DVD!
photo credit: mcbarnicle
by Guest Blogger, Alyce Ortzar
C-Span’s Washington Journal is having a series this week on food
policy and food safety. Today at 9:15am (EST) is small farms with
the National Farmers’ Union.
Tomorrow’s food/policy topic is Sustainability,
Thursday is Child Nutrition, and Friday is organic food/standards.
Please tune in and join the conversation!
Yesterday was Sarah Klein, from the Center for Science in the Public
Interest, Food Safety Attorney who talked about the food safety
legislation that was passed by Congress in December.
Do try to call into the program or send e-mails:
Call-In Numbers change everyday.
Email: journal@c-span.org
Points to bring up should refute the following claims from Sarah
Klein/Center for Science in the Public Interest:
She claimed pasteurization does not destroy nutrients in eggs or dairy products.
She claimed there was a 20 percent rate of harm from unpasteurized
dairy products
She also claimed the eggs that caused the harm were not pasteurized; I
believe they were.
I know that in the 1990s the FDA made a deliberte decision not to shut
these disgusting confined animal feeding facilities down, but to
instead have them pasteurize the eggs, which the FDA then said were
safe to eat. The American Public Health Association has been calling
for CAFOs to be shut down because of the environmental degradation
fand adverse health effects as a result of their unsanitary practices.
These faciilities have a history of violations. The Washington Post
has had articles addressing these problems with the FDA.
The attacks on small farmers and the confiscation of products with no
evidence of problems show the ability of the FDA to shut farms down
when they want to.
According to Grist.org, a law passed by Congress around 2005 (possibly
in 2002) gave the FDA authority to recall food based on pathogen
counts, which is apparently what the FDA is abusing to confiscate
these products from small farms that have no evidence of problems.
Other points to consider bringing up:
The FDA’s idea of safety includes cloned animals, chemicals paraded as
food, endocrine-disrupting hormones injected into cows that are likely
linked to obesity and diabetes epidemics in this country; genetically
modified products paraded as food that the FDA does not want to label.
It is a long list.
Last month a newspaper reported that the FDA was trying to prohibit
FDA employees from engaging in small-scale farming. One worker said,
“This is not a case of the fox guarding the hen house; this is a case
of the fox not knowing what a hen house is.”
NAFTA opened floodgates of food from other countries—China, etc.
What are inspections and standards in china—no country with lower or
no standards should be permitted to send food into the U.S.
And, hammer away at Monsanto being in charge of food safety under
Monsanto Lawyer Michael Taylor, Deputy Secretary of Food Safety. That
is not only scary, but a blatant conflict of interest.
Alyce Ortuzar is a Medical and Social Science Researcher and Writer for the Well Mind Association of Greater Washington, and a member of the Weston A. Price Foundation. The Well Mind Association was founded in 1967 as a holistic medicine information clearinghouse focusing on environmental and nutritional influences on mental and physical well-being. They maintain a national database of holistic health practitioners, and provide free referral service to the public. Their mission is enable people to access the safest and most effective treatment, practitioners, and research and outcome data. Contact them at P.O. Box 312, Ashton, MD 20861 (301.774.6617).
"Kimberly Hartke is the Guardian Angel of Small Farms and the Fund!"
2 Comments
Wow, this is unbelievable. I think the FDA and all the other supposedly “protective” food agencies should be held responsible for the preventable sickness and deaths of nearly tens of thousands of people in this country since they have been in power. I have had enough with their foolish acts. How can we lessen their immense power, or perhaps, completely abolish their position in dealing with our food and medicine? They have already allowed the severe degradation of most of our food supply, and even some of our natural resources (soil). They should be held responsible for that too.
Only when public pressure is brought to bear, will our food policy change. Keep on blogging and commenting!