House Agriculture, Forestry & Economic Development Committee
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Bills discussed (1)
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HB1536
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
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Pre-2017 bill |
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Representative Alexander, you're recognized to present House Bill 1536. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, members.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
0:30
With your permission, I don't know if he's here yet, I'd like to invite
Senator Stubblefield to join me. Hopefully he'll be here in a moment. As most of you know, Senator Stubblefield's been a dairy farmer for a lot of years, and I hope he'll be here so I can defer to his expertise on some of the questions that you may have. We're here today to discuss a very important issue, as evidenced by the presence of some
of our citizens here, as well as a
lot of communication that I know many of you have gotten through the mail, as have I. There have been similar bills presented to this body over the past several sessions without success, and today I want to share why I believe this issue deserves your consideration and a vote to pass this bill. As I approached this issue, one of my primary questions was simple. Does drinking raw
milk present a significant danger to our citizens?
We already know that drinking raw milk or eating any other food carries some degree of risk. All foods, if contaminated or spoiled, can make you
sick or even kill you. As I've studied this issue, I've learned that far more people have become ill, even to the point of death from eating vegetables than from any other type of food product. You will recall just a few years ago when many people around the nation got sick and died from eating contaminated lettuce. But although vegetables account for the largest
number of food-borne illnesses, it is another product that results in the most deaths from food poisoning and by a wide margin. That product is poultry, chickens, turkeys, yet no one is suggesting that eating vegetables or poultry should be banned. These foods are considered to be an important part of a healthy diet by most nutrition experts. People eat things like raw oysters. They eat sushi, something that when I was growing up in Texas we called
all bait. My wife eats chocolate chip cookie dough, which contains raw eggs. Some people like their beef, very, very rare. Yet we do not prohibit consumption of these foods which are consumed in a raw or close to raw state. It's difficult to imagine a more natural food than raw milk. People from cultures all over the world have been drinking it since time began. In a letter to the editor from a Wisconsin farmer named Vince Hunt, he wrote, if raw
milk is so dangerous, why is it you can buy raw milk anywhere in the world, including out of vending machines within two blocks of the United Nations World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland? He goes on to note that the Swiss who have been consuming un-pasteurized milk in those mountains for a thousand years have the second longest life expectancy in the world, after only Japan, another place where you can buy raw milk in stores. And what about those foolish French? You know, the people with the lowest incidence
of heart disease, the third highest life expectancy, and the highest consumption of raw milk in the Western world. Mr. Hunt goes on to claim that no one has died from drinking raw milk in the United States in 50 years, and he challenges the reader to go ahead and Google it. This morning you're going to hear from medical experts who will tell you that drinking raw milk presents an unacceptable risk. As I've studied this issue, I can save you a lot of time by stipulating that there are
experts with impressive credentials on both sides of this issue. I provided the committee earlier with a short article promoting the consumption of raw milk provided by and reported from experts. Much of the pro-milk information I've read came from the testimony of Dr. Ted Bales at hearings on this topic in various states across the nation. Here are his credentials given from one of those many testimonies.
I'm Dr. Ted Bales. I live in Waterloo in South Central Michigan. I'm a physician retired after 31 years on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School's Department of Pathology and from service in the Veterans Health Administration. During the final eight years, I served in the Senior Executive Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C. as the Director of Pathology and Laboratory Service. all diagnostic services in the nation's VA medical centers.
I am an international consultant and have testified across North America on the benefits, safety, and testing of raw milk. My graduate training and degrees focused on microbiology, and my research lab was in the School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology. I am board-certified in pathology with five years of specialty training at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
Since retirement, I've concentrated on dairy practices related to human health. Dr. Bills sounds like an expert to me, and Dr. Bills will readily agree that drinking raw milk carry some risk. But Dr. Bales, who has studied this topic for four decades, has concluded the risk of drinking raw milk is miniscule, far less than other foods that we consume regularly. Finally, I want to highlight a few comments from the handout that I provided
to you earlier. The handout said the issue isn't whether some people have become sick from raw milk on occasion, the issue is whether raw milk poses an unusually high level of risk that somehow justifies the government interfering with people's choices. All of the data discussed below is from the Center for Disease Control for the 13-year period from 1998 to 2010. Nationwide, in that 13-year period, there were 1,414 illnesses, 80 hospitalizations,
and no deaths attributed to raw milk. Excuse me, I have allergies, probably because I don't drink raw milk. To put these numbers in context, there were 2,301,076 illnesses, 10,317 hospitalizations, and 223 deaths reported to the CDC in that same period of time from all foods.
Consider the illnesses attributed to a few other foods. Fruit salad, 1,323 illnesses, 29 hospitalizations, and one death. Tuna, 1,415 illnesses, 41 hospitalizations, and three deaths, and this does not include raw tuna or sushi. Pizza, 1,614 illnesses, 20 hospitalizations, and three deaths. Why did I pick these three?
The number of illnesses attributed to fruit salad, tuna, and pizza are similar to those attributed to raw milk during this time period, with the exception that unlike these foods, raw milk has not caused any deaths. While most people may consume these foods occasionally, few people consume these foods day in and day out in contrast to raw milk. How many people drink raw milk? According to a CDC survey, an average of 3% of the population has drunk raw milk within the last seven days.
That translates to approximately 9.4 million raw milk consumers nationwide. So out of 9.4 million raw milk drinkers, approximately 110 allegedly became sick each year from raw milk, or .001%. This time, I will be happy
Speaker 12
9:10
to take questions, and I hope Senator Stubbleville shows up quickly. But go ahead.
Chair
Unverified
9:23
Representative McQuarrie, you're recognized for a question. First question at this time, what's the difference between raw milk and whole
Representative Walls McCrary
Unverified
9:29
milk? Is there any difference? The wording changes in the bill, and I'm wondering
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
9:34
about that. Well, it's referring to whole milk that's unpasteurized, it's raw milk. So anybody, anywhere, any kind of whole milk
Speaker 21
9:42
can be, your bill applies to that. Is that what you're saying? Well,
Speaker 22
9:48
my bill applies specifically to whole milk that has not been pasteurized.
Chair
Unverified
9:55
I'll wait, Chairman. Vice Chairman Steele, you're recognized for a question.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think there's a compelling case for this, but I've got a couple of questions.
And the other things you mentioned, poultry and beef that can be purchased rare or purchased uncooked, raw, are any of those sold directly from farmers? For example, you can't buy a raw chicken at a farmer's market, for example, could you? No, and under my
Speaker 29
10:24
bill, you couldn't buy raw milk from a farmer's market either.
That was the question I was going to ask. So you're going to have –
could you explain how that's going to work under your bill, what the process is going
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
10:40
to be directly from the dairy farmer to the consumer? Well, if just say, okay, I'm told that you can
buy raw chickens from, I haven't, but I guess you can't from a farmer, not from a, okay. Let me just refer directly to the bill. this subchapter does not prohibit incidental sales of whole milk that has not been pasteurized
directly to consumers at the farm where the milk is produced or preclude the advertising of incidental sales of milk so it can be sold at the farm where
Speaker 29
11:19
it's produced okay is that somebody mentioned
that they think that you can buy poultry the same way do you know from your own personal knowledge whether or not there's anything else that you can buy raw that poses the
danger that you referred to directly from the farmer? Lettuce turnips
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
11:39
broccoli there's a higher incidence of food poisoning in vegetables than any other food group and that includes deaths from vegetables I believe, I may be wrong on this number, but I believe there were 28 deaths attributed to contaminated lettuce just a few years ago. E. coli, something
like that? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Dan Douglas.
Speaker 39
12:09
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Alexander,
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
12:12
a couple of questions about your bill here. Number one, it does not specify in here what dairies or farms you could buy raw milk from. Would this be just existing grade A dairies, or could some individual that has a few acres and wants to buy two or three cows and sell raw milk, would they be allowed to do that under this bill?
Yes, both would. Both would. Okay, with that clarified, the latter part of this question, in your bill it states that the butter fat has to be at least 3.25 percent, and solids, 8.25 percent solids. If, now, currently grade A dairies, they're tested. Every load of milk that comes out, they take a test on that, and they test that.
Who would be doing the testing on this two or three cow dairies? How would you ensure that the milk met those quality standards? That would
Speaker 12
13:20
be up to the State Board of Health. This bill
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
13:24
provides for the inspection of a facility that produces, processes, stores, or sell whole milk for human consumption that's not been pasteurized. It requires the seller to post at the point of sale a warning that the whole milk has not been pasteurized to affix a label to the bottle or package warning that the whole milk has not been pasteurized And the board can also recommend guidelines for processing, packaging, bottling, storing,
and transporting of whole milk. One of the questions that was raised by the health department to me was this issue of the cost of testing. And I'm a city
boy. I don't know a lot about this, so I asked a bunch of questions, and what we concluded was the testing that takes place now in dairies is taken from raw milk. They load the milk in the tanker. They take a sample. They bring it in. It goes to the lab for testing. That testing occurs within two days.
If the milk is contaminated, they dump the tank. They also go back to the farm where it was produced. They identify the source of the contamination, and they don't sell milk out of there until that's been addressed. So if a dairy farmer, I don't know what term you said, grade A dairy farmer, is selling raw milk, their raw milk is already being tested. For someone who is a small producer that, you know, has milk primarily for their family
but to sell a few gallons, and the gallons is limited here in the bill, the State Board
of Health has the ability to set up testing procedures that they deem appropriate.
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
15:04
And have you done a fiscal impact statement on that to find out how much it would cost the state health department to set up the testing lab to test the milk for this along with probably a PI count or bacteria count
and a somatic cell count to check for infection in the milk there? Have you done any studies on that? I have not.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
15:30
But in talking to the folks, and I'm sure they'll be here in a moment, talking
to the folks from Health, they indicated concern about the cost, but as I said, then, you know, we discovered that most of the milk that would probably be sold is already being tested. Now, there's some that would not. I talked with a gentleman, I'm trying to think of his name, Preston, with the Arkansas
Preston Scroggins, and I asked him, you know, in your opinion for a small dairy, do you need the kind of testing that you would have from a large dairy? He said no. He said, I don't know if I've got the note, he recommended a blood test. He said, well, it already happens at the sale barn, a test for brucellosis and TB annually, And then he thought an inspection of the barn twice a year would be adequate.
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
16:27
A follow-up question. Go ahead, Mr. Douglas. Okay. I have concerns about that. I come from a food processing background as well as a dairy background younger. And I have trouble with twice a year inspection for sanitation of equipment and to make sure that things will be taken care of. But how are we going to know, Representative Alexander, who these small farmers are? There's nothing in here that says that they would have to register or buy a permit,
or how are we going to know who is going to be selling raw milk out there, and how would the health department know where to go inspect if there's no provisions for registering these small producers? The grade A dairies are already registered. But what scares me about this, I drink milk out of my neighbor's tanks any day that are grade-A dairies. They're inspected. They have the equipment, the facilities to hold the milk at the proper temperature
and equipment to sanitize their milking equipment. What about these small two or three cow producers? How would we know who? Sorry. It's all right. I'd do the same thing. How are we going to know without some permit process or registration of who's going to be selling milk so they can be inspected? Well, I agree there probably should be a
Speaker 50
17:55
permit process. But, you know, again, I'm a city boy.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
18:03
I don't think I, you know, I don't feel the need to define that in this bill. What it does state in the bill is that the Board of Health can establish procedures, And I assumed that they would cover that. One thing that I think we do know is right now, if I become sick from drinking pasteurized milk, and there's quite a few people that do, and there have been some deaths from pasteurized milk, I have no idea where that milk came from.
If it's raw milk, I know where I bought it. It's pretty easy to pinpoint the location of
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
18:42
where the problem is. One more follow-up and I'll make it brief. And that brings up the other concern here is traceability on this. I know it's got to be for an individual to buy milk at the farm, so that individual would know where it came from. As far as your statement, that's one reason they do test each load of milk at the farm, take a sample and hold the milk to where they can check it first
first to make sure there's no problems, no antibiotics, no excessive bacteria level or whatever, somatic cell count is acceptable. On this, what traceability, my big concern, and I'm concerned about public health, but one individual goes and buys 10 gallons of milk out here from one of these small unregistered farms, takes it, he may sell it to somebody else or may give it to somebody else or make artisan cheese and take it to a farmer's market and sell it or
sell it out of their house. And if you get a foodborne illness outbreak, what is the traceability issue for that? How do they trace that back? That's one big concern in any food processing industry is traceability to come back to where the problem is. Well,
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
20:04
this bill doesn't permit the sale of cheese made from raw milk. It is
limited to raw milk. One of the things that I learned when I was given some documentation from the health department about, they provided
me with some information of all the problems that had occurred around the country, I
think during the same 12, 13 year period. A lot of them weren't from milk, they were from cheese. A lot of them were from something called Mexican queso, which is not even legal to
sell because of the way it's made. But this bill only covers raw milk. It does not cover, it does not permit the sale of other dairy products made from raw milk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Douglas, I didn't take that to mean you were formally asking for a physical impact study. We're going to continue
with questions, but if someone, if there's a reason for that And I want to make a formal request. I guess we can do that before Representative
Alexander closes for his bill. Representative Thompson, you're recognized for a question. Thank you,
Representative Tommy Thompson
Unverified
21:13
Mr. Chair. I, too, have concerns about the health issues.
The many, many years that I've worked with dairy farmers, Testing and butterfat solids were important, very important. And you need a testing program in line where you can keep that at the levels it needs to be. The barns at Great A Dairies are inspected on a regular basis. and nowhere you know you say they're subject to inspection but it doesn't have a time frame
it doesn't have any guidelines on how much inspection and i suspect if as many emails as i've received about this of people having one cow or three goats or whatever if they're not in some kind of registration system to where the Board of Health is going to know where to go that this will get out of control.
You do not have a physical impact statement on what it would cost? No. Now, I suspect it's going to be in the half million to a million dollars just to put the lab in to hire the personnel that would be needed and the transportation that would be needed to go back and forth to sample that milk. My next question is there about maintaining the milk for sale. Most of the places that are just milking their own cows,
they've got enough milk to store, they've got enough refrigeration to store their milk. But if you're talking about trying to store 500 gallons of milk, then you're going to have to have some type of facility to store that in that needs to have public health maintaining that that's done correctly at the right temperature. and how will they establish what the, you know, you go buy a gallon of milk,
now it's stamped on there, used by X whatever date. How will that be handled with this kind of milk? Well, there are
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
23:46
a lot of questions there, but again I would say that my bill provides for an inspection of the facility by the State Board of Health. It says they can make rules regarding that. And, again, I think they're capable
of doing that. I don't think I need to tell them what to do. As far as 500 gallons of milk, this bill allows the sale of 500 gallons of milk over the course of a year.
I don't think they're going to have to have storage that will hold 500 gallons of milk at any given time. You know, sometimes you have to look at these things with a bit of common
sense. You know, the people that you're referring to, the people that have a couple of cows, that they're providing milk for their family, I don't know, I think if I were doing some activity that provided food for my family, I'd be pretty careful about that.
Are there some people in the world that maybe wouldn't be? Sure there are.
Do you think that's really likely? And a lot of the people that have contacted me about wanting to buy raw milk, they're very specifically
telling me I've got a neighbor next door, I've got somebody down the street. They know who they're going to buy from. You know, we've evolved over time in our society to believing that it's necessary for government
write every rule, to set every guideline for some of the most mundane, common activities that we have. I'm not saying it's always bad. I think reasonable regulation is appropriate. But I think the common sense of our citizens will address these issues most of the time. Will there be an idiot that creates a problem for himself or others? Sure.
You can't fix stupid. You can't regulate it. You will never prevent it. There will be incidents. That's not the question. The question is, does this present a serious material health risk? The evidence says, no, it does not. Sir, I read
Representative Tommy Thompson
Unverified
26:11
on line 32 or line 31 of the bill, it's monthly, not yearly.
Speaker 62
26:21
I'm sorry, I misspoke. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay. Representative Linderman, you're recognized for
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
26:32
a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. I've got a couple of questions here. Right now, you hit on it a while ago, I believe, about the cheese. At farmer's markets and places like that that we have tried to encourage, are they allowed to sell raw cheese or homemade cheese or homemade butter at those places now?
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
26:59
I honestly have no idea. I've gone to farmer's markets. I haven't observed that, but I'm not saying it doesn't happen. And I assume if it does, it's legal because it's a farmer's markets
are pretty public areas that can be
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
27:16
easily inspected. Okay. A couple more questions, please, Mr. Chair. You mentioned the Mexican queso a while ago. Well, I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish. What is your reference in this bill? You mentioned a health problem with the Mexican queso.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
27:32
What are we talking about here? I would have to find it, but in
two or three of the articles that I read, they pointed out that a lot of the illnesses were attributed to something called Mexican queso, which has also been called bathtub cheese. I had never heard of it, but a lot of the illnesses, particularly in California and out west, were attributed to that product. I don't really know anything about it except that apparently it's dangerous enough that it is regulated and prohibited.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
28:04
Okay. This goes along with what Representative Thompson mentioned. Page 1 does allow a sale of 500 gallons of milk per month. That's a fairly high threshold. That's probably going to be somebody keeping three milk cows or something like that to reach that threshold. um right now the law states that you can have five goats and you can sell the milk from five goats
without uh regulation inspection etc and and someone else may need to answer this question what what is the rationale from allowing us to sell unpasteurized which uh uh goat milk doesn't have to be homogenized, but unpasteurized goat milk from five goats and not allowing any sales at all from cattle? I have no idea. Okay.
All right. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Thank you,
Chair
Unverified
29:13
Mr. Chair. Representative McCrary, you're recognized for a
Representative Walls McCrary
Unverified
29:17
question. Just real quick, and it was back to what my comment was while ago about whole and the definition and all. And, you know, the public, my question to you, don't you think the public, when they see the word raw, they think that something needs to be done to it?
And when they see the word whole, they think that's complete. I wonder it really bothers me that we're going to walk down a farmer's market or wherever and somebody's going to say oh this is whole milk man that's got to be good so I you know it's a play
Speaker 21
29:59
on words but I know what raw means to most people and I know
Speaker 76
30:04
what whole means to most people and that bothers me and I'll stop there
Speaker 3
30:10
thank you Well, the bill, you know, the term whole and
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
30:14
the term raw in reference to the product I'm talking about are both accurate. The label that
has to be posted at the point of sale and that is put on each bottle is a warning that the whole milk has
not been pasteurized. So I think that's covered.
Representative Meeks, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
30:47
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got a couple questions. First off, there was some concern raised about the cost to the health department for doing these inspections. In your bill, would I be correct in saying that the rules here are allowing the health department to promulgate would allow them to charge a fee to the farmer who is selling the raw milk in order to recoup the agency's cost for doing
that? Would that be a fair characterization or would they not?
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
31:15
I don't know. The bill authorizes the sale of raw milk. It does not authorize funding for the department. That would have to come through a separate appropriation process, I think. Okay. Are they going
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
31:29
to be here to testify? Maybe that's a question I can write. I believe they are. Okay, maybe I can direct that to them at that time. The next question that I have is something that's been raised. If someone gets sick, is there any, the concern is, is the liability issue of the dairy farmers.
If someone sells this for all milk, someone gets sick, where's the liability at on that? You understand the question I'm saying? I do. Is the dairy farmer going to be liable for selling bad milk or
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
32:01
how that works? Well, it seems logical to me that if someone sells a product that causes somebody injury by consuming it, they could be liable for that, yes. Okay. And the dairy farmer
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
32:12
has complete decision whether they want to take on that liability or not when they choose to. Oh, absolutely.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
32:18
This bill doesn't require anyone to sell raw milk. It just allows the sale, and it doesn't require anyone to buy raw milk. Okay. It allows them to purchase
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
32:28
it if they choose to. Okay. And that leads to my last question is, before the era of pasteurization, would you say that it was an extremely common practice in America that the vast majority of our citizens drank raw milk, traded raw milk between themselves, and that this was a way of life with raw milk prior to pasteurization? Absolutely.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
32:48
It was very common. I remember my dad telling
me how much better raw milk was, how much better it tasted, how better it was for you compared to what he called store milk. And I've heard that from several members
of our body who are old enough or grew up on a farm. I've heard the
Chair
Unverified
33:08
same thing. All right. Thank you. Thank
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
33:12
you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Ballinger, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Alexander, as Representative
Douglas mentioned, he said that he would be happy to buy milk from his neighbor's containers.
In this issue, isn't that kind of what we're allowing, that we're just basically permitting individuals to buy it from, because they have to go right to the farm, correct, in order to purchase it? So it's going to be somebody that they know or they'll actually be able to, if the individual's purchasing and want to walk around the farm or whatever, and they have that right between them to discuss that. Oh, absolutely.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
33:43
I mean, they can buy the milk or not buy the milk from whichever producer they want to. If I were buying the milk, I'd say, hey, show me
your farm. I'd like to see your barn.
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
33:53
I mean, I would do that. And Representative Thompson mentioned the many farmers, and I've been contacted by them at all, or also from all over the state who would like to be able to do this. So really what we're talking about is probably, you know, farmers who would just
Chair
Unverified
34:16
of milk to their neighbors. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Representative Charlotte Douglas, you're recognized for a question. Yes. Yes, thank you, Representative
Speaker 103
34:22
Alexander and Mr. Chair. I have six grandkids that could not drink home pasteurized milk.
And I know for a fact that we bought from private, and they were much healthier because they were able to buy from either goat's milk or cow's milk that was raw. And I'm just wondering if, you know, what is the difference in this bill from what we have had in the past? What are the changes? Is it just mainly we're upping the amount that they can sell or? No, at some point, and
Speaker 72
34:56
I don't know when that point was, there was
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
35:00
a law passed that you could not sell raw milk, period.
Not any amount. what is stricken from the bill this bill a similar bill has been run before and a hundred gallons of milk is what was in the original bill and i raised it and i did that because i was told by a dairy farmer that a cow can produce a single cow can produce a lot more than that so I mean I don't know but that's what I was told so so might we
Speaker 103
35:35
see this as a you know your attempt to allow people the freedom I mean to me this is a basic freedom that Americans should have to sell their milk and you know we tend to want to overregulate and protect people but sometimes that infringes on their basic liberty, and I wonder if that's kind of the way you see that. That's exactly the issue for
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
36:03
me. I've never had raw milk in my life, but after the research I've conducted, I'm going to
start drinking some because some of the symptoms associated with regular milk, I have. So, as you pointed out, people who can't drink pasteurized milk, a lot of them can drink whole milk just fine. There's been studies in Europe and in the U.S. that seem to draw a link between raw milk or pasteurized milk and the incidence of allergies. And again, there's so much data, you know, I could read for a month and couldn't cover
it all. I just want to sum it up by saying there are people on both sides of the issue that appear to have credentials and expertise and training that would make them, you know, qualified to speak on the subject, and they disagree with each other.
MS. Thank you. Any other questions from the committee? I see that our former colleague, Senator Stubblefield, is now here. Senator, would you care to make any comments? SEN. SEN.
Speaker 112
37:14
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I would. It's probably one of the older dairymen in the state of Arkansas, if not the oldest. We're one of the, you know, there's 35 states in this country that already allow the sale of raw milk, California being one of them. California is one of the strictest when it comes to regulations of any state in the country, and yet I can go to San Francisco and raw milk is on every counter of every grocery store and every little quick pick, come-and-go store in the state,
And, you know, what's funny about it is it's sitting right next to the organic milk. And organic milk is very expensive. But they consider this to be a healthier milk than pasteurized or homogenized milk. I was raised on raw milk. So was my grandparents and my mom and dad, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, as were most of yours. You are much, you know, Arkansas has been a brucellosis-free state and a tuberculosis-free state for a number of years.
One of the issues that concerned a lot of people was even rabies being contracted to the milk by people. You are much more likely to become sick by eating a head of lettuce bought at your local grocery store and contracting salmonella or E. coli than you are getting rabies from raw milk. That's not even an issue. This, like Representative Alexander said, this issue is about freedom. It really goes back to having the freedom to be able to sell your milk.
And by the way, farmers are finding a way to do this, and so are other people, because I have had people come in and offer me a contract to buy a portion of one cow so they can have milk, and they are willing to sign a release form.
Speaker 113
39:10
So people are going to find a way to do this if they want raw
Speaker 112
39:17
milk. Like I said, when you eat any food, you kill a lot of the beneficial enzymes and amino acids.
The things that are in the food to help you, you kill them, and that's what happens to raw milk. And I think a lot
Speaker 114
39:34
of you older people that, like me, were raised on it know that.
And I'll be happy to bring you a gallon next week if anybody would like to
try it. all right any any questions from the committee if not we're going to go to public comment and the first one to speak against the bill is mr. Mike flag
from Highland dairy mr. flag if you would take a seat at the end of the table. Actually,
Representative Alexander and Senator Stubblefield, could you all move around to the side and let Mr. Flagg take the end of the
table so that everybody on committee can can see him thank you good morning mr. flag go ahead and
introduce yourself and then you may present
Speaker 121
40:34
your comments my name is Mike flag I'm general manager of Highland dairy and Little
Mike Flag
Unverified
40:40
Rock I'm here representing the three grade a milk processing facilities in Arkansas I'm I'm also a member of the Arkansas Milk Stabilization Board. Secretary Calhoun and the Department of Agriculture and Arkansas Farm Bureau have also asked me to speak for them.
Speaker 123
41:02
Mr. Chairman, we have a handout, a short, very small
handout we would like permission to pass out.
Speaker 128
41:31
ahead and present the handout. at yesterday's
Mike Flag
Unverified
41:41
Arkansas milk stabilization board meeting A resolution was proposed and accepted, I'll just read it to you as one sentence, whereas the Arkansas Milk Stabilization Board feels passage of House Bill 1536 would not be in the best interest of the Arkansas dairy industry or the Arkansas dairy consumers, whereas the board voted unanimously to oppose the house bill fifteen thirty six
secretary calhoun is here and he has asked me to state that the department of agriculture is also against this bill and members of the arkansas farm bureau have asked me to also state that they are against this bill as a A dairy processor, and I need to give you a little history, Highland Dairy, and I work for Coleman Dairy here, we are farmer owned.
We represent first and foremost the dairy farmers that own us. We are trained at the company that selling milk and supporting the dairy farmers is first and foremost. Our brand and our personal agenda is second, and that is the setting that I'm here today. We feel that in today's 24-hour news cycle, cable news, everybody looking for the story
that if raw milk is sold in Arkansas, when the first family, the first children become sick from drinking raw milk. The headlines, the tags are going to be child dies, child gets sick from drinking milk. And they're not going to mention the word raw milk until all the way at the end of the story. The impact on the retail industry and on the dairy industry is going to be tremendous. Milk is a very important part of our diets. It's a very nutritional
rich, protein rich food, and we should encourage more milk consumption, more dairy consumption, and we are tremendously afraid, and we have experience at other states that allow raw milk cells where this has hurt the dairy industry. As a dairy processor, I'm a second generation dairy processor, and I started my career in
raw milk receiving and in the lab. And I can testify that farm milk contains a lot of bacteria and a lot of pathogens. We do extensive pre-screening on all raw milk, and weekly we have to reject farm milk that comes into our dairy because it does not meet the standards. The FDA and the Arkansas Health Department have strenuous rules, and they inspect us
to make sure we follow these rules, and almost all of them have to do with handling raw milk and pre-screening the farm milk that comes in. This past year, with the drought situation, the feed that goes to the animals was stressed, and as a result of the drought stress in the corn crops, there has been a tremendous outbreak of aflatoxin in the food source, and it is passed on through the milk.
aflatoxin is a carcinogen we have very sensitive equipment we test every load of milk that comes into the into the dairy for aflatoxin and it was not unusual for us to turn down one to two loads a week and the Arkansas Health Department the National all the other other state health departments have really had a battle this year trying to clean up the food source, the feed source for the cattle, and
to try and keep this aflatoxin under control. That is not something you're going to find a local farmer that's able to test for. We look at the raw milk under a microscope. It's one of the first things we do, and it's pretty scary some of the loads that come in, and I just don't see a local farmer pre-screening the milk before they sell it to know if, and there's certainly no harm that the local farmer is trying to do. I know their intentions are good and accidents will happen and we're afraid that this is
going to hurt the dairy industry. I received correspondence from the FDA and the Arkansas Health Department where, and I believe they forwarded it to all the members of this committee earlier, and I know the FDA is strongly opposed to the cellar raw milk, and I know the Arkansas Health Department is strongly opposed to it, and I will let them speak to the science of it.
Are there any other questions? Will you take questions? Yes. Okay. I do have a question. We've heard previously that
35 other states allow the sale in some form of raw milk. Do you have any information as to whether that's correct or
Speaker 119
47:35
not? I know there are other states. I'm not sure
Mike Flag
Unverified
47:39
how many there are. In the FDA handouts I received, there was a number of states where the CDC had listed all the foodborne or raw milk-issued illnesses, and there was quite a few states that do allow
it. I believe Oklahoma and Missouri both allow raw milk
cells. And I guess that leads to my next question. As I understand it, one of the big concerns from the dairy industry and, I guess, the agricultural community is that if
there is someone who gets sick from the consumption of raw milk, that as you alluded to, the headline will be milk made someone sick.
Is that not already an issue regardless of whether it's consumed in Arkansas or Oklahoma or California or how by just allowing it in Arkansas are we doing further damage or do you have any response to that? It's an issue now. When there are
Speaker 135
48:44
outbreaks, there was one in Pennsylvania a while back that I received calls from some local TV
Mike Flag
Unverified
48:51
stations just asking for comment, and it was pretty easy for us to diffuse the situation by saying raw milk's not allowed to be sold in Arkansas.
And we were able to focus the attention that this is raw milk and that it was a state that did not have the regulations we have and try to calm the local fears. If we did have raw milk cells and this sickness occurs in Arkansas, the media will be much more intense on the subject and there will
be much more coverage. Representative Linderman,
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
49:28
you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sir, you mentioned aflatoxin, and I know what it does in the horses.
I know cattle have a much higher tolerance of aflatoxin in the grains. What are the physical symptoms in the cattle with the aflatoxin
that a producer or the guy that's going out there milking the cow twice a day that
Mike Flag
Unverified
49:52
he would see? No, you can't see it. The farmers don't know they have it. We test every load of milk as soon as it arrives, and we're always the first point of notification to the health department that there's an issue.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
50:07
What are the symptoms of aflatoxin toxicity in humans?
Mike Flag
Unverified
50:11
Well, all I know is it's a carcinogen, and we're not allowed to, you know, anytime we find aflatoxin, we're instructed to pass it along.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
50:21
Okay. How many loads have you all rejected or dumped because of
Mike Flag
Unverified
50:26
aflatoxin? It started last fall, really, you know, traditionally it would be four to six loads a year. Last fall, when the harvest started
Speaker 141
50:35
coming in, it got to as many as three to four weeks.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
50:41
Okay, you mentioned you dump the loads. The load of milk is condemned. Okay, where does it go? I'm not sure where it
Mike Flag
Unverified
50:51
goes. It goes to an approved dump site. It does not go into
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
50:56
the pet food industry or back into the animal? We turn it over to the health
Mike Flag
Unverified
51:00
department. They tag it, and then they oversee the disposal of it, and I don't follow up on it after it leaves our site. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr. Chair. Representative Dan Douglas, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
51:14
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quick question. Sir, what is the average bacteria count on milk coming into the plant when you all receive it? And then what is it when you all ship it out the
Speaker 135
51:28
other end after it's pasturized? The industry standard is $400,000 for
Mike Flag
Unverified
51:33
the somatic cell count. Now, we look at it under a microscope, and we try to calculate what it is, and we turn down anything that's over $400,000 in our calculation.
um traditional milk from the really high quality dairy farmers it's going to run in the hundred thousand to two hundred thousand and then after it
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
51:57
is processed and pasteurized what is it then when it leaves when we pasteurize milk
Mike Flag
Unverified
52:03
we um we kill all the pathogens we um we do not get a hundred percent kill on the bacteria that's
Speaker 135
52:11
why milk does still spoil after a period of time we try to get
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
52:17
it down less than a hundred one hundred not one hundred thousand right one that's correct
okay thank you senator stubblefield is asked if he can ask questions after consultation with parliamentarian it's at the chair's discretion i'm going to allow senator
Speaker 125
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stubblefield to ask ask some questions. MR. Okay.
Speaker 113
52:38
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you tell me how much
Speaker 112
52:43
of your milk that you process comes from Arkansas? MR.
Mike Flag
Unverified
52:47
The Arkansas dairy farmers, it's a dying industry. MR. How much
Mike Flag
Unverified
52:54
And it's a falling percentage. I believe our rule of thumb, and I haven't calculated it recently, I believe the Arkansas dairy farmers produce right at 20 to 25 percent of our dairy. We would buy every drop of Arkansas milk
Speaker 150
53:12
if it was available to us. Well, I don't think
Speaker 113
53:16
it's that high. All of our milk goes to
Speaker 112
53:20
Dothan, Alabama. We, in fact, you're importing milk from Mexico and Stevensville, Texas, from factory farms that are milking thousands and thousands of cows. I, too, sat on that milk Stabilization Board. And I was told that whenever this milk comes in from Texas to New Mexico, they have to change the filters about five times as often.
Senator, if we can kind of keep it on the bill, please. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 113
53:48
Would you say Arkansas milk is cleaner than out-of-state milk?
No. You wouldn't? No. How many incidents do you know of people dying from milk in the country in this last year? Drinking raw milk. Drinking raw milk? Drinking raw milk. I would
Mike Flag
Unverified
54:06
have to go to the data that the FDA and the CDC put out. I don't know. Do you
Speaker 112
54:12
know how many people died from eating vegetables this last year in the United
Mike Flag
Unverified
54:18
States? Well, I got the information from the Arkansas Health Department, and I was going to let the health department discuss it.
But they talked about in this that the CDC reported that 82 percent of all food illnesses were due to raw milk. The outbreaks reported by CDC between 2009 and 2010, 81 percent were due to raw milk. It doesn't talk about the vegetables and everything, but they talk about all foodborne illnesses sent to the
Speaker 112
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CDC. So sitting on that board, you know that we have a process where a dairy farm has a three out of five on somatic cell counts and bacteria counts.
In other words, he can produce over the limit for a period of three months straight and sell milk that is over the legal limits of somatic cells and bacteria that's going into the food chain without anything being done. You aware
Mike Flag
Unverified
55:18
of that? That would be part of my agreement with you that the dairy products are dangerous at the farm level.
Speaker 159
55:24
No, this – well, I realize that, but you're allowing it to go
Speaker 135
55:28
into – No, we pre-screen the milk, and the milk that we turn down for high bacterial limits
Mike Flag
Unverified
55:34
typically goes to a powder plant or to a cheese plant where it is processed differently. It
Speaker 113
55:41
doesn't go into the fluid milk chain. Okay.
Speaker 99
55:48
That's all I have right now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Any other
Speaker 103
55:55
questions? Representative Charlotte Douglas, you're recognized for a question. Yes, sir. You mentioned the carcinogen, did you say aflatoxin? Aflatoxin. Aflatoxin. What is, that's a
Speaker 162
56:04
scary thing to say it's carcinogenic.
What is the incidence of people getting cancer from this? You
Mike Flag
Unverified
56:13
not a, I'm not educated on aflatoxin. I really can't speak to it, and traditionally it's not a big issue, but this past year it has been. And it has been an issue in
Speaker 103
56:24
that you've seen it in the milk, but we don't have incidents of cancer resulting from it, or is that what you're saying? I would
Speaker 155
56:33
have to let the health department answer that question
Speaker 103
56:36
for you. Okay, because I've never heard of cancer from that source, but a lot of things can
be considered carcinogen without it being a source of cancer. Would you agree? Well, I'm
Speaker 62
56:48
not a scientist on that. Okay. Thank you. Representative
Chair
Unverified
56:54
Linderman, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
56:57
One very, very short question. Senator Stubblefield mentioned a somatic cell count. What is the somatic cell count level that is acceptable
Speaker 140
57:03
in milk now? It needs to be under 400,000.
Speaker 135
57:07
400,000? Okay. I think it's parts per million.
Mike Flag
Unverified
57:13
Okay. Bank. Sorry. Chairman, that's not correct. What is it? The illegal limit is $750,000. I know that in this last year that $400,000 was the
new rule. I'll milk cows for a living. Senator, let's let Mr. Flagg testify, and then you and Representative Alexander will have an opportunity to close for your bill, okay? Okay. And Representative
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
57:41
Winderman, do you recognize for a follow-up?
Back when I was teaching high school ag and dairy foods, at that time there was a 3 million somatic cell count. Have we seen obvious health benefits from the reduction or the lowering of the somatic cell count population? It improves the shelf
Speaker 135
58:02
life of the milk. It improves the quality of the milk by lowering the bacteria. This past year, and
Mike Flag
Unverified
58:10
Senator Stubberfield and I may be just discussing things on different terms, I'm talking about the grade A, and I'm talking about it had to do with the European
and the U.S. adopting similar policies, and that's the reason it came down to 400,000 this past year. What it has done, it's a very difficult task for the farmer to keep his counts under 400,000, has forced the farmers to step up their quality of how they treat the cattle and keep their facility and their milking procedures. It's been very stressful for, I know on the stabilization board, the farmers testified that this was one of their major concerns,
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
58:52
was trying to stay under 400,000. Would you agree that the regulations that we have in place have forced a lot of the dairies? I'm from Greene County, which used to have, in the 50s, had 60 dairies. Craighead County had 30 dairies. There are none there now. Would you agree that government regulation has been influential in forcing those people
Mike Flag
Unverified
59:13
out of business? I would say the government pricing regulations have certainly hurt the farmers. Thank you.
Speaker 172
59:21
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any other questions of Mr. Flagg?
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
59:24
Representative Dan Douglas. One quick question. individual cows have different levels of somatic cell counts is that correct some cows will have a higher instance of somatic cell than others cows
Speaker 121
59:37
are living animals they get diseases they get sick just like humans do and
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
59:45
so yes and normally whenever a tank averages up on the somatic cell count the producer goes out and tests his cows He'll cull those real high ones that are up in a million or a million and a half.
I'm sure everybody knows. You cull the bad ones, keep your tank average down. And those cows would probably go to a sale barn there where individuals could buy them and take them home and milk and sell milk from the cull and bad-producing cows. Would that be a correct statement, sir? I would have to
Mike Flag
Unverified
1:00:24
say that the farmers want to do a good job. The farmers have good intentions.
And I don't know if anybody would purposely buy a sick cow to sell the milk. However, I will say in the economic times that we're in, and if a farmer is stressed for finances, he may lower his level of accountability and maybe sell some milk from a sicker cow. That's what we see at our dairy.
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
1:00:56
Follow-up, to get back, I think maybe misunderstood what I was saying.
The grade-A dairy farmers who sell milk to you are going to sell their tall cows, and the ones at the sale barn are the ones at individuals that might want to own two or three cows and sell raw milk. that's where they could be picking up some of their cows unknowingly they would be the ones that produce a very poor quality milk. I can't disagree with you on
that. Okay, thank you sir. Any other questions? Mr. Flagg, thank you Mr. Flagg for your comments We're going back to the
The list of those signed up, speaking for the bill, Larry Froelich. Mr. Froelich, take a seat at the end of the table. Please introduce yourself, and
then you may make your comments. Thank you.
Larry Froelich
Unverified
1:02:01
My name is Larry Froelich, and I'm from Springdale. and I'm from Springdale and an attorney and a graduate of the ag law program up in Fayetteville
and basically what I feel like I've heard this morning is you'd be a darn fool to drink this raw milk and but the fact of the matter is that there are quite a number of people who'd like to and however many injuries or deaths might be caused by raw milk I'm certain it is far less than cigarettes and yet we allow with regulation the sale of the
cigarettes and our left was saying well you're darn fools smoke cigarettes so there are people who want to sell it there are people who want to buy it and If we can make a reasonable effort to make it as safe as possible, if we start dying off like flies from drinking raw milk, well, we'll probably stop buying it. But I certainly think that you should approve this. And as I say, it's certainly not any more, it's not as dangerous as cigarettes and other things we eat and drink.
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
1:03:21
Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Froelich. Thank you for letting me talk. Representative Link, for what purpose? I have a motion, sir. What's your motion? In the interest of making sure we get to our session on time, and I know there's a lot of people signed up, but I think we should give them all a fair amount of time. I'd like to
see 20 minutes per side limit of debate. Okay, it's a proper motion. We do have a number of people signed up here. Motion to limit debate, 20 per side.
All those in favor, indicate by saying aye. Any opposed? Okay, 20 minutes aside, and I'll remind Representative Alexander, Senator Stubblefield, that your closing is part of the 20 minutes, so if there's not time remaining, there's not time remaining. Speaking against the bill, Mr. Glenn Baker. If
If you would, introduce yourselves, and you may make
Speaker 188
1:04:43
your comments. Yes, I'm Dr. Glenn Baker, Emeritus Professor of Pathology at UMS and Director of the Public Health Laboratory, and I wish to speak against this bill. One of the areas of my responsibility in the public health laboratory is to monitor the
milk laboratory that's charged with testing the milk that's delivered from the dairies. Many of the points that I wanted to make have already been made and answers given to the ill effects of raw milk, and some indicates the benefit of raw milk. There's a little question in my mind that drinking raw milk is risky. There's no question that pathogenic organisms are present in raw milk
and that they are removed or partially completely destroyed by pasteurization. It takes a certain number of organisms to produce disease. In other words, you can have a few organisms, pathogenic organisms, in a product and swallow it, and it won't produce disease. But if you have a heavier load, then it will affect disease. The issue is the monitoring of the product.
It's been discussed, the testing that's done for grade-A dairies. And in this laboratory, we test samples on a monthly basis that are brought to us from the farms. These samples are picked up by the members of the milk program brought to the laboratory. We test them for the numbers of bacteria present. We test for somatic cells, and there's been a lot of discussion of somatic cells. Those cells are exfoliated or dropped from the duct linings of the mammary glands in the cow
and is indicative of an infectious process or indicative of mastitis. That's the reason it's so important to monitor the cell count. We check for residual antibiotics, and that obviously doesn't produce an immediate disease, but I think all of us are well aware of the impact that consumption of low levels of antibiotics over a period of time does allow the production of resistant bacteria, and this product can do that, as can many other things.
We do test for residual antibiotics. We test for alpha-toxin. It's been alluded to. That's already been alluded to. As far as the specific carcinogenic effect, it is long-term. And, no, I personally am not aware of any specific cancer that is caused by aflatoxin. It's like so many other substances that are considered carcinogenic. And if one ingests low levels over a long period of time, one may develop a neoplasm. We check freezing points of the milk.
That's not been addressed to make sure that the milk hasn't been diluted. Those things are, that's a routine monitoring of the milk that's brought to this laboratory. This past year, there were, I think, 90-plus dairies, grade-A dairies in Arkansas at the present time. At least that's the number that I was given. There were 25 instances where the milk that we received was considered contaminated and the dairies were degraded.
Nineteen of those were due to the presence of residual antibiotics and or alpha toxin. The remainder are due to the presence of increased number of somatic cells or a high increase in the bacteria. I think the importance of that finding is that these samples came from grade A dairies that are highly regulated. The dairymen understand what their responsibilities are and what the requirements are for that milk to be processed. And in spite of that, there were 25 failures I worry about in the farmer who's not experienced in the regulatory requirements for grade-A milk, the frequency of which defects will occur, the frequency of which milk will be contaminated, have a high bacterial count, or have other positive findings.
That is a concern to me. The other concern I have is the health department is charged with, will be charged with developing a tracking program or an evaluation process for these dairies. And I quite honestly don't know how to do that yet. Everything we would do from a testing standpoint would be after the fact. The product probably would have already been consumed. So I don't know just exactly the impact that would have on the quality of the product.
It might have an effect on corrective action taken by the dairyman after the fact, but it certainly would be probably after consumption of the product. It's been mentioned several times about the frequency of infectious diseases or bacteria, bacterial contamination of food products, and we've all seen the lettuce, and we've all seen peanut butter, and we all know about tomatoes and jalapeno peppers. And I'll just point out that each time that is identified, those instances of infectious diseases caused by those products,
the source of the problem is identified, or at least we attempt to identify the source. That product is removed from the market, and efforts are made to correct the problem rather than expand it. In this particular instance, we're not controlling anything. We're allowing an expansion of a possibly contaminated product. So there's quite a bit of difference between vegetables and infection and the raw milk. Again, in every instance that I'm aware of when we had a contaminated vegetable,
the lettuce or the tomatoes, an effort was made to control that product from the marketplace and corrective action taken at the farm site. With raw milk, then that would not occur unless the health department had a strong program to monitor the product. The current budget for grade-A dairy, the 90 dairies, is in a range of $400,000. That is covered by fees paid by the grade-A dairies.
There are no state dollars. They self-fund the program. At least that's what I'm led to believe. I sit on the advisory committee of the grade-A dairy program. The testing component that we do for those single samples that are brought in is $152, and that's cost. That has no margin. That's our actual cost. So it wouldn't take long to calculate what the cost would be for a single farmer who wished to sell milk, raw milk.
If a regulatory rule was placed on them for periodic testing, it could be costly. We've projected that for 50 farmers, the cost would be in the range of a half million dollars, which would include the laboratory cost plus the evaluation by the sanitarians from the milk program. And I think that covers the issues that I wanted to address.
Many of the questions have already been asked and answered.
Robert Breck
Unverified
1:12:39
And I ask Mr. Brick if he has a. MR. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Robert Brick with the Department of Health. I'd like to address the issue revolving around the regulation of the program. The way the current bill is drafted, if you'll notice on page 2, line 22, it does say that the State Board of Health, and they make rules, but then it says recommend guidelines for the processing, packaging, bottling, storing, and transporting of whole milk for human consumption
that has not been pasteurized. And that would indicate to me that we could not enforce those. We could only simply recommend guidelines. Also, there's nothing in this bill that would allow for us to pass any of these fees along to these farmers who would want to sell these products. The legislature passed in the last session, Act 1159, that requires specific authority in legislation before a body can do it by rule, before we could implement fees against
somebody that we regulate. Without specific authority, we could not pass rules and pass these costs on to these farmers who want to sell this. So it would have to be made up, you know, from money, general revenues, I suppose, that all of us are paying. So we're looking at something where these people want the freedom to do this. They want the freedom to sell it. They want the freedom to ingest it. But they want all of us
Chair
Unverified
1:14:03
to pay for it. I'd be happy to take any questions you might have. Representative Meeks, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:14:11
Yeah, I had a question for the doctor. You know, obviously, pasteurization is a fairly modern invention. when it comes to milk. Can you go back and expound on some of the history? What were the main concerns, the health concerns involved with milk prior to pasteurization in the population? Back many
Speaker 188
1:14:35
years ago, it was primarily tuberculosis and brucellosis. And I admit I'm 82 years old, and I grew up drinking raw milk.
You know, I grew up on a small farm in Jackson County, and the cow was very important to us, and we were very careful how we treated that cow. We made sure they were clean and fed well, and fortunately none of us became ill. But basically the problem was tuberculosis and brucellosis, and now that we began to recognize other organisms, then the controls were put in place. When there's an outbreak, you identify the causative agent, and then you try to
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:15:14
regulate around that. Would it be fair with the tuberculosis and so forth that in the modern era
we've gotten a fairly good handle on those and they're not the issue that they were in past days and that that concern would not be as profound as it was
Speaker 188
1:15:32
when pasteurization first came into place? That is correct. It's the other organisms that's the problem, and one specifically that concerns me is the Escherichia coli. There's a particular strain, 157, that produces a toxin that destroys red cells. As the kidneys try to clear that debris, they fail. Some of these patients then go into renal failure and have to be placed on dialysis.
There may be some deaths associated with it. They're usually classified as acute renal failure rather than secondary to the dairy product. But that particular strain of E. coli is also present in many of the vegetables that are positive and has caused many of the deaths
Speaker 197
1:16:12
associated with lettuce and tomatoes and peanut butter and other food products. Okay. And kind of going to the
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:16:19
opposite end of the spectrum, obviously kind of one of the debates we've been having here is the risk.
We've also been told there are health benefits to drinking raw milk. Could you kind of go into some
Speaker 188
1:16:35
of those for us? or what do we know as far as that goes? As stated, there are two sides, obviously, and scientists on both sides disagree, just as it happens with attorneys and others. We all have our own thoughts. I personally have not seen solid peer-reviewed literature that would support significant nutritional enhancement
Speaker 194
1:16:59
by not pasteurizing. There certainly are more benefits than losses from the pasteurization. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Lenderman, you recognize for a question. Thank
Chair
Unverified
1:17:10
you. Doctor, you and I had a very lengthy discussion
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:17:15
about this two years ago, and I am delighted to see you here and in good health today. I hope things are well
in Greene County. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Two questions. One of them was about the testing of milk.
Could it be included in a requirement that milk be shipped or mailed some way effectively or efficiently that does not cost prohibitive for a producer to y'all's lab to be tested? It needs to
Speaker 197
1:17:45
be refrigerated. Otherwise, there will be an overgrowth of bacteria. So the
Speaker 188
1:17:50
testing that would be completed when it was received, as far as bacterial count was concerned, might not be accurate. It needs to be refrigerated. Okay.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:18:01
One other question, and Representative Meeks kind of hit on this. Representative Alexander, in his testimony, stated that two of the nations that have the greatest lifespan or life expectancy both allow the sale
Speaker 204
1:18:17
of raw milk on a regular basis. How would you refute
Speaker 188
1:18:24
that or answer that? I won't refute it. Probably raw milk may be a contributing factor. I suspect not. its lifestyle, failure to consume high-fat content, foods, other reasons, other social
Speaker 197
1:18:39
reasons and or physical reasons other than the milk itself. Okay. Thank
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:18:44
you. Thank you so much for being here today, sir. Thank
Chair
Unverified
1:18:48
you, Mr. Chair. Any other questions on the committee? Representative
Speaker 210
1:18:54
McGee, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Baker, I just have a couple of questions, and I've read through a lot of literature from the CDC on milk and milk products, and we've heard a lot of testimony this morning about different food sources causing illness.
You can get ill from drinking pasteurized milk, correct? But according to the CDC, with some of their information, based on the consumption, you're about 150 times more likely to become ill drinking non-pasteurized milk as opposed to pasteurized. That's correct. That's correct. The other thing I wanted to ask you is one of the things that we do with, that we haven't discussed here is vitamin D and supplementation in milk. And is milk one of the major sources of our vitamin D, of our pasteurized milk?
Speaker 197
1:19:43
Yes, that and sunshine and the vitamin D pills that we buy at the drugstore. Right,
Speaker 210
1:19:51
okay, okay. The only other question I had was do you have any data or know of any data at what group of individuals would be at more risk with non-pasteurized
Speaker 183
1:20:05
products? Well, the data from the CDC indicates that almost probably 80
Speaker 188
1:20:09
percent of those affected by raw milk are under 20 years of age.
So it's the youngsters, and the youngsters are more at risk. It takes very little nausea and vomiting and diarrhea to make a child dehydrated and require fluids and or hospitalization. So they are at higher risk than adults. Okay. So that would be
Speaker 210
1:20:32
why the American Academy of Pediatrics advised against their recommendation to be not giving non-pasteurized products to children. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative McGee.
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
1:20:46
Representative Ballinger. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate you guys coming and testifying. I just did some quick research, and I'm, you know, I'm no expert on
it, but according to CDC, and this may be, Representative Alexander may have stated this, from 1998 to 2011, there's been two deaths caused by raw milk products, so I don't know if that also includes cheese and other things, and this is just from your area of expertise, what would you say is the number of deaths maybe caused by too much consumption of soda pop?
Speaker 197
1:21:23
I don't know how to answer that. Well, I mean, dealing with obesity. It's a cause of obesity, and obesity, you know, has obese individuals have problems with diabetes and hypertension and increased cancer risk. So there are many factors associated
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
1:21:35
with that. So if that's the case, would it be better for the state to regulate something like the size of soda pops or, you know, Twinkies or something like that? I mean, would you say those things are probably worse health damage than raw milk?
Speaker 197
1:21:49
Perhaps I've really, you know, there's been an attempt in New York City to do just that.
Speaker 188
1:21:56
Whether we would tolerate such an invasion or not, I don't really know. We know milk is a problem. We've identified the problem with raw milk, and the attempt to correct that problem is through pasteurization. We haven't attempted to correct the
Speaker 194
1:22:11
problem by legislating the size of your big drink. Yeah. and I don't want to seem
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
1:22:18
like I'm trying to be rude or anything but it just to
me it seems like it kind of puts the thing in perspective what we're
dealing with it thank you all very much thank you there's little three minutes on the against side are there any other questions for this witness if not thank you mr. Baker dr. Baker we appreciate having you here thank you next witness we're going to
move over to the foreside mr. Chris Hayes to speak for the bill If you just have a seat at the end of the table.
I believe we've still got 20 minutes on the clock for
Speaker 225
1:23:04
the bill. I'll try not to use all that. Mr. Hayes, you are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I want to thank Mr. Alexander for bringing up such an important bill to all of us as our personal freedoms are involved with this. I've sit here and I've listened to the big dairies, our UAMS, and our health department tell about possibilities, this could happen, this may happen, things like this.
Yes, it may well. It's probably more likely to happen when you've got billions of gallons going through, and especially from out of state, that's another thing that concerns me, that we've got more milk coming in from out of state than we do right here in our state. When we buy locally, we help our local people. We send a child to Boy Scouts. We pay for our child's dance lessons. This is how we help our state. I heard something about less than 25% of our milk is actually in this state.
That concerns me greatly also. You know, if I go out here and I drink raw milk and I get sick, I'm going to go back to the guy that I got it from. He's probably going to be my next-door neighbor, something like that. I'm not going out here and trying to drive 50 miles or something to go find my milk. Even if I do, I'm still going to drive back if I get sick or if my family gets sick, just like I think anybody here would. Hey, you're not doing something right. You know, I've gotten sick off it. Yet no one has shown where anyone has died from raw milk.
Yeah, they've gotten sick. But good Lord, as has been stated, pizza and anything else you eat, Coca-Cola, aspartame, And just in the last couple of weeks, the FDA has approved a known brain-damaging thing of aspartame into our milk. Well, how are we going to know it's not in our milk? Because they don't have to list it as it's going in our milk.
So if I want to get raw milk, I want to be able to know what it's in. What's in there and what is in there is simple. It's living organisms that we all have to have for our bodies. It's a requirement for our bodies to have living organisms. We are a living organism. Why don't we trust? Let's put more trust in our local neighbors as opposed to trusting our CEOs who have a bottom line to their stockholders and things like this.
I'd be much more trusting to my neighbor. i've heard things about we have to pasteurize well you do have to pasteurize for shelf life for shelf life that's the main thing in my opinion we're doing this for along with i could give some other reasons but i won't go into the grotesqueness of that it's really that simple i would like i am for this bill i'm surprised that anybody could come out against it what i want to put in my body is a freedom of my own choice and i think every
American has the right to check his own body and know what he can and will and will not put in his body. So that is what I'm really advocating here is give me the chance to make my own decision. Give me a chance to make the decisions for my family when I investigate things and take the time to learn about these. That is the reason I've actually become for raw milk is because I have taken the time to look into it and I have found out that This is something that could really help a lot of people.
I want to thank the chair and the committee for the time, and thank you
for the consideration. Mr. Hayes, are you willing to take questions? I am. Are there any questions from the committee for Mr. Hayes? If not, thank you for coming, Mr. Hayes. We've got some other witnesses on the agenda. We don't have any more witnesses in the against column. We've got several for. The next witness, four. I'm sorry,
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:26:57
Mr. Representative Meeks. Mr. Chairman, just kind of looking around at my colleagues, It seems like most of us kind of know which way we're going to vote on
this. And so with the chair's indulgence, I would move for immediate consideration.
There's been a motion to limit debate. We might have to have a substitute motion. Let me check with the parliamentarian. You
can make a substitute motion. You're recognized for a substitute motion. You will need a second. Okay. I'll make a
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:27:31
substitute motion that we go ahead and have immediate consideration. Do we have a second on that motion? Second. We have a second.
That's non-debatable. We have a motion for immediate consideration, non-debatable. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? No. The no's have it. The next
witness we have is Mr. Ray Daly to speak for the bill.
Speaker 234
1:28:11
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, representatives. My name is
Ray Daly
Unverified
1:28:14
Ray Daly. I own Daly Dairy and Honeysuckle Lane Cheese. I'm the
Speaker 236
1:28:18
first and only raw milk cheese plant in Arkansas. The Health Department granted me this right eight years ago. I am certified under the Health Department. I'm grade A. All my milk that is used in cheese is tested on a regular basis. I have milk that is, I use approximately a fourth of my milk for cheese production. The rest of it goes to ADCA, which is a local co-op at Damascus.
That milk is then transferred to, well, out of state. As they said, less than 25% of our milk is being used. When I started in 1990, there was 893 dairies in the state of Arkansas. Now there's less than 100. I'm not saying to cut out the health department because I think they're a vital link in what we produce and to keep our dairies safe. I think they should be involved. I know some people are not going to agree with me, but I think they should be a grade A dairy. sell raw milk. They should be all the qualifications that I've been doing for 23 years and meet
those same standards that I have to do with my cheese. My cheese meets FDA regulations that I worked with the health department hand and foot when I started my operation. I didn't want to do anything on the side, and I wanted all their help where I didn't cross any lines. My cheese is taking the farmer's market, but like I said, therefore, it is packaged according of their regulations. It is stored according to their regulations. As far as the milk, by the proposal on this bill, it will be sold at the farm. My opinion, farmer's market is not a
place for it because you can't refrigerate, you can't maintain the milk like it should be at a farmer's market. I guess I'm looking at it as a financial standpoint, too. Like I said, I started 23 years ago. At one point, I was milking 175 head. I'm down to 25 cows now. I'm trying to make a living with what I can afford. I'm getting paid the same price of milk at ADCA as I was 23 years ago. My comparative costs are diesel fuel was 50 cents off-road fuel then.
I'm paying $200 or $365 a gallon for it. My feed is $1.25, $125 a ton. I'm paying $385 a ton for feed. my biggest thing is the government sets my pay price on what I sell to ADCA I just like to have a little effort to get a little bit of cost back to what I think I deserve and that's the reason why I did my cheese I'm regulating that price that's what I think I deserve the people that come to me and buy my cheese they think it's a fair price I've got a good product
I'm just asking for a little bit of leeway on selling a little bit of milk and follow all the regulations and everything I
can thank you Thank you. Representative Linderman, you're
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:31:08
recognized for a question. Just a real short question, and any dairyman, I guess,
could probably tell me this. What is the price you are being paid per gallon for the milk that goes to a
Speaker 236
1:31:18
processor at this point? We get paid per 100 weight. It's $18 on my last check, which is roughly, I'd say, about $1.25 a gallon.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
1:31:27
$18 a 100 weight, 12 gallons to 100, roughly? Roughly
Speaker 236
1:31:30
11 gallons and 100 weight, yes, sir. And if you stop and think, in 1990, milk was $1.50 a gallon in the grocery store. Now it's up to $4. I'm still receiving the same price. They didn't give me a raise. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 117
1:31:48
Chair. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you.
We have no more individuals signed up for the bill or against the bill, so we'll continue in the four category. And I'll remind those that Representative Alexander's closing time is part of this, is part of the time allowed. So there are 13 minutes remaining, and if he's to have any time remaining, just be mindful of the time.
Brandy McAllister. Ms. McAllister, you can take a seat at the end of
Brandy Mcallister
Unverified
1:32:44
the table and introduce yourself and then you may make your comments. All right, thank you. My name is Brandy McAllister. I'm here in a dual capacity, first as a consumer of raw milk and also as the chapter leader for the Weston A. Price Foundation here in Little Rock, which is also a nationwide advocate of raw
milk. And there were just a couple points that had been discussed here today that in my experience I wanted to clarify. Representative Ballinger, the two deaths that are on the CDC for raw milk consumption, they're actually, you are correct, related to raw cheese and not to actual consumption of raw milk. The E. coli in the milk, my understanding is the E. coli is shed from the cows who have the bacteria in their feces and is not inherent in the raw milk, but it
can come from the handling. I also wanted to address the inherent difference in large-scale dairies. I think that common sense has been mentioned here today versus a farmer where I buy my milk from, where you have a large-scale dairy that may have upwards of thousands of cows, and I think it's safe to say the farmer doesn't know those cows and doesn't, you know, interact with them where we get our milk from. That farmer knows the cow. They know their production. When anything's wrong with the cow, they see that decrease in the production. They
see the decrease in alertness in the animal, and they take care of that. And, again, I think it was mentioned as well, that those farmers are also drinking the milk. And I just think that when you have traditional food, which is raw milk, it's been around for thousands of years. And if it was so inherently dangerous, there either would be no people left or we would have quit drinking milk. And when we drink it in a non-traditional form in pasteurization, there is more danger to it. When you're getting your raw milk in the traditional way that it was
raised, small farms, individual farmers, one or two cows, and they have that close connection with the animal, I think that right there is where you see that, you know, a lot of that risk is eliminated because of that connection. And then just one other comment to the chair. You had asked earlier about the number of states. I can't speak to whether or not it's 35. I do know it's over a majority, but if you go to rawmilk.com, there's actually a map.
and it's color-coded in it it breaks it down between that rock how milk sales ragout milk sales grocery store sales insert it's got a accurate a bit of information and i do know that in this session that arkansas one of fifteen states and out of the those left you don't allow ron milk who is considering a bill of this similarity so thank you for allowing me to speak
Speaker 24
1:35:35
today thank you very much uh... Ms. McAllister,
are there any questions for Ms. McAllister?
If not, I think we have ten more minutes. Again, reminding everyone that some of that time would be Mr. Alexander's closing time. Next on the list, we have Mr. Lee Richardson to speak for the bill. Excuse me. Mr. Richmond, if you just have
a seat at the end of the table, introduce yourself. You're
Speaker 241
1:36:13
recognized. I'd like to thank the chairman. I'd like to thank Representative Alexander for putting this bill forth.
I'm a chef by trade. I moved to Arkansas seven years ago from New Orleans, one of the greatest food towns in the world. And I moved here because of the opportunities of Arkansas's small local farms and the foods that they are able to provide. When I first was presented the idea of coming to Arkansas, I thought, you've got to be out of your mind to go and be a chef. But like I said, when I came here and I saw what I found, I found what I saw, I knew that
it was a great thing to do. Arkansas to the rest of the country in a Food Network world doesn't really exist. But I believe that it could. And at the Capitol Hotel, and I have made a choice to stay here in Arkansas to promote the foods that it's able to produce and to curate its food culture. And what I've seen happen with the farmers' markets and the interest that our people have
in local foods and getting to know the farmers has been extraordinary. I've watched foods become available and then become vaporized as the market rose to meet the supply, and they would disappear, and then they would come back again. And while it's a relatively small impact in the grand scheme of economic things, what I focus on is that niche market.
And while I don't believe that the raw milk should necessarily be sold in the farmer's markets, I think it's a very important part of the relationship that I have with my customers that have also a relationship with my farmers. I take my daughter out to a farm and pick up raw milk. She gets to play with the pigs. She stays connected to where our food comes from, and since I have pursued this in Arkansas,
I have been named by Food & Wine magazine the best regional chef of 2011, oddly, for the Midwest. that was ten states in an invisible place like Arkansas in the food world, I was able to get that. I've been nominated by the James Beard Foundation six years in a row for the work that I've been doing in promoting and celebrating Arkansas food products. And in order to continue to grow this small niche sense of community, I think it's very
important that we allow people the option to go to a farm and purchase milk for their families. In terms of the dangers and health problems of raw milk and spoilage, what's funny about that is that raw milk doesn't necessarily spoil. Okay? We can't put an expiration date on it because we can't calculate when it's going to go bad. We can do that with
pasteurized milk. Raw milk sours and nobody wants to drink it because it tastes sour and that's kind of a nuisance. But I'm willing to go to the farm every week. My milk in four or five months has never gone sour on a weekly purchase. When I buy it, I put a jar of it on the counter at room temperature for three days before I ever put it in the refrigerator so that it sours, and the cream that rises to the top becomes like sour cream, and the
separated whey that's left can last in the refrigerator for months, except that I put it in pancakes and waffles long before months go by. In terms of a retail impact, I really don't think this is a big threat to the dairy industry. This is going to open up sales of milk that are not already taking place. This is not going to be milk, in many cases, that is already going to the dairy industry.
Raw milk producing cow that somebody's going to want to go buy more than once is going to be grass-fed. These are totally different, probably different breeds of animals. This offers us an opportunity to preserve heritage livestock breeds. And because think about your wives and your children. I mean, you worry about what you eat when you're breastfeeding your children, okay? You've got cows being fed on grain.
You've got cows being fed on grass. So they're going to produce two totally different things. And what's important here is that we need both sides of the industry, okay? We cannot exist only with small, tiny farms, and we cannot exist only with huge production. Sour milk is what most cultures ate for centuries. Actually, the Western world are some of the only people that can really tolerate lactose.
But when milk boils or goes sour, the lactose is changed, is converted to lactic acid, which allows people to digest it. My wife can drink that. She can't drink milk that's been pasteurized. So the people that are going to buy the raw milk are not the same people. You still need, for some certain reasons, that shelf life. And in a big city situation, there's just no way.
There's no access to this kind of abundance of small family farms that are close to the cities like we have in Arkansas. We need both. Okay. And the last thing I'll say is, in my opinion, in terms of the financial impact of allowing this to go through, I really don't think it costs anything. When you have one individual buying from one individual at a farm, there's no need for a bunch of regulation. There's no need for any regulation at all. They put something on the thing that says it's raw, it's raw.
It's like raw oysters. Louisiana's doing pretty good on promoting raw oysters. We have an opportunity to matter or not. I think I'll close and allow some time
Speaker 244
1:42:59
for Representative Alexander. Thank you very much for hearing me. Thank you, Chef Richardson.
and pleasure to have you in committee members and public we've got exactly four minutes left we've still got five people signed up to speak for the bill and they have the right to do that i'm sorry representative alexander they certainly have the right to pass over too so i'm going to
call the names and if you all wish to pass over and let representative alexander close you can and if you
want to speak you're signed up so you're entitled to where we start here the next witness to speak for is Phil Calvert I'm sorry Paul
Calvert thank you Mr. Calvert then we have Peyton Rose I'm sorry Diane Lofness thank you Ms. Lofness Billy Joe Grace and finally Benita Clifton
okay we have Just a little bit less than four minutes in total, including Mr. Alexander's closing. You're recognized. I'm
Speaker 248
1:44:14
from Greenbrier, Arkansas, and I have heard a whole lot today about the cow industry. Well, not everybody has cows. I have goats.
And I sell my milk. But long before I started selling my milk to other people, I used it myself. And there were health reasons for that. Now, I have nothing against raw cow's milk. I was raised on it myself. And we won't go into that because there's not enough time. But I certainly don't see anything wrong with me. I'm 60 years old, and I'm just as healthy as I can be. And I want to ask you all something. Have you all ever considered that when a woman makes the choice of breastfeeding or bottle feeding her baby? Ms. Clifton,
I don't mean to interrupt you, but you've got to speak on the bill.
This bill just deals with dairy milk from cows, so I don't want to get off
Speaker 251
1:45:01
on a tangent here. No, sir, it does not. It is raw milk, period.
Speaker 252
1:45:07
That means sheep, goat, cow, it's still all raw milk, just as a mother's breast
milk is. I stand corrected,
Speaker 248
1:45:29
bill because i believe everyone has the right to make their
own choices about their own body and what they will put into it i raise a garden i raise goats i milk them i sell my milk i see nothing wrong with that whether it's cow goat or whatever it is. The rest of the time, I will leave to y'all. My only concern with this bill is the health department, because I will not have anyone trampling diseases into my barn. Thank
Speaker 256
1:45:56
you. Thank you, Ms. Clifton. Very effective.
We have exactly two minutes, and I believe
we still have one witness, although she may wish to defer. Ms. Hawn. Ms.
Sherry Hawn. Thank Ms. Hawn, and Representative Alexander, you've got two minutes to close for your bill.
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
1:46:17
You're recognized. Thank you, sir. I want to say quickly that I just learned from Senator Stubblefield that there are kits available that you can get to test your milk at home. I apologize to all of you who came to speak that we're not able to. I
begin my comments by stating that one of the primary questions on this issue was whether or not consuming raw milk presented an unacceptable health risk to our citizens.
I'm convinced that it clearly does not, but again, there are experts on both sides of the issue. But safety is not the only question, or in my mind, even the most important question that we have to consider here. The most important question to me is a freedom question. This is a liberty issue. You've heard testimony from many of our fellow citizens today. We're all citizens of the greatest nation on earth, great because our laws are derived from Scripture and our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are endowed to us by God, not granted to us by government.
Our nation has strayed from that original and wildly successful vision over the past few decades. Our government now tells us what kind of light bulbs we have to purchase, how much water can be flushed in our toilet, and until this past week when it was overturned in court, the citizens of New York were told how large a soft drink they could buy. In Arkansas, we're also told that we cannot sell raw milk, perhaps the
most natural and healthy food that God's provided for our use. In my view, diluting the God-given freedom of our people is what constitutes an unacceptable risk.
That erosion of our rights is a clear and present danger to our citizens and even to our way of life. I'd like to ask those of you who came to speak on behalf of raw milk to stand up. I know you didn't all get to speak. Fellow representatives, these are some of the citizens that you represent. Look at them. They're adults. Because of their interests and lifestyles, they probably have done more research into this topic than most others in this room have done. It is
quite likely they know a lot more about a healthy diet
than does the average citizen of this state. Representative,
I don't want to cut you off, but your time's expired. And as you know, we have one sentence left. I'll let you finish your
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
1:48:32
sentence. These people are successful in a variety of disciplines and fields. They're competent to make food decisions for themselves, their children, and their grandchildren. They deserve their government's respect in allowing them to do so. Thank you, and I ask for a good vote. Thank you, Representative Alexander.
Speaker 261
1:48:55
We have... Let me see, where's the...
I can't find the bill. Members, House Bill 1536 is before
us. What's the pleasure of the committee? We have a motion from Representative Ballinger. Any discussion? If not, the question before the committee is House Bill
1536. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? No. The ayes haven't.
we have a roll call requested representative Ballinger does he have a second representative Meeks we have a roll call requested please please call the roll Mr. Chairman question
Speaker 246
1:49:52
to the chairman I'll do my best Representative McCreary If he made
Representative Walls McCrary
Unverified
1:49:55
the roll call on the wrong side and we assume that he really wanted one now, he removes it, can we have a roll call?
Speaker 246
1:50:02
The chair saw at least three hands for a roll call, so I'm going
Speaker 265
1:50:12
to call the roll on both sides. Thank you, sir. Representative Ballinger. Yes. Representative Branscombe. Yes. Representative Charlotte Douglas. Yes. Representative Dan Douglas Representative John Edwards Representative Edwards
Representative Eubanks Representative Gillum Representative Gene Representative Jett Representative Lamkin Representative Letting Representative Linderman Representative Link
Representative McGee Representative McCrary Representative Meeks Representative Ratliff Representative Thompson So, Representative Alexander, your bill has failed
Is there any other business before the committee? If not, without objection, we're adjourned.
Agenda
HB1536
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd Chair
Unverified
Representative Randy Alexander
Unverified
Speaker 12
Chair
Unverified
Representative Walls McCrary
Unverified
Speaker 21
Speaker 22
Representative Nate Steel Chair
Unverified
Speaker 29
Speaker 39
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
Speaker 50
Representative Tommy Thompson
Unverified
Speaker 62
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
Speaker 76
Speaker 3
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Representative Bob Ballinger
Unverified
Speaker 99
Speaker 103
Speaker 72
Speaker 112
Speaker 113
Speaker 114
Speaker 121
Mike Flag
Unverified
Speaker 123
Speaker 126
Speaker 128
Speaker 119
Speaker 135
Speaker 141
Speaker 125
Speaker 150
Speaker 159
Speaker 162
Speaker 163
Speaker 155
Speaker 140
Speaker 172
Larry Froelich
Unverified
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
Speaker 187
Speaker 188
Robert Breck
Unverified
Speaker 197
Speaker 194
Speaker 204
Speaker 210
Speaker 183
Speaker 212
Speaker 225
Speaker 234
Ray Daly
Unverified
Speaker 236
Speaker 117
Brandy Mcallister
Unverified
Speaker 24
Speaker 241
Speaker 244
Speaker 248
Speaker 251
Speaker 252
Speaker 255
Speaker 253
Speaker 256
Speaker 261
Speaker 246
Speaker 265