Is it the end of the line for American dairy farmers who can’t keep shipping milk below their cost of production?

Here’s an excerpt from a recent story by James Haggerty, from the Times-Tribune titled “Area dairy farmers give up livelihood as production costs rise”: Actually, we should note that the headline writers have gotten it wrong here. It’s not that production costs rose, it’s that wholesale prices to farmers fell dramatically. Some reports attribute this to increased and unauthorized use of imported Milk Protein Concentrate replacing local fluid milk purchases.

Don Salak hangs up his milkers for good. Photo Michael J Mullen/Staff Photographer

“WAYMART: The bulk milk tank sits empty in the barn at Don and Christina Salak’s farm after a 100-year, three-generation family tradition of dairy production.

“It’s not easy to sell your herd. It hurts,” Mr. Salak, 65, said as he leaned against a conveyor at the couple’s 160-acre tract, where his grandfather’s father milked cows before him. “You come into the barn and it’s empty.

“I cried the first day. I did this all my life.”

Mrs. Salak, 58, who grew up on a Ledgedale dairy farm before the couple married 35 years ago, strolled through the barn and reflected on the transition after putting in decades of 14-hour days tending, feeding and milking cows.

“The first couple days, I was lost,” she said. “All of a sudden, you don’t have the girls in here.”

Call your local Sheriff if someone says you have to take the H1N1 vaccination

Oh, and that level 6 pandemic alert — the World Health Organization (WHO) expects it’ll be years before it’s lifted. See this Reuters new story on that. Excerpt below:

“GENEVA, Oct 9 (Reuters) – It could take years for the World Health Organisation to downgrade the H1N1 flu from a pandemic to seasonal-like virus, the U.N. agency said on Friday.

The WHO moved its six-point pandemic alert level to the top rung in June [ID:nLC321991] in response to the spread of the new virus widely known as swine flu, which has killed at least 4,500 people, especially in North America.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said that health warning would stay in place until people can better fend off infection from the H1N1 strain.

Is the battle FOR or AGAINST bacteria?

Yale study shows that bacteria have real value in the human ecosystem.

Here’s a perceptive story from the Food Freedom blog which goes right to the heart of a difference in world-view that leads to differing positions on a wide range of health controversies, from raw mik to vaccination to agricultural methods to medical technologies. Fundamental to all this is our view of bacteria. Are they “germs” to be eradicated, or a valuable part of our personal ecosystem? Are we trying to isolate ourselves in a sterile cocoon, from what we see as a hostile nature that surrounds us, or do we recognize that our health depends on a balance of bacteria in our bodies. An excerpt from Food Freedom:

Are we in danger of hurting ourselves when we kill bacteria.

“If you have ever been in a heated discussion with friends over orthodox medicine as opposed to alternative medicine, or supplements versus drugs, or the necessity to vaccinate versus the danger of vaccination, or over whether raw milk is safe or not, perhaps you have experienced the formidable wall that exists between two worlds. Strong beliefs on both sides seem irreconcilable.