Earlier this month we reported that advocated of raw milk hoped a bill passed by the legislature in Wisconsin, the leading dairy state, would lead the way in expanding raw-milk sales across the country. Those hopes appear to have been dashed as Gov. Jim Doyle did an about-face and vetoed the bill last week, Rick Barrett of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Doyle had told the newspaper he was likely to sign the bill, but in the end he "sided with public health and dairy industry officials who said the bill raised multiple safety issues, because unpasteurized milk may carry pathogens that cause food-borne illnesses," Barrett writes.
"I don't think this was an absolute easy question one way or the other, but I think in the end it was one I had to make a decision on," Doyle told Barrett. "As it came through, what came to me from the public-health community and the dairy industry was overwhelming on this. I listened to people on both sides. But when the public-health community is almost entirely unanimous on this issue, it seems to me a pretty risky proposition to move forward with it." An aide to Democratic Majority Leader Russ Decker told Barrett the Senate would not attempt to override the veto.
"I think [Doyle's decision] was a combination of the agribusiness industry who, whatever they say, were afraid of losing a little market share, and the public-health establishment that is instinctively afraid of freedom of any sort," Republican Sen. Glenn Grothman told Barrett. "I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for all the people with stomach ailments, autism and other ailments who are going to have to try to obtain a product illegally because their government doesn't believe in freedom." Some raw milk advocates argue it "can cure ailments, including tuberculosis, heart failure, high blood pressure and many others," Barrett writes. (Read more)
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