Here’s a quick summary of some of the key arguments regarding the safety of raw milk, presented in court on behalf of the appellants over the past week, compiled by Raoul Bedi. Of course the case itself was not primarily about raw milk safety but rather about the rights of people to access a food of their choice, and much of the discussion in court was around various ways to look at that as well. But all the discussion about food safety can be seen as underlining the argument that a choice to drink raw milk is not such a reckless choice as has sometimes been portrayed by established “experts” in the field. So with that preamble, here is Raoul’s summary:
“1. There are numerous benefits to organic properly produced raw milk (to the highest standards of hygiene and animal husbandry)
2. The risks can and are mitigated, again with proper systems in place for health of the animal and hygiene of the farm and cold chain management
3. The risks are “De MINIMIS” (negligible) again when compared to other foods like (lettuce, turkey, oysters, chicken or eggs) and when compared to the rest of the world where 99% of the countries already allow and regulate safe raw milk for production, sale and distribution.
4. The arguments of the Ontario government, municipality of York Region, Federal government and DFO/ DFC consistently rely on old research from between 11 and 80 years and have not evolved along with the rest of the world.
They are especially deficient in the advancing field of QMRA risk analysis of which only Expert Peggy Coleman has training and was able to provide coherent evidence, affidavits explanation on.
Contrast that with the Ontario Government’s lead expert Professor Manfred Griffiths who was proven by lawyer Ian Blue (representing the appellants) to have recycled over 90% of his same affidavits verbatim from the Ontario Raw Milk Trial in 2009. So much for keeping up with times!
I would add they are absent any mention of the importance of rapid testing technology called BAX PCR RT that RAWMI trained farmers are now able to use to test all their cows onsite and within a few hours every single day, thus negating the need for expensive weekly visits of veterinarians as in the German Verzug milch system.”