Letter to the editor: Amos Miller situation unacceptable abuse of legal system

The latest report on long-standing infringing raw milk seller Amos Miller illustrates at least two costs associated with allowing litigants to abuse legal process: 1. It purports to allow illegal interstate commerce in a prohibited dangerous product, raw milk. 2. Perhaps even more problematic, it makes a mockery of public health laws and government enforcement efforts to enforce them, as courts have given second, third, and fifth chances to persistent violators.

I hope that the USDA (and the FDA, if within its jurisdiction) will immediately enforce the previous judicial recognition that this interstate traffic is illegal and dangerous to public health. Like other national examples of persistent and notorious offenders and lenient procedures, this reduces public confidence in our claim to be a nation of laws.

I hope that federal judges will not continue to tolerate Miller’s illegal interstate shipments of regulated products, and will reassure the consuming public and legal participants in the dairy and food industries that the law matters, and that defiant violators cannot exempt themselves from the law because of their perseverance.