for the child and the family. We have kids that could be on dialysis for weeks, really family not knowing whether they're going to live through the experience and then having really long term complications, brain damage, organ transplant. And so properly warning someone about that risk can be really challenging. And what we've seen is that even consumers who do their research that you know, when then experience. So we've seen families, we've seen families who have done their research, have tried to find a healthy farm, have gone to visit the site, seen it's clean, seen the test results, and they still get sick and they still have kids who are facing lifetime of organ damage as a result of that. So I think it would be hard to think of a warning that would really provide that information. And then another challenge is we have children who are being fed the raw milk who aren't able to make that informed choice for themselves. It's someone else making it for them. And I think that makes the sort of informed choice problem a little more complicated.
Interviewer
Well, like with vaccines or any medicine we give them as well. That's right. Do we have any idea how many people are getting sick from raw milk?
Sarah Sorsha
Yeah, the CDC conducted a study and they looked at, for example, they looked at outbreaks that happened in a five year period and they found that there were 75 outbreaks in five years from raw milk. A lot of those were small because the distribution tends to be local. And so thankfully that limits the scope of the illnesses. When they looked at sort of the amount of raw milk that's being sold versus pasteurized, and they compare that to the outbreak rate, they found that raw milk is 150 times more likely to cause an outbreak than pasteurized milk. So there's certainly a potential to have more illness if the sale is expanded.
Interviewer
Pasteurized milk can be problematic as well, just not as often. You're saying.
Sarah Sorsha
Yeah, with pasteurized milk there can be contamination after the pasteurization occurs. And so you could still have issues from that, but the scope and scale is really far reduced by the pasteurization process.
Interviewer
Okay, on playing sort of a. I don't know if this is devil's advocate, but. So I got this today. Yeah, I get these every day. CDC warns of salmonella infections linked to contaminated basil at Trader Joe's. I mean, every day there's an E. Coli salmonella outbreak, some of them quite large with lettuce and food and meat. What's the difference between they're not trying to stop sale of basil or meat in general?
Sarah Sorsha
I would say generally, when we have some safety step we can take with a product that can make it much, much safer, we want to take that step. So for example, we, we have car accidents, but we don't sell cars that don't have seat belts or anti lock brakes because we know it saves lives. And we shouldn't sell raw milk at retail for the same reason, because we know we can dramatically reduce the risk through a really simple step that doesn't impact the nutritional value of that product. So, you know, I think we have some sensible laws in place to ensure that consumers who are seeking out these products at least are having to go through that effort of informing themselves and expanding the sales so that it's just sitting there on the grocery store shelf is really inviting people to point a loaded gun at themselves.
Interviewer
So it sounds like you guys are not fighting or protesting the individual farms that are selling direct to consumers. At this stage, you're more concerned or most concerned about an expansion where this milk would be in stores.
Sarah Sorsha
I think states have existing policies in place around allowing access on farms, and we're not CSPI is not actually engaged actively on lobbying on this issue. I'll say I don't think there's been a big effort to unwind those laws. I think the real question now is whether it's going to be expanded on a broader scale to retail. And I think you can't point to any one person and say if you drink this product, you're going to get sick. But you do know that if you're talking about expanding it to a whole state, there are people who are going to get sick who wouldn't have gotten sick otherwise. There's going to be people who are hospitalized and have to deal with chronic health conditions. And if we can spare that, and I would say also that the odds are that some of those people are going to be kids. And if we can prevent that, why wouldn't we?
Cheryl Atkison
This is the topic of my cover story on Full Measure on Sunday, November 24th. To find out how to watch, you can go to cherylakisson.com click the full measure tab for a list of stations and times if you happen to be listening to this after November 24th. No problem. You can watch replays anytime at Fullmeasure News Online. And by the way, you can even watch there live at about 9:35am Eastern Time Sundays. We feed the program right after it starts airing on TV stations around the country. That's at FullMeasure News on Sundays. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that you will leave us a great review and share the news with your friends. Check out my other podcast, the Sheryl Atkinson Podcast, as well as my bestseller, which is right in line with these topics we've been discussing. It's called Follow the Science How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails. Read some of the five star reviews on Amazon to find out why. This is a valuable book with all kinds of good information for you and also for someone you care about. Makes a great holiday gift. Not only does it explain why, as we've spent record amounts on health care, we've grown sicker and sicker with chronic disorders, but it also has hints on how to regain control of your health in a highly manipulated environment. When it comes to scientific information, do your own research, make up your own mind. Think for yourself.
Full Measure After Hours: Food Fight – The Raw Milk Debate
Hosted by Sharyl Attkisson
Release Date: November 21, 2024
In this episode of Full Measure After Hours, host Sharyl Attkisson delves into the contentious raw milk debate, a significant flashpoint in the broader national conversation about food quality, safety, and government regulation. The discussion examines the clash between consumers advocating for unprocessed, nutrient-rich foods and regulators emphasizing public health and safety standards.
Cheryl Attkisson opens the episode by outlining the central conflict: the government's role in regulating food safety versus consumer freedom to choose what they consider healthier options. She highlights the political dimension of the issue, mentioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a notable advocate for child health and food safety, whose campaign promises include improving the food supply and enhancing choices in school lunches (00:28).
Key Points:
Sally Morrell, owner of PA Bowen Farmstead in Brandywine, Maryland, presents the pro-raw milk viewpoint. She emphasizes the traditional practices of small family farms and the health benefits associated with raw milk consumption.
Notable Quotes:
Key Insights:
Regulatory Challenges:
Sarah Sorsha from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) presents the anti-raw milk stance, emphasizing public health risks associated with unpasteurized milk.
Notable Quotes:
Key Insights:
Challenges to Proponents:
The episode presents a balanced debate between Morrell and Sorsha, each providing compelling arguments grounded in their experiences and expertise. The discussion underscores a fundamental tension between individual choice and collective safety, with significant implications for public health policy and agricultural practices.
Comparative Insights:
Conclusion: The raw milk debate encapsulates broader societal issues regarding food safety, regulatory authority, and consumer autonomy. As the conversation evolves, it will likely continue to highlight the need for informed decision-making, transparent regulations, and balanced policies that consider both individual freedoms and public health imperatives.
Sharyl Attkisson wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to critically evaluate the information presented and consider the long-term implications of their food choices. She highlights her forthcoming cover story on this topic in the November 24th edition of Full Measure on Sunday, inviting the audience to engage further with the ongoing discourse on food safety and regulation.
Notable Closing Remarks:
For more insights and detailed reporting, listeners are directed to visit FullMeasure.News and explore related content on Sharyl Attkisson's platforms.
Disclaimer: This summary is based on the transcript provided and aims to capture the essence of the discussions in the podcast episode. For comprehensive understanding and context, listening to the full episode is recommended.