The team of national food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker and Minnesota Department of Agriculture official Dr. Heidi Kassenborg are anxiously awaiting their widely anticipated Harvard University debate this week against against Sally Fallon Morell, president, Weston A. Price Foundation, and her debate partner, David Gumpert, author of The Raw Milk Revolution.
Thursday evening’s scheduled meeting between such formidable opponents on both sides of an important public health issue comes at a time of heightened interest in raw milk by sustainable living advocates who long for reforms in agriculture and a return to a safer, more nutritious food supply from smaller farms closer to home and friendlier to the earth.
You can expect Ms. Morell and Mr. Gumpert to put forth a heart-felt and persuasive defense of raw milk as a more nutritious and socially responsible alternative to the pasteurized product favored by so many experts and organizations in pediatrics, veterinary medicine, public health, food safety, consumer protection and agriculture.
In the Midst of an Outbreak
But the on-campus debate hosted by the highly respected Harvard Food Law Society also happens to coincide with a raw milk Campylobacter outbreak in the Northeast that has sickened more than 65 people in Pennsylvania and three other states. It is the largest raw milk outbreak of any kind in the U.S. in more than three years, research by Pritzker’s Minneapolis law firm, PritzkerOlsen, P.A., has shown.
In Pennsylvania alone, there have been seven outbreaks since 2006 that have been linked to raw milk contaminated with Campylobacter or Salmonella. Combined, they have made more than 250 people sick, including an elderly person from the greater Pittsburgh area who was hospitalized in critical condition with respiratory failure and acute paralysis that only allowed him minimal head and eye movement.
Mr. Pritzker, a noted trial attorney who has won tens of millions of dollars for victims of foodborne illness, represents the man and his family in a pending raw milk lawsuit.
“We have seen far too many cases that tragically illustrate how unsafe raw milk can be,” Pritzker said.
The Raw Milk Debate at Harvard Law School:
When: Thursday, February 16, 2012
Time: 7:15-8:45 p.m. EST
Where: Langdell South, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
On the Web: This event will be streamed live by Harvard Food Law Society. The stream will be viewable beginning at 6:15 PM EST on 2/16/12 on the society’s LIVESTREAM PAGE.
For viewing later: The debate will be recorded and archived here on YouTube.
Ms. Morell and Mr. Gumpert are still trying to sell raw milk as having extra nutrition it seems. Is Ms. Morell still calling raw milk a “magical food”. Please, there is no significant nutritional benefit from raw milk.
I see they are throwing in the word “social”. Well, if you really wanted to be socially considerate you wouldn’t drink raw milk because you would want to avoid the increased chance of getting a communicable disease that you could spread to others in your community. You wouldn’t want to start an e. coli outbreak at a daycare center because you gave raw milk to your child would you? That would not be socially acceptable.