Crying over raw milk
Choice, liability arise out of Wisconsinites’ rebel nature
Last week in Eau Claire, hundreds of people packed a public hearing to demand that the jackboot of government be lifted from the necks of the people so they can breathe free. What issue could possibly have generated so much outrage? Taxation? Domestic spying? Land seizures? Nope. The issue is milk. Specifically, raw milk. The origins of the controversy are fascinating and illuminate some larger lessons. Raw milk is simply milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized. It is how humans drank milk for eons prior to the 19th century. The process of pasteurization was invented in 1864, but was not used for milk until many decades later. It was originally developed to purify beer and wine. Pasteurization is a process that kills many of the pathogens, like Campylobacter, E. Coli, and Salmonella, that milk can carry that can make humans ill. Pasteurization not only improved the shelf life of milk to allow its wide shipment and availability, but it also reduced the spread of illness. The problem with pasteurization, as raw milk advocates attest, is that it also destroys some of the good stuff that raw milk has. The process of pasteurization may also kill certain enzymes that are good for people and reduce some of milk’s natural nutritional value. They argue that the beneficial aspects of raw milk outweigh the potential risk. The issue came to a head last week because of the actions of Wisconsin’s state government. State law has prohibited the sale of raw, or unpasteurized milk, in Wisconsin since 1957. In the 1990s, the state relaxed that absolute prohibition to allow farmers to sell raw milk directly to consumers in small quantities. Since then, the demand for and sale of raw milk has increased. Last year the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection removed the exemption and began cracking down on the sellers of raw milk. In response to the crackdown, a couple of legislators drafted some legislation to again allow the limited sale of raw milk by farmers who get a permit, have sanitary conditions and post a warning that the milk is not pasteurized. The legislation also exempts farmers from some liability for selling unpasteurized milk. The hearing last week that drew so much attention was for this bill. The entire kerfuffle over raw milk gives us a nice illustration of the competing interests of liberty vs. oppression, free markets vs. consumer protection and public health vs. consumer choice. To re-cap, people had been drinking raw milk forever and have been dealing with the consequences. The government passed a law in the 1950s requiring the pasteurization of milk in order to protect people from getting sick. In the 1990s, the government relaxed that law to allow some consumers to choose raw milk. The relaxation created allowed a market to flourish. Last year the same government tightened its grip to squelch that market. The proposed law would allow more consumer choice, reduce public health (according to the state regulators), but also reduce consumer protection by limiting the liability of the farmers who sell raw milk. Where will Wisconsin find itself on these various continua? Will we allow freer markets at the price of consumer protection? Will we allow consumers more choices even though we know it increases the possibilities of them getting sick and spreading disease to other people? Will we insist that our government back off or demand that it protect us from ourselves? The answers should be quite interesting. On the issue itself, I see nothing wrong will allowing consumers to purchase raw milk for their own consumption as long as they are aware of the risks involved. At the same time, I oppose exempting farmers from the same liabilities that every other merchant must face. The issue of unjustified and wasteful litigation should be dealt with in the aggregate, not by exempting special classes of people. It’s become somewhat of a novelty for Wisconsinites to actually rebel against government regulation. I suppose it should come as no surprise that it’s happening over a glass of milk. (Owen B. Robinson, a West Bend resident, is a blogger who publishes at www.bootsandsabers.com. His column runs Tuesdays in the Daily News.)
