Free to consume

I expect lawyers to use words carefully.  And I expect the ABA Journal to use words carefully, even when the words are written by a freelance writer who is not a lawyer.  Imagine my disappointment and surprise, then, to read that the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund had sued FDA and HHS claiming that "the various federal regulations that ban the sale and consumption of [non-pasteurized] milk violate constitutional rights to privacy, travel and due process."

In fact, no federal regulation prohibits the consumption of raw milk.  For that matter, no state regulation prohibits the consumption of raw milk.  It is the sale of raw milk in some places or the placing of it into interstate commerce that is banned under various state and federal regulations.  The federal regulation challenged in the lawsuit is 21 CFR 1240.3, which provides, in part,

that "no person shall cause to be delivered into interstate commerce or shall sell or otherwise distribute” any milk or milk product “in final package form for direct human consumption” unless the milk or milk product has first been “pasteurized or is made from dairy ingredients (milk or milk products) that have all been pasteurized.”

This language is taken from FCLDF's complaint, which gets this part right, at least. There are very, very few acts of consumption that are actually prohibited.  Drinking raw milk is not one of them. 

(Disclaimer: I am a vegan. I do not drink milk.  This is not a rant about raw milk; it is about inaccuracy.)

Food and zoning

I often tell people that Food Law involves all sorts of different areas of law.  Usually I forget to mention zoning. This article is about zoning.  I also tell people that any lawyer can learn any area of law, even tax.  This article is not about tax, but it IS about a lawyer successfully negotiating an area of law that is not his specialty.  Way to go, Paul Hletko!  From the ABA Journal:

Legal Spirits: Attorney Distills His Legal Acumen to Steer Career Shift

Patent attorney Paul Hletko . . .wanted to open his distillery within walking distance of his home to be close to his family. But he faced one significant problem: Evanston is famously dry. The suburb just north of Chicago is where the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was started in 1874 (Hletko named Few for Francis Elizabeth Willard, the former president of the WTCU). Alcohol wasn’t served in restaurants in Evanston until the 1970s, and there are still no bars. But that didn’t faze Hletko, who used his training as an attorney to get Evanston’s laws changed so he could produce alcohol there.

Read more

And salad too -- more recalls

Big day for recalls, just before the Fourth of July.  This time it's sprouts, lettuce, and sprouts.  Here are the details:

Banner Mountain Sprouts in California is voluntarily recalling some of its organic products because of possible contamination with salmonella.

Dole Fresh Vegetables is recalling about a thousand bags of bagged greens for possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.   The salads were distributed in six U.S. states (Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia).

Leasa Industries Co., Inc., is recalling alfalfa sprouts because of possible contamination with salmonella.  While the recall notice does not quite specifically say so, this recall seems to be limited to Florida.

So that's two salmonellas and a Listeria all in green leafy things.  I know sprouts are grown in conditions ideal for pathogen growth, but how does the Salmonella get in there in the first place?  Salmonella "are microscopic living creatures that pass from the feces of people or animals to other people or other animals," according to the USDA.  So again, my questoin, how does Salmonella get from the feces to the sprouts in the first place?  This simply should not be happening.

Raw milk and a queso fresco recall

Food Safety News has posted another essay about the dangers of raw milk.  This piece comes from the International Food Information Council Foundation, a body which purports to be objective and unbiased, but which seems to speak for industry.  On the IFIC Blog, Food Insight, for example, are pieces in support of genetic engineering and approved herbicides and pesticides as solutions to weed and pest problems.  See In the Weeds -- – What’s a Minor Annoyance in Your Flower Beds is a Major Headache for Crop Farmers.

So it is no surprise that this was the source of a piece called Raw Milk: Clear Risks, No Benefits.  I do not promote any benefits of raw milk.  I am a vegan and do not use any dairy products myself. Humans do not need dairy products, and most of the world's population gets by just fine without them.  And while I think people should be free to consume whatever they please (and for the most part, this is true), I'm not sure adults should be free to feed children whatever they please.  But articles which deny all validity to the claims of raw milk proponents no longer seem credible to me. 

There are certainly risks. Milk can become contaminated, and it does.  Just this morning I received a notice of a queso fresco recall in New York state due to a positive test for Listeria monocytogenes.  Queso fresco is a soft cheese made from milk and aged not long at all (if at all). It can be made from pasteurized milk, but is often made from raw milk where that is permitted.  I have never tried it.