May 24, 2011. Amish Farmer, Dan Allyger, who was recently caught in a FDA sting operation for allegedly transporting and selling raw milk across state (Pennsylvania) lines, is not backing down from the fight.
Attorney Jonothan Emord (who has defeated the FDA seven times in federal court) will be representing Allyger and the local buying club ‘Grassfed on the Hill’. This case has turned into the new “David vs. Goliath,” and could be a real turning point over the issue of consumer choice and food freedom.
This incident is just one in an ongoing trend of FDA raids on small farms. The “Food Safety Modernization act” that was enacted earlier this year expands the jurisdiction of the FDA onto farms, and gives it almost unlimited authority to decide if food is harmful, based on having a “reason to believe” a problem exists and not needing credible evidence.
Support Food Choice! (Photo: Emma Bedlin)Bad Timing by the Federal Government
The surreal nature of the case has drawn ire across the nation and attracted major media coverage. This is, in fact, directing more attention to the federal government abusing its power, and wasting tax dollars in a delicate time when the federal budget is under intense scrutiny.
Informed citizens are irate at the FDA over the following points:
• Citizens should be able to choose what food they want to consume. The FDA allows health-damaging junk food to be consumed, along with cigarettes and alcohol, to be used at a person’s own risk and discretion. Yet a citizen cannot make an educated, informed, healthy food choice in purchasing raw grass-fed milk from a farmer they have a relationship with. The FDA and other federal government agencies should not interfere in private, direct relationships between farmers and consumers.
• The FDA (ironically, the authority on protecting the health of the citizens) doesn’t have the proper aptitude to incur correct research and data when coming to conclusions about the health and safety of grass-fed raw milk. The confusion seems to arise from the FDA not understanding and differentiating between conventional milk (which needs to be pasteurized for safety) and raw milk from healthy, pastured animals and clean conditions. It is to be noted that grass-fed raw milk has been consumed safely by cultures for thousands of years.
• The FDA doesn’t take into account the broad and distinguished difference of health effects between conventional pasteurized milk and raw grass-fed milk. While conventional milk has been linked to many health maladies and digestibility issues, raw grass-fed milk has been attributed to a long list of benefits. Members of the Grass-fed group have personally listed profound health benefits such as: Reversal of allergies • Increased immune system functioning • Healing of the gut and digestive system disorders • Enhanced overall health and wellbeing • Weight loss • Reduced skin diseases • Reversal of autism symptoms in autistic children.
In direct reprisal to the Allyger case, Congressman Ron Paul introduced the unpasteurized (raw) milk (Bill HR 1830). Bill 1830 will allow the shipment and distribution of unpasteurized milk and milk products for human consumption across state lines. This bill would remove the unconstitutional restraint on farmers who wish to sell or otherwise distribute, and people who wish to consume, unpasteurized milk and milk products.
Food and Farm Freedom Rally held in D.C.
A peaceful demonstration was held last week in D.C. supporting Allyger. Several hundred people from all races, religions, and socio economic backgrounds attended under a banner of food freedom and the protecting the power of choice.
Representing attorney and keynote speaker Jonothan Emord focused on the deeper issues that this case stems from. Emord emphatically stated: “We would not be here today were it not for the fact that over the past seventy-five years, the Congress of the United States has delegated away to some 230 independent regulatory commissions the power to make law, the power to execute the law, and the power to judge law violation.
Attorney Jonothan Emord (Photo: Eleanor Kaufman)That delegation of governing power from Congress to the unelected heads of the regulatory agencies violates the Constitution, which vests exclusively in Congress the obligation to make law.
Nine-tenths of all laws are no longer the product of our elected representatives, they are created by the unelected heads of the bureaucratic agencies.
Those agency heads are unaccountable to the courts, the Congress, and the American people.
One such agency that engages in this unconstitutional governance is the Food and Drug Administration.
It is the action of that agency that we examine today, because it offends the very foundation of liberty of our Republic.
Dan Allgyer, an Amish farmer from Kinzers, Pennsylvania has become an “enemy of the state”- Not because he is a violent man; not because he performs acts that threaten the lives or property of others; not because he is involved in some plot to overthrow the government; but because he dared to sell unpasteurized milk.
No proof exists that Dan’s milk is unfit for human consumption. No proof exists that anyone who ever consumed Dan’s milk became ill. To the contrary, Dan’s milk is wholesome. Unpasteurized milk, or natural milk, has been consumed safely for thousands of years. So long as it comes from healthy cows, is kept refrigerated, and is consumed before expiration, it is a healthy food.
This nation was built by yeoman farmers just like Dan Allgyer. The nation those farmers constructed was instituted among men to protect the rights of the governed, the very rights FDA now violates.
Rally Attendee (Photo: Eleanor Kaufman)As Thomas Jefferson put it in his First Inaugural Address: “A wise and frugal government shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”
This is not just a case and situation that pertains only to raw milk drinkers. This is a blatant case in point of federal government abusing its power and authority. If the federal government is allowed to convene in this manner, what’s next? Stay tuned for updates on the case and feel free to contact your congressman if you feel the government is abusing its authority in this situation and that the Food Safety Modernization act is unfair to small farms.
For a list of Government Raids on Small Farms and Organic food buying clubs– Click here.
For the FDA’s official statement of this case, click here.
For more information on Real, Raw Milk, please visit www.realmilk.com and the Raw Milk Symposium site.
Please visit ‘Farmageddon’ – an upcoming documentary exposing the assault on Americas small farms and organic buying clubs.
3 Wheeled Cheese 