Minnesota Dairy Plays with Fire, Gets Burned by E. Coli

A Star-Tribune article this morning indulges in a little muckraking about Hartmann Dairy, the milk operation that Minnesota Health Department Officials suspect of selling tainted raw milk.

Michael Hartmann, whose dairy is just outside this town of 800 people [Gibbon, MN], last had a license to sell Grade A milk in 2001. He has kicked inspectors off his property, refused to tell a judge his name in court and asserted he is a “natural man” with a constitutional right to raise and sell food without government interference.

The writers go on to delineate what they call Hartmann’s anti-government actions. 

In 1993, Hartmann refused to let animal health officials test his swine for pseudo rabies and was fined $450. Court papers say the Hartmanns sold uninspected meat as early as 1998. And in 2001, the dairy’s license to sell Grade A milk was revoked after state inspectors discovered unsanitary conditions, including chickens roaming and defecating in the milking parlor, according to the state Agriculture Department.

The epid struggle with Big Government continues…

In 2002, McLeod County prosecutors charged the Hartmanns with selling uninspected ground beef, pork chops and other meat out of a van in Hutchinson. Michael Hartmann refused to be fingerprinted, wouldn’t give his name to a judge in court and instead demanded that someone “show me the bond,” said Assistant County Attorney Amy Olson.

A judge threw Hartmann in jail for four days, but the legal battle lasted another three years and went to the state Supreme Court. The couple succeeded in getting one charge dropped, but their conviction on the central charge — selling uninspected meat — was upheld.

Being anti-government or a rebel, per se, isn’t the problem, here. Playing with fire and showing a disregard for public health is. Mr. Hartmann has apparently forgotten that “government interference” is really “consumer protection,” and his ego battle with Big Brother is secondary to that, whether he knows it or not. Selling raw milk? Fine with me, personally. Selling meat out of a van? No problem. Refusing to be inspected and then selling your uninspected product? Sorry. That shows contempt for the customer, who relies on third-party inspection to insure a level of safety and make a decent choice about their food.

Unsurprisingly, the food-safety boomerang seems to have circled home with four E. coli infections hitting Hartmann Dairy.

State officials said Thursday that the investigation of [Hartmann's] dairy is continuing but said they have little doubt it produced the raw milk containing a deadly strain of E. coli.

“I am concerned that we are going to hear about more cases,” said Dr. Kirk Smith, supervisor of state Health Department foodborne disease investigations. It often takes up to two weeks for cases to surface, he added.

It’s bad enough that E. coli has been traced to your raw milk, and that people are hurting and hospitalized as a result, but you do not want Dr. Kirk Smith on your case. Minnesota Department of Health’s disease detectives are nationally reknowned, after all, and Smith is the Sherlock Holmes of that Scotland Yard, solving The Case of the Slimy Pepper, The Case of the Funky Chicken, and The Case of the Sam’s Club Crapburger — all within the last few  years.

I’m telling you, dueling with Dr. Smith is a confrontation with government that you will not win.