Letting go...for real this time.

The Complete Patient Blog coverage
Food Safety News Coverage
In depth analysis by Food Laywer Bill Marler who sued McAfee on behalf of the Martins in the first e.coli 0157:H7 outbreak in 2006. The WAPF crowd largely dismissed that case as being due to spinach, the official story created by Mark McAfee at the time and continually promulgated by Sally Fallon.

After hearing that e.coli 0157:H7 has been officially linked to OPDC yesterday I saw red. I was that mom who listened to WAPF nutritional guidelines and made raw milk kefir from OPDC milk when I was pregnant with my son. I gave it to my daughter who is under 5 years old.

Sure I had my doubts. But I decided that well, if so many other WAPF mothers are doing it, and if it will give better nutrition to my child and growing baby, then fear be damned.

The problem is that E.coli 0157:H7 is in our food supply. Other scary bugs like Campylobater and Listeria are also in our food supply and have been linked with OPDC. If E.coli 0157:H7can outlast the acidity of our stomaches, then raw milk is no match for it nor is the beneficial bacteria in kefir.

Do not take ANYONE'S nutritional guidelines without doing your homework first. Ask questions and seek multiple sources. It says right there on the bottle, for a reason, that raw milk is a risk for pregnant women, infants, the elderly and anyone with a compromised immune system. Heed those words.

Otherwise, you could end up in the hospital, or worse, both of your children who you made raw milk kefir for can end up in the hospital with HUS. That's where both of your children's kidney's start to fail and you watch your baby barely escape death because modern medicine has learned how to keep them alive. You start living day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. You don't know if their kidneys will recover or if they do recover, if they'll need new kidneys down the road.

The aftermath is just as messy. If you do bring your children home, the medical bills pile up as well as the medicines you have to give your children to keep their kidney's functioning properly. You might start having terrible dreams or flashbacks, and then you need therapy so you can start working through the feelings of guilt of putting both of your children through near death experiences when the warning was right there on the bottle. You eventually move out of guilt and realize you are very, very, angry. And then, if you are to move on with your life effectively, you learn what to do with that anger and where to direct it.

I watched the part of Food, Inc. where the mom talks about how e.coli 0157:H7 took her little sons life. I cry every time I see that part. It kills me.

We can't have it both ways, real food lovers. We can't on the one hand say, "Look at those huge industrial meat producers, or now spinach, tomato etc. producers and shame on them, they are killing little children." And then, in the same breath, recommend that mother's feed their children raw milk so as to give them enhanced immunity or cure their asthma or allergies or IBS or lactose intolerance or some other such chronic illness that CAN BE REMEDIED WITHOUT RAW MILK.

Stop promulgating the lies and hogwash.

This is my way of explaining why I have taken the story of OPDC and Mark McAfee so personally. He was MY dairyman. His milk is in MY local farmer's market. And he has manipulated too many people too many times for me not to care.

Laura Avery, Farmer's market manager of the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, thinks I am off base and doesn't want to discuss the issue with me any further, just as she doesn't want to do anything about Healthy Family Farms.

I feel my work is done. For now my family needs my full spirit back.

Adieu,
Kristen