The Facts:
On October 21, 2010, the US Government filed a complaint for forfeiture in rem (meaning, a legal action to seize and condemn violative products) of raw milk-based cheese products manufactured by Estrella Family Creamery in Montesano, Washington. The government's complaint identifies Estrella cheese products as having the potential to be contaminated by Listeria monocytogenes, a bacteria that can cause severe illness in human beings, including death in unborn children, the elderly, or people with compromised immune systems. Finally, the government's complaint was filed only after the FDA requested that Estrella recall all of its cheese products, which Estrella declined to do.
Post complaint is where the facts end and opinions and rhetoric begin. Some comments are important, in some senses, and obviously true, like that the Estrellas are good people who do not want or intend their products to cause illness or death, which would be both bad for business and contrary to the principles by which the Estrella family obviously live their lives. Many other comments from various corners, including the Estrellas themselves, are totally Irrelevant and only serve to perpetuate the view that certain raw milk devotees, including many producers whose products have sickened and killed people, can't see the forest for the trees. We are only a few months removed from the Hartmann debacle, where a Minnesota raw milk farmer fought the good fight, in his view, against indisputable evidence gathered by arguably the most competent health agency in the world. These attempts to control the moral and scientific high-ground are as pathetic, in the face of competently gathered evidence, as they are, ultimately, totally misguided and wrong.
So where is the reason in the debate over the current raw milk-based debacle in Montesano? One place it doesn't seem to be is in all the post-complaint rhetoric. Neither God, nor guns, nor local versus monolithic agriculture really matter at all. Each producer of food must be judged only by the quality of his products.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Food Poison Journal.