Making Crimes Out of Milk Sales
Phyllis Schlafly
July 13, 2011
Federal agents watched a certain home in a small town in Pennsylvania for a year, gathering evidence. Then, in a pre-dawn raid, armed members from three agencies swooped in. No, this is not the news of a commando attack in Pakistan or Afghanistan. This was a raid this year by U.S. marshals, a state police trooper, and inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration to arrest an Amish farmer named Dan Allgyer. And what was his crime? It was selling unpasteurized dairy milk to eager consumers in the Washington area.
Allgyer’s happy customers are outraged. The sting operation against Mr. Allgyer has stirred up people all around the country. In May, Rep. Ron Paul introduced H.R. 1830, the Unpasteurized Milk Bill, which would end the FDA’s ban on raw milk and permit its sale across state lines.
The FDA claims that raw milk can contain harmful pathogens such as listeria and that pasteurized milk is safer. But almost any food can contain harmful pathogens, including beef, poultry, pork, seafood, fruits and vegetables. Yet, all these foods are permitted to be sold in their raw forms.
I’m particularly interested in this case because I brought up all my six children drinking raw milk. Every Saturday, I would drive to a farm about an hour away from my home in Alton, Illinois, and buy 12 gallons of raw milk and 12 dozen fertile eggs. That lasted our family for a week, until the following Saturday. Nobody ever got sick. People asked me why I preferred raw milk, and my answer was, it is delicious. The taste difference between raw milk and pasteurized milk is about the same difference between fresh fruit and cooked or canned fruit. I hope the government busybodies apologize to Mr. Allgyer and return to the important and necessary tasks that the government should be doing.
Connect With Us