Raw Milk Issue Comes to Head

A rally has been set for tomorrow in front of the magistrate's office in Mt. Holly, Pa., in support of a Mennonite farmer who has brought the wrath of the government on himself for selling raw milk and other products – an act government prosecutors say violates a number of regulations.

According to reports published by the Weston A. Price Foundation, results of a study by the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom revealed only one percent of the subjects in an ongoing lifestyle study of 5,000 men suffered heart attacks – if they drank full-fat milk and ate butter rather than margarine.



"We learned ... that [the] study collected data on 5,000 British men between the ages of 45 and 59 for a period of 10 years. Of those that drank at least a pint of whole milk a day, only one percent suffered heart attacks!" the foundation report said. "Some researchers are already claiming the difference is due to a healthier lifestyle on the part of the milk and butter consumers. Others, however, think that milk and butter may have some yet undiscovered benefits."

Another article in the British medical journal Lancet also noted that children who consumed "farm milk," that is, raw, whole, unprocessed milk, had lower levels of asthma and hay fever.

"Researchers examined the history of allergy, asthma and 'atopic sensitization' or skin problems in 812 children, 319 of whom had grown up with a 'regular exposure to a farming environment' including the consumption of 'farm milk,' that is, raw, whole, unprocessed milk. The remaining group of 493 non-farming children acted as a control. Frequency of asthma was reduced from 11 percent found in the control group to one percent among the farming-exposed children. Similarly, hay fever occurred in only three percent of the farming-exposed children, compared with 13 percent of the controls, and atopic sensitization occurred in 12 percent of the farming group and in 29 percent of the controls," the foundation reported.

“It’s not fair for other people to do that and Mark not do it,” Chirdon said. “I’ve used every resource possible. Mark refuses to work with the laws of Pennsylvania.”