Sally Fallon surfaced on Tuesday (Sept. 18/07) in Pennsylvania alongside state agriculture hearings on raw milk.
Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, which she described to Lancaster Farming as the largest proponent of raw milk sales in the U.S., didn’t actually testify at the hearings, but did speak at an associated rally, saying that she is against the use of permits when it comes to raw milk sales in any state, so long as the cows used to get the milk from are grassfed.
Why grassfed?
It is commonly but erroneously stated that grassfed cattle have little or no verotoxigenic E. coli like O157:H7. One such advocate, Nina Planck, wrote at the height of the fall 2006 E. coli O157:H7 spinach outbreak in the N.Y. Times that E. coli O157:H7,
"is not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. … It’s the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms."
That’s not just wrong, it’s dangerous. The natural reservoirs for E. coli O157:H7 and other verotoxigenic E. coli is the intestines of all ruminants, including cattle — grass or grain-fed — sheep, goats, deer and the like. The final report of the fall 2006 spinach outbreak identifies nearby grass-fed beef cattle as the likely source of the E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 200 and killed 4.
As my colleague David Renter wrote in Sept. 2006,
"Cattle raised on diets of “grass, hay and other fibrous forage” do contain E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in their feces as do other animals including deer, sheep, goats, bison, opossum, raccoons, birds, and many others.
"Cattle diet can affect levels of E. coli O157:H7, but this is a complex issue that has been and continues to be studied by many scientists. To suggest switching cattle from grain to forage based on a small piece of the scientific evidence is inappropriate and irresponsible. Several pieces of evidence suggest that such a change would not eliminate and may even increase E. coli O157:H7 in cattle.
"The current spinach outbreak may be traced back to cattle manure, but there are many other potential sources. Simplistically attacking one facet of livestock production may be politically expedient, but instead provides a false sense of security and ignores the biological realities of E. coli O157:H7. In 1999, for example, 90 children were felled by E. coli O157:H7 at a fair in London, Ont. The source? A goat at a petting zoo, hardly an intensively farmed animal."
Fallon also told the rally it is the “constitutional right” of a farmer and their customer to enter into private contracts when it comes to raw milk sales and that the government has no right to intrude.
Sure. But government does have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable members of society — especially children.