[This diary, as will be apparent, was written by a large number of people working together, and is based on work by many others around the world. This issue is generating efforts by more and more people and has led to a coming together of groups across farming, food, health, families, anti-GMOs, anti-pesticides, justice, indigenous peoples, etc.]
To begin with a reminder. Food Democracy Now put this out as an alert: Michael Taylor, Monsanto executive and lawyer, the guy who ran the FDA under Clinton and gave us rBGH and genetically engineered food, is waiting to run "food safety" from an office inside the White House.
http://www.postcarbon.org/...
All else, no matter how awful (and it is all truly and dangerously awful), becomes trivial detail after the above is understood and the implications taken in.
Abject dependence for food is the Kissinger plan - "control food, control people" - and it is what has been done to Iraq, http://www.uruknet.de/...
Normal seed varieties are disappearing from the EU because of standards imposed there (all seeds much be on a registry which it costs thousands and thousands of pounds to get onto so farmers cannot afford get their normal seeds onto it, so the great variety of seeds that are critical to protect for all of us, are not legal to sell and their survival is threatened now.)
Here is a small piece of what someone sent, seeing it on the Crooks and Liars. It's almost a joke in its stupidity but serious in how badly it misleads people who are concerned.
There is no language in HR 875 that would regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens or ‘criminalize’ gardeners; the bill focuses on ensuring the safety of food in interstate commerce.
Of course not. Did George W. Bush say he was taking over Iraq for the oil? How dumb do we think they are? And how truly dumb of us to think they would "say" what they are doing. It is all slyly done, and those places are covered under regulations involving anyone "holding" or "transporting" of food.
In addition, the bill defines all of us, not just farmers, as engaging in interstate commerce.
"Farmer’s markets would not be regulated, fined, or shut down, and would, in fact, benefit from strict safety standards applied to imported food to ensure that unsafe imported food doesn’t compete with locally grown produce."
Imported food can be exempted.
Read the bill. Stop asking organizations to interpret it for you. They appear to be lousy at it, to have little understanding of laws that must be seen in relation to it, to realize the words there which has harmless lay meaning come with legal definitions that are significant. Or they may have agendas you don't know about.
This article was written to lay the bill open, to relate innocuous looking passages to existing law that make it clear those passages are saying something other than a surface interpretation would give, so it is possible to see what they can actually cover. What looks benign is not.
http://www.opednews.com/...
"Strict safety standards" (written by whom? governed by whom? for whose benefit? with what impact already in the EU? for what purpose?) will apply to Americans and our farms, farmers markets, gardens, etc.
In fact, insidious damage to our ability to raise organic food - using exactly "strict safety standards" - has already begun. It is happening to THE most essential piece of equipment for sustainable agriculture - seed cleaning equipment, which allows for the collection of normal seed versus being dependent on only genetically engineered seeds.
This year, 2009, standard seed cleaning equipment, used for decades with no problems of any kind, is now illegal for farmers (in some parts of the country so far) to use. This year they must meet "strict safety standards" imposed by the FDA over seeds - which have just now suddenly been redefined as "food"), and that would require them to purchase a a million to a million and half dollar building and equipment - to clean each type of seed. Seeds cleaned on the normal equipment is illegal for farmers to sell.
As this is applied across the country, organic seed and heritage seed supplies will start disappearing. And obviously, this inability to sell seed will destroy some farmers who raise seed specifically and seed companies.
Then, the government need only apply the same "strict standard" to "storage facilities" and require million dollar facilities (or higher) for anyone storing seeds (and "sorting" and "storing" are both listed in HR 875), and that is the quiet and simple end of all seed banks, seed exchanges, and our own private holding of seed, without anyone ever having had to mention criminalizing a thing. Just "food safety."
In fact, in the bill, they never mention seed at all.
These "food safety" standards, applied suddenly to seeds, and coming out of the FDA where Monsanto has had huge influence and announced at the ASTA (American Seed Trade Association) which Monsanto runs,
http://www.opednews.com/...
comes on top of Monsanto buying up seed companies across the country and around the world, and attacking the people who do the seed cleaning.
Meanwhile, Monsanto is aggressively taking control of seeds worldwide.
http://www.seedalliance.org/...
Here is a time line of their take over of seeds.
http://www.historycommons.org/...
And they own terminator technology, which is a means of making sure no one can grow seed from seeds they purchase, so this would limit seed production to only labs.
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.ne...
Here is a limited view of the multiple ways Monsanto is putting normal seeds out of reach.
http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash....
Food and Water Watch supports HR 875 and put out a list of things they say are not in the bill, saying they wanted to counter "myths" and "rumors" on the internet that the bill would criminalize organic farming and take over seeds. They give no specifics to back up their "facts," so people broke the bill apart, added legal help in understanding it, and commentary to offer any reader a chance to decide for themselves what is myth and what is fact. http://www.opednews.com/...
Given how peculiar FWW's position is on a bill that that farming communities across the country are desperately trying to stop, it might be useful to look into who funds FWW. Farmers are clearly right to say the bill and the companions ones are terrible since for them since we only need look across the Atlanta to see that "harmonized" bills (turned into laws) in Europe are wiping out farmers there.
http://www.iht.com/...
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/...
I explained to the attendant body that in a Country where 22 percent of the working population are involved in agriculture, and the majority on small farms, it would not be a good idea to follow the same regime as had been operated in the UK and other EU member countries, in which ‘restructuring’ agriculture had involved throwing the best farmers off the land and amalgamating their farms into large scale monocultural operations designed to supply the predatory supermarket chains. You could have heard a pin drop.
After clearing her throat and leaning slowly forward, the chair-lady said: “I don't think you understand what EU policy is. Our objective is to ensure that farmers receive the same salary parity as white collar workers in the cities. The only way to achieve this is by restructuring and modernising old fashioned Polish farms to enable them to compete with other countries agricultural economies and the global market. To do this it will be necessary to shift around one million farmers off the land and encourage them to take city and service industry jobs to improve their economic position. The remaining farms will be made competitive with their counterparts in western Europe.”
There in a nutshell you have the whole tragic story of the clinically instigated demise of European farming over the past three decades. We protested that with unemployment running at 20 percent how would one provide jobs for another million farmers dumped on the streets of Warsaw? This was greeted with a stony silence, eventually broken by a lady from Portugal, who rather quietly remarked that since Portugal joined the European Union, 60 percent of small farmers had already left the land. “The European Union is simply not interested in small farms,” she said.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/...
As to "food safety," the bills in Congress actually lower national food safety standards here. This follows HACCP which Bill Clinton pushed and which is also tied to Monsanto and which also lowered standards, centralizing control over food, substituting regulations and monumental paper work for on the ground inspection, and wiping out, just in Kansas, 72 local meat processors who'd never had any problems.
Carol Tucker Foreman's return to the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) to become director of a new Food Policy Institute for CFA after having been an outspoken lobbyist on behalf of Monsanto's rBGH not only illustrates what can and often does frequently happen to ex-Washington liberals, but also calls into question whether some self-proclaimed consumer organizations now see their constituencies as consumers or corporations. ...
"Carol Foreman," [Rod Leonard, long-time consumer activist and current executive director of the Community Nutrition Institute] writes, "a newly minted Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, approved that year a change in food safety procedures that would have far reaching consequences. Foreman, one of only a few consumer advocates to reach so high a federal post, decided that poultry visibly smeared with fecal matter could be safely eaten after the feces was washed away. ...
Thus, seemingly innocuous public health decisions have far reaching consequences not evident until long after. Easing food safety standards a generation ago began a deterioration in the nation's food safety shield today that is a public scandal. And, bacteria swiftly become resistant to antibiotics when drugs are licensed as feed additives, creating a public health crisis that is just now unfolding.
"Reviewing past mistakes has more than passing historical interest," Leonard notes, "Foreman is now revisiting the public interest scene as a newly minted consumer advocate, having recently announced her retirement as a Washington lobbyist for various corporate interests, including Monsanto, a corporation that is building its stock value through manipulating genes to make genetically modified foods as well as public policy on food safety, i.e., lobbying." ...
"There is no mystery here," he declares."Over the past six years, even while representing Monsanto and other corporate clients, Foreman has been one of the most vociferous supporters of Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Program (HACCP), an awkward acronym for a program to deregulate food safety.
"The major reason for Foreman's renewed interest in food safety, however, is contained in her explanation for returning to CFA, i.e., she will seek to develop policies `that assure food safety in a global economy.' HACCP is the keystone of President Clinton's globalization strategy to restrict the ability of Congress and of citizens at risk of health to make food safety a political, or policy issue."
http://www.organicconsumers.org/...
Reading about HACCP will help you see how much it is key to much of the food safety problems we find in industrial settings and key to understanding what the bills in Congress are about. The dropping of food safety standards allows for a globalization of lower standards that the benefit of multinationals, easing their import and export of anything - Chinese food, diseases animals from south of here, owned by JBS Swift, the largest cattle/beef operation in the world.
This is material offered by a reader/researcher on HACCP:
"Showing how and why "the so-called precautionary principle" is abandoned and the new improved " globally harmonized, science-based safety assessments" gave us the new HACCP system.
- [international HACCP]
http://www.fao.org/...
- [WTO drives acceptance of science based HACCP] http://www.oie.int/...
- [USDA then implements HACCP]
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/...
All courtesy of IPC. IPC's push for international standards is very clear in the speech written by IPC member Bernard Auxenfans as he lambasts the EU for banning GMOs. Bernard Auxenfans is a former Chief Operating Officer, Monsanto Global Agricultural Company and Past Chairman of Monsanto Europe S.A"
http://www.ifama.org/...
http://www.zoominfo.com/...
And how has HAACP worked?
Testimony of Mr. Stan Painter, Chairman, National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals:
“It [the recall of Hallmark/Westland Meat] highlights one of the problems that we have attempted to raise with the agency ever since 1996 when the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) inspection system was put in place. There seems to be too much reliance on an honor system for the industry to police itself. While the USDA investigation is still on going at Hallmark/Westland, a couple of facts have emerged that point to a system that can be gamed by those who want to break the law. It [HACCP] shifted the responsibility for food safety over to the companies.”.
http://www.familyfarmdefenders.org/...
Freedom of Information Act was initiated on Mr. Painter's behalf.”Over 1000 non-compliance reports – weighing some 16 pounds -- were turned over” http://domesticpolicy.oversight.hous...
"The U.S.D.A. had looked into Mr. Painter's allegations about regulations not being enforced, and found no evidence to support his claims, said Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the Food Safety Inspection Service."
http://meatprocessing.net/...
How did the USDA respond to its inspectors saying they were being intimidated?
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture denied accusations made by Stan Painter to a congressional committee April 17 that the U.S.D.A. tried to intimidate him and other inspectors who reported regulatory violations. Mr. Painter is an inspector and chairman of American Federation of Government Employees’ National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, which represents 6,000 federal food inspectors.
He said that following a bovine spongiform encephalopathy scare in 2003, he told superiors that new food-safety regulations for slaughtered cattle were not being uniformly enforced. Mr. Painter said he was told to drop the matter. But when he didn't, he "was grilled by department officials and then placed on disciplinary investigative status."
Although eventually exonerated, Mr. Painter said the incident "has caused a chilling effect on others within my bargaining unit to come forward and stand up when agency management is wrong." He added that supervisors tell workers to "let the system work" rather than cite slaughterhouses for violations.
There was a lawsuit, filed April 8, 2008, on behalf of the meat and poultry inspectors.
AFGE Council 45 supports the thousands of dedicated Food & Consumer Safety Inspectors working on the front lines of the meat, poultry, and egg products industries, usually under unsafe conditions, and safeguarding the American food supply.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulation that requires federal food inspectors to merely monitor plant records rather than inspect the food Americans eat is being challenged in court by AFGE.
The lawsuit, filed April 8 on behalf of the meat and poultry inspectors AFGE represents, seeks to halt USDA's implementation of a rule that in effect deregulates the critical post-mortem inspection of meat and poultry carcasses and instead relies on an industry "honor system." "The meat and poultry industry should assume more responsibility for its products but not at the cost of eliminating vital hands-on inspections by qualified government inspectors," emphasized Delmer Jones, head of AFGE's National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals and a 39-year veteran meat and poultry inspector. ...
"This is a backdoor attempt to change administratively what Congress would never consider changing legislatively--severely weakening the entire meat and poultry inspection process," National President Bobby L. Harnage pointed out. "We're not about to sit back and watch while USDA abdicates its responsibilities to American consumers."
http://www.afge.com/...
Farmers are arguing for the exactly the same thing the inspectors are - more hands on inspection and an end to paperwork as a substitute. In fact, farmers have even sued the USDA to get inspections carried out and lost in court.
http://www.animallaw.info/...
Farmers want the government to go back to inspecting. They want them putting money there, and not into redundant, expensive, already-failed (see Australia) global tracking surveillance systems that do nothing whatever to address the industrial source of the problems, but threaten farmers' survival,
http://www.organicconsumers.org/...
and not into endless choking regulations, warrantless searches, seizures, destruction of farmers' crops, animals and equipment (embedded in Homeland Security, coming out of the Patriot Act, and being set for "animal depopulation" practices with the USDA in June, http://www.opednews.com/...
Farmers want not a dime more put into destroying them (such as bonuses to USDA agents for foreclosing on farms https://www.prbuzz.com/...
who are the only clean part of our food system, and are no part of this industrial scandal.
As to Monsanto's interest in any of this, look again at what has already gone on in Europe:
The so-called global food economy is in reality the instrument of a relatively small number of very wealthy transnational corporations. It is a small club that nevertheless harbours very big ambitions. One of its members is Monsanto (USA), whose recent marriage with the Cargill corporation makes it the biggest seed and agrichemical merchant in the world. Poland has been on the radar screen of Monsanto corporation as well as fellow seed operatives Dupont, Pioneer and Syngenta for some time now. However, in 2004, the same year that Poland joined the EU, Monsanto started a major lobbying drive on senior figures in the Polish government for a relaxation of national GMO precautionary laws and a government commitment to supporting the development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a symbol of the modernisation of traditional Polish farming.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/...
Perhaps in answering the question of Monsanto's connection to these bills as well as to DeLauro's husband, the following information might be helpful.
Anne Veneman, a Monsanto counsel, proposed NAIS which is a portion of the anti-"food safety" bills when she was head of the USDA under Bush the first,
http://www.sheepusa.org/...
and she works at the WTO where Monsanto has other members as well. We can assume that the WTO contributed to shaping these bills because they are "harmonized" with the EU as part of a global corporate strategy and pushed by the WTO. I believe the "best farming practices" in the bills come out of the WTO.
Michael Taylor, a Monsanto lawyer and executive (at times) according to a Food Democracy Now alert, is waiting to run "food safety" from inside the White House. And others are aware of this as well. http://www.postcarbon.org/...
DeLauro introduced the bills. No one is denying that. But there are denials that her husband, Stanley Greenberg, works for Monsanto, though Greenberg lists Monsanto as a client.
http://www.gqrr.com/...
But for those who believe he only worked with them 10 years ago and they are not in contact now, and that such corporate relationships do not continue, the time frame for the WTO involvement for the sake of its global corporate members, makes it irrelevant what contact Monsanto and Greenburg may have now.
The following research was sent in by a reader:
The World Trade Organization time frame is over 15 years. HR 875 (one of the many "food safety" bills raining down on Congress) is not some idea that sprang full blown from Rosa Delauro's head in 2009. This has been in the planning since before 1995 so Greenberg WAS employed by Monsanto during the time span in question!!!. Monsanto has been in the thick of it the whole time. (IPC was formed in 1987 so the ideas behind HR 875 go back that far).
"One of the most influential in creating the WTO in the first place was an organization called the IPC or the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council or International Policy Council, for short.
The IPC was created in 1987 explicitly to drive home the GATT agriculture rules of WTO at Uruguay talks. The IPC demands removal of ‘high tariff’ barriers in developing countries, [though] remaining silent on the massive government subsidy to agribusiness in the USA.
A look at the IPC membership will explain what interests it represents.
The Chairman is Robert Thompson, former Assistant Secretary US Department of Agriculture and former Presidential economic adviser.
Also included in the IPC are:
Bernard Auxenfans, former chairman Monsanto France;
Allen Andreas of ADM/Toepfer;
Andrew Burke, Bunge (US);
Dale Hathaway former USDA official and head IFPRI (US).
Heinz Imhof, chairman of Syngenta (CH)
Rob Johnson of Cargill (US) and USDA Agriculture Policy Advisory Council;
Guy Legras (France) former EU Director General Agriculture,
Rolf Moehler (Germany) former EU Director General Agriculture
Donald Nelson of Kraft Foods (US);
Joe O’Mara of USDA,
Hiroshi Shiraiwa of Mitsui & Co Japan;
Jim Starkey former US Trade Representative Assistant;
Hans Joehr, Nestle head of agriculture;
Jerry Steiner, Monsanto (US).
And Members Emeritus include Ann Veneman, herself a board member of a Monsanto subsidiary company before she became US Secretary of Agriculture for George W. Bush in 2001.
In effect the IPC is run by US-based agribusiness giants including Cargill, Monsanto, Bunge, ADM, the very interests which benefit from the rules they drafted for WTO trade.
http://www.publiceyeonscience.ch/...
Ann Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, http://en.wikipedia.org/...
serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
In reflecting on Veneman's record, Meatnews wrote that she "played a key role in eliminating trade barriers and expanding opportunities for American farmers through new export markets. She has worked closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, helping lead to the successful launch of a new round of trade negotiations for the World Trade Organization.
Ann Veneman served on the board of directors for Calgene Inc. In 1994, Calgene became the first company to bring genetically-engineered food, the Flavr Savr tomato, to supermarket shelves. Calgene was bought out by Monsanto, the nation's leading biotech company, in 1997. Monsanto, in turn, became part of pharmaceutical company Pharmacia in 2000. Monsanto, which donated more than $12,000 to George Bush's presidential bid, wants two things this year: no mandatory labeling of biotech foods and better access to international markets. Veneman also served on the International Policy Council on Agriculture, Food and Trade, a group funded by Cargill, Nestle, Kraft, and Archer Daniels Midland. [4]
In 2000, Democrat Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, introduced a bill that would block further agribusiness mergers. It was defeated by a well-financed lobbying effort of the AFBF. The President of the AFBF, Bob Stallman, is a close friend of President George Bush, named by Bush to serve on the Texas State Committee on Property Tax Relief, and he advised Congress on the 1996 agriculture bill that served agribusiness. His Texas friend Bush in 2001, named him to the US Government’s Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee for Trade (APAC), advising the USDA and Trade Representative on agriculture policy. The APAC is an NGO whose meetings are closed and entry requires security clearance! So much for transparent government. Stallman also sits on the main US State Department advisory panel on economic issues, ACIEP.
http://www.publiceyeonscience.ch/...
The WTO today is nothing more than the global policeman for the powerful GMO lobby and the agribusiness firms tied to it.
Robert Shapiro was chair of Monsanto while also leading the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. Mickey Kantor, US trade representative (USTR) for much of the Uruguay Round, subsequently became a Monsanto board member. Marcia Hale, a former assistant to President Clinton and director for intergovernmental affairs, was director of international government affairs for Monsanto. Clayton K. Yeutter, a former secretary of agriculture and US trade representative, who led the US team in negotiating NAFTA and helped launch the GATT Uruguay Round, joined the board of directors at Mycogen Corporation. Mycogen’s majority owner is Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company.6 The web of interconnections between industry and successive US administrations’ trade negotiators ensures that private (often monopoly) interests will trump those of people and the planet.
... former Cargill Vice-President, Dan Amstutz was the negotiator appointed to head the delegation, “...who drafted the original text of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. Opening Southern markets and converting peasant agriculture to corporate agriculture is the primary aim of Cargill and hence the Agreement on Agriculture.
But opening markets for Cargill implies closure of livelihoods for farmers.
W.T.O. rules are not just about trade. They determine how food is produced and who controls food production. For Cargill, capturing Asian markets is key. Asia happens to be the largest agricultural economy of the world, with the majority involved in agriculture.
Converting self-sufficient food economies into food dependent economies is the Cargill vision and the W.T.O. strategy.
http://www.zmag.org/...
Is Monsanto involved? Are these bills dangerous to our farmers? Can we do without control of our own seeds? Is Greenberg involved in globalization plans for multinationals?
Stanley B. Greenberg
Stan Greenberg is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Greenberg has served as polling advisor to President Bill Clinton, President Nelson Mandela, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and their national campaigns.
Greenberg’s work for private sector organizations – including major corporations, trade associations and public interest organizations – focuses on managing change and reform. He has conducted surveys and focus groups for major corporations on both product and corporate identity and on corporate mission. He has conducted research for major corporations, both internally among employees and managers, and externally with relevant stake holders, opinion leaders and the general public.
Greenberg’s private sector clients include [present tense]: the National Basketball Association, BP Amoco, British Airways, The Boeing Company, Monsanto, United Healthcare, Business for Social Responsibility, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Business Roundtable, the Direct Marketing Association, and the Organization for International Investment. Greenberg has conducted extensive research in Europe (particularly Great Britain, Germany and France), Central and South America (Argentina and Brazil), and Africa (South Africa). He specializes in research on globalization, international trade, corporate consolidation, technology and the Internet.
Greenberg directed a year-long project for the International Committee of the Red Cross, "People on War" – a consultation with people in the principal war zones of the late 20th century, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, and Lebanon among others.
For organizations, Greenberg has helped manage and frame a number of issues – including education, school financing, American identity, the economy, environmental regulation, international trade, managed care, biotechnology, copyrights, privacy and the Internet. He has done groundbreaking work on the role of women in the electorate.
From Poland:
Money can indeed buy-out the seeds of revolution, but the heart of the peasants will not be appeased; neither will the hearts of caring individuals who know and love the working countryside. In a world where genuine independence is seen as a threat to the controlling influence of transnational and national power brokers, a watchful eye will be kept on any potentially rebellious leaders, and covert efforts made to ensure that placidity reigns supreme. But they will be up against a poisoned and polluted nature in rebellion, and those waking up to the stark choices that confront all of us: capitulate to the forces of ‘total control’ or wrest back control of life and work to rejuvenate your local communities to do the same.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/...
Finally, what is going on that there there is an huge, fear-based push to create total control over all food in the US, and with the specter of Monsanto running it?
Are we facing, as our politicians would have us believe, a public health emergency because of unsafe food?
The FDA says there 76 Million food borne illnesses in the US annually, or 1 out of 4 people will become ill. How many die? The CDC says that 5,000 people a year die from foodborn illnesses,
a lower number than they had previously thought http://www.cdc.gov/...
What is your risk each year of dying from food born illness? In a population of 304,000,000, you have a .0016% risk, or less than two thousandth of one per cent. What is your risk of dying from a food born illness if you do become ill? The risk is .0065%, or less than a hundredth of one percent. And some of those who die may not be dying from food born illness at all but from medical error in treating it.
FDA cites between 44,000 to 98,000 deaths each year from medical error.
http://www.fda.gov/...
Others estimate 195,000 deaths annually. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/...
Some believe the true figure is 800,000 http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com/... year.
What great dangers is the government going to protect us from in pouring billions into "food safety." Are we not all increasingly seeking food straight from the farm and without fear?
Yet, to take the most common example of the FDA attempting to control food and set "strict standards," it has mounted an aggressive campaign against fresh milk, subjecting dairy farmers (including the Amish and Mennonite) to terrorizing raids, while pointing to 1000 illnesses due to fresh milk (and cheese) between 1998 and 2006. Why do they tabulate illnesses from fresh milk over an eight year period when other illnesses are broken down annually? On an annual basis, fresh milk accounted for .00013% of all food born illnesses (not deaths), or 125 people becoming sick each year.
But applying the FDA's eight year period to medical error, between 352,000 and 6,400,000 people died from medical error.
And if 5000 deaths a year from food born illness has created such astounding uproar and demand for change (a Reuters article the other day on "food safety" and Michael Taylor "of George Washington University," inflated that number 100 times to 500,000, misquoting Michelle Larkin of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation),
where is there any major government overhaul for the 12,000 deaths annually from aspirin and ibuprofen and the other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs?
http://74.125.47.132/...
And why has the FDA, the agency we are looking to give massive power to despite its astounding corruption and known failures to protect the public, overstepped its regulatory authority and stopped cherry growers (farmers) from even posting a link on their website to a peer reviewed article showing that cherries (which are associate with no deaths) are potentially 10 times stronger than aspirin and ibuprofen and the NSAIDs for controlling pain? http://www.lef.org/...
And why is the WTO pushing CODEX which will limit access to natural food and supplements?
http://westonaprice.org/...
HACCP, these food safety bills, and CODEX are all related.
Better safe than sorry. Not "better smug than bothered."
Look at worse case scenarios as you do when you get house insurance. This is our house. Make sure we are covered for everything.
Ask your own questions.
It's your food supply.
[A special word to honor the work of Al Krebs who wrote on HACCP and many other issues related to farming and food and has passed away, leaving us a legacy of honesty and information that he would surely be pleased to think was useful now.
To all the people who contributed to this article, to its writing, to its research, to its direction, you bring us all together through this information and make it plain that more and more people are now involved and speaking up. ]