Drinking raw milk from cows is stupid

Dairy farmer Michael Schmidt was in a Newmarket, Ontario court on September 10, 2008 fighting contempt of court charges for allegedly distributing unpasteurized milk in the area he lives in. York Region's health services department first prohibited Schmidt from distributing raw milk in December 2006. Five months later, it served Schmidt with an order from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice prohibiting him from contravening the 2006 directive. The authorities maintained that Schmidt, who runs an organic farm in the town of Durham in York Region, was in contempt of court because he failed to obey that previous court order to stop distributing raw milk within its borders. The court heard testimony from a private investigator who was hired to watch Schmidt and the activities surrounding a small bus-like vehicle which was usually parked at a Thornhill church lot. A 10-minute clip of video surveillance revealed people carrying coolers and bags from their cars onto the bus and then back to their cars.

Proponents of raw milk claim it provides health benefits and aids digestion, and they say they have the right to consume whatever they want. More than 50 of Schmidt's supporters were at the courthouse.

The trouble facing the authorities in the region is that the region has to ensure court orders are upheld in order to protect public safety. If someone were to get sick, the victim could then turn around and say to the Regional authorities, “You guys knew what was going on and you did nothing.” This is why Schmidt was charged. He is facing another trial in January of next year.

It is illegal to sell raw milk in Canada and health officials consider it a health hazard because it can contain dangerous pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes and Tubercle bacillus. However, raw milk advocates contend that the farm-fresh product tastes better than the milk and provides myriad health benefits. The health authorities had warned the public that unpasteurized milk can contain dangerous pathogens such the ones I just mentioned.

Salmonella is a rod-shaped bacterium in which its symptoms may include stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever such as typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, (severe gastroenteritis) and other food borne illnesses. Symptoms can start soon after eating contaminated food, but they can hit up to a month or more later. For some people, especially young children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, food borne illness can be very dangerous. I remember being struck with Salmonella twice. The first time was when I ate at a really shabby restaurant and the second time was when I was driving in southern Mexico and (are you ready for this?) I bought some chocolate milk from a young woman at a roadside stall. She had put it in a coke bottle. In both instances, I was sick for days and the sickness hit me within hours.

Escherichia coli (commonly E. coli) is a bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals including cows. Most E. coli strains are harmless, but some, such as serotype O157:H7, can cause serious food poisoning in humans. In Walkerton, Ontario, starting in May 15, 2000, many residents of the town of about 5,000 began to simultaneously experience bloody diarrhea, gastrointestinal infections and other symptoms of E. coli infection. Seven people died directly from drinking the E. coli contaminated water. Recently a man in Toronto suffered from E-coli and said that the pain in his stomach felt like there was ground glass in it.

Listeriosis is a bacterial infection. It is relatively rare and occurs primarily in newborn infants, elderly patients and patients who have weakened immune systems in their body. Pregnant women account for 30% of all cases. The main route of acquisition of Listeria is through the ingestion of contaminated food products. Listeria has been isolated from raw meat, dairy products, vegetables, and seafood. Soft cheeses, unpasteurized milk and unpasteurised pâté are potential dangers; however, some outbreaks involving post-pasteurized milk have been reported. There was a recent outbreak of Listeriosis in Quebec linked to raw-milk cheese that killed one person and made others ill.

Another reason why drinking unpasteurized milk is not recommended is due to the potential exposure to Tubercle bacillus which causes tuberculosis. Although TB is a lung disease in most people, it also affects other organs in at least a third of patients who have TB. People used to become infected with the bovine form of TB by drinking unpasteurised milk which contained the TB bacteria. Tuberculosis cattle with open lung lesions throw micro-droplets of the disease agent into the air by coughing. Full grown cattle are infected by the inhalation of air-borne dust particles to which the disease agent attaches itself as well as contaminated feed and water facilities. Young calves may be infected by drinking unpasteurized infected milk.

Anyone in the 1930s who ate veal from a slaughtered calf that had been infected or drank unpasterized milk would also get the disease. Approximately 2000 human deaths a year from TB were believed to have been caused by drinking contaminated milk or by being in close contact with infected cows during those years. Although it was possible to live with this infection for years, if untreated in that era (before effective drugs were available) 50% of patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis died within 2 years, and only 25% were cured. It was not until 1946 with the development of the antibiotic streptomycin that treatment rather than prevention became a possibility. Prior to then, only surgical intervention was possible however that would only be undertaken if the disease was rampant in the victim’s body. If not, a stay in a sanitarium was the method of treatment. How long the victim remained in the sanitarium was dependent on how infected the victim was. In 1938, at the age of five, I and many other children in Canada got Bovine TB and we were sent to sanitariums. I stayed in one in Weston, Ontario called the 'Preventorium' for almost a year before I was deemed cured.

The disease was finally brought under control by pasteurizing milk and testing animals using the tuberculin skin test. Nowadays, tests are done on slaughtered animals and virtually all milk is pasteurized or ultra-heat treated; this process kills off the TB bacteria. This is one of the main reasons pasteurization was introduced in the dairy industry many years ago when Bovine TB was more widespread.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 2 billion people, one-third of the world's population, are suffering from tuberculosis. Tuberculosis currently causes approximately 1.7 million deaths per year worldwide so it follows that this is a disease that anyone can catch. It is conceivable that people from third world countries who visit Canada and other more developed countries can quite easily get TB by merely breathing the air where a TB victim has just coughed.

That being as it is, why would anyone in their right mind increase the risk of getting TB or any of the other harmful and sometimes deadly diseases by drinking unpasteurized milk? (raw milk)

Organic milk, in case you're wondering, must come from cows that haven't been given growth hormones, are fed a pesticide-free diet etc. Raw milk isn't organic milk and not exactly healthy either. Raw milk is simply milk that hasn't been pasteurized. Pasteurization is necessary to kill any germs and pathogens that would otherwise make you sick. So in short, raw milk isn't safe for anyone.

Unlike sterilization, pasteurization is not intended to kill all pathogenic micro-organisms in the food or liquid. Instead, pasteurization aims to reduce the number of viable pathogens so they are unlikely to cause diseases.

Pasteurization typically uses temperatures below boiling since at temperatures above the boiling point for milk, casein micelles will irreversibly curdle. There are two main types of pasteurization used today: High Temperature/Short Time (HTST) and Extended Shelf Life treatment. Ultra-high temperature or ultra-heat treated (UHT) is also used for milk treatment. In the HTST process, milk is forced between metal plates or through pipes heated on the outside by hot water, and is heated to 71.7 °C (161 °F) for 15-20 seconds. UHT processing holds the milk at a temperature of 138 °C (250 °F) for a fraction of a second. ESL milk has a microbial filtration step and lower temperatures than HTST.Milk simply labeled ‘pasteurization’ is usually treated with the HTST method, whereas milk labeled ‘ultra-pasteurization’ or simply "UHT" has been treated with the UHT method.

Dairy farmer Michael Schmidt obviously doesn’t choose to pasteurize his cow’s milk this way because to do so would cost him a lot of money purchasing the equipment to bring about the pasteurization process with his cow’s milk.

Schmidt told reporters outside the courthouse that raw milk would still be provided to his cow-share members, the some 150 people who have bought a portion of one of his cows and who pay to board it at his farm. The prohibition of raw milk in Ontario does not apply to farmers.

Schmidt, however, claimed that he was not selling raw milk. He said he was providing the milk to the cow's owners, all of whom participate in his cow-share program, and who pay to board the cow at his farm. The prohibition on raw milk in Ontario does not apply to farmers, who often drink farm-fresh milk. Schmidt's co-operative venture has not yet been tested in court. That will happen in January of next year.

Shirley Ann Wood, who has owned a share in one of the cows for five years, explained her rights as a member. She said in part; "I have a share in Anna, a brown cow," she said. "I can visit Anna; I can give her a hug if I wish. I've gone and helped prepare her bedding. And I also receive her milk."

Obviously, this tact that Schmidt is using is an attempt to circumvent the law that prohibits farmers from selling or giving raw milk to anyone who isn’t a farmer on his land.

The legal question that will be facing the court in January 2008 is; “Is anyone who has a financial investment in a cow and at the same time, does not own or operate a farm; a farmer? I think not. To conclude that such a person is a farmer is just as ludicrous as saying that a man who buys shares in a car manufacturing firm; is a car manufacturer. It was the intention of the framers of that law that only the farmers who have milch cows on their own farm can drink the raw milk they get from their cows.

Schmidt has bragged that he will keep selling or giving raw milk to anyone that wants it. His contempt for the court, the regional health authorities and the general public is so obscene, I think he should be jailed for a year and given a very heavy fine. In Canada and the United States, we each have a law that permits the government to seize and sell property belonging to people who peddle harmful drugs. I think that law should also apply to farmers who peddle potentially harmful raw milk. As I see it, if Schmidt, when he is released, keeps selling or giving away raw milk, his farm should be seized and sold at public auction.

Back in the 1930s, Typhoid Mary, of Chicago who continued to work in restaurants as a cook knowing that she was a disease-carrying individual, was finally locked up for life for the protection of the general public after it was established that three people died from Typhoid after being contaminated by her. Schmidt is lucky he wasn’t a farmer in that era when judges came down heavily on wrongdoers who put the community at risk. In those days, mercy was an unknown word for wrongdoers and he would have been incarcerated for a great many years.

To all those fools who still drink unpasteurized milk, all I can say is to quote from a song from the musical, South Pacific, “Fools give you reasons—Wise men never try.”

I will let you know what happens at Schmidt's trial in January 2009.

ADENDUM: In December 2008, he was given a fine of $55,000 in which $50,000 is for the costs of the city that it incurred prosecuting him. He said he won't pay the fine or the costs. The city can put a lien on his property if he doesn't pay the $50,000 and put his farm up for sale.

UPDATE: In January 2010, the justice of the peace hearing this matter ruled that Michael Schmidt didn't break the law by giving raw milk to those who have an ownership in his cows. The law permits farmers and their families to drink raw cow milk from their own cows. He said that the law would extend to those who have part ownership of the cows. The attorney general's office may appeal. If they do, I will keep you abreast of the next court's decision.

UPDATE On January 21, 2010, Justice of the Peace Paul Kowarsky ruled Schmidt’s cow-share program is exempt from legislation set out in Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act and the Milk Act. He ruled that dairy farmer Michael Schmidt can continue his raw milk cooperative and that his venture does not break laws against selling unpasteurized milk. Dairy experts say the ruling will spur more cow-share programs to form and encourage the underground co-ops already operating in Ontario to surface. And, they say, it will likely force the government to change its laws to allow the sale and distribution of raw milk.

In February 2010, the Crown has stated that they are going to appeal the ruling by the JP.

UPDATE

The matter finally went to the Ontario Court of Appeal. In September 2011, the court overturned the decision of the lower court. Schmidt announced that he is going to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

FURTHER UPDATE (November 26, 2011)

Michael Schmidt told Judge Peter Tetley that he cannot pay the fine of $9,150 because he has no money. He said that he is no longer living on the farm and has disinvolved himself from the farm which he says is now operated by a co-op. He recently underwent a 37-day hunger strike. His lawyer is appealing the sentence. As an aside, Canada is the only country that does not permit the sale or distribution of raw milk.