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Posted 03/14/09 11:19 AM SteveNYGuy Wormit, United Kingdom | Looking at this in a slightly cause-effect solution manner, lets look at this, shall we?
The effects are being seen by the poisoning and deaths of citizens so we take action. But isn't the FDA supposed to catch this? Idea presented above: lets make ANOTHER group (instead of fixing part one of the problem). Is this entirely the fault of the FDA? Probably not as they do not produce the food (I'll come back to that in a moment) and are supposed to ensure the end product is fit for purpose and poses no threats to citizens. Are the standards too low, are the workers incorrectly trained, was there reasons that certain faults were allowed to take place? I could fill the page (and I'm sure so could the readers). What of the producers of the products? What are the sources? We have food products produced within and outside of the states and, for the latter, the FDA would either have to inspect produce as it comes in or we would have to fund foreign FDA inspectors. Not an option. What about the mass-produced, high volume, low footprint food production food made for Americans? We produce foods in various ways and methods and, as history has repeatedly warned us, we do so incorrectly. I know farmers and they have commented on the force production methods, over-working of land and incorrect production styles accepted for various reasons. Would we change them - no? Should we change them - most definitely yes! Like many areas of life, and I'm sure Ron Paul would have a few words on this as well, we treat the effects and not the cause(s) and even more rarely the root cause(s). We accept what is given without questioning many aspects and that lack of knowledge has proved to be our downfall. But what do I know??? I prefer each person to hold responsibility for themselves instead of giving it over to a small group or single person. |
Posted 03/14/09 11:29 AM Fu Manchu Belleville, MI | The FDA is every bit as crooked as Obama |
| Posted 03/14/09 12:26 PM mlang52 Robinson, IL | The FDA determined that cannabis has no medicinal value. Need I say more? (Do they actually have doctors on their staff?) |
| Posted 03/14/09 1:09 PM James Calloway Lowgap, NC | Funny...guess whose ad was placed on this page when I opened the story - Monsanto.
The reason we have these problems is because of the centralization of food resources, something Monsanto and its kind represent and perpetuate. Our entire food-production process is flawed, and big-ag supporters like Vilsack will never change that. Vilsack is bought and paid for by big-ag interests, and to some degree that is reasonable since he comes from a big-ag area. The problem comes when someone who represents those interests wants to consolidate all food regulation under one agency - then, the big-ag interests only have to influence a few people to keep their interests protected by policy. Consolidation of oversight is a good idea; consolidation of power is not. I'm a proud member of the Ron Paul R3volution. But many of our real problems in this country are far more fundamental than opposing political ideologies and would not be solved even if we were able to audit the Fed, reliquish our empire, or even got Ron Paul elected President. You want to start a revolution? Grow your own food. That would change the world. |
| Posted 03/14/09 1:22 PM C00kieM0nster Oxnard, CA | FDA also says Stevia is not sweet. My sense of taste must be defective.
Check out exactly who Rep. Rosa DeLauro's husband is, and what companies he does work for. H.R. 875 must die. When they try again, it must be killed too. Then there is Obamabot exploiting his daughter for political purposes. What an @$$hole! Of course, "It's for the children"....more of whom will be forced into poverty as food price increases, quality decreases, and more "medicines" are needed.. They will still be sick, but it will be the slow killer that lines the pockets of big business. Here is an idea for a eugenics program. Let's engineer the do-gooding busy-body elitist genes out of the human race. |
Posted 03/14/09 6:59 PM schlegsb Fairborn, OH | Yea, I've always wondered how the FDA actually tests stuff. I've always assumed it just came down to the company lobbying enough saying "its safe." |
| Posted 03/14/09 9:22 PM Penny Worth Boynton Beach, , FL | schlegsb, got to agree there--Stevia can't be used as sweetner, but a " sweetener" that has been implicated in everything from headaches to brain lesions to strokes is not recalled? (Aspartame aka Nutrasweet?) I normally am not a conspiracy buff, but this smells like one. |
Posted 03/14/09 10:10 PM Mike in Virginia Fredericksburg, VA | The FDA is composed of political hacks who will rule in favor of the best lobbyists. Their findings have absolutely nothing to do with science or safety. I have no specific evidence of payoffs to FDA members, but at the same time, I can't think of any other explanation for their decisions, which often defy common sense and our own experience. |
| Posted 03/14/09 10:12 PM Mike in Virginia Fredericksburg, VA | P.S. I want to decide what food to eat. I most emphatically do not want Obama or any other parasite to decide for me. |
| Posted 03/15/09 01:01 AM James Calloway Lowgap, NC | Penny Worth, you ought to research how aspartame was OKed. It was initially rejected, then, with a little change-a-roo of administration appointees, it suddenly got passed. What good luck!
I'm not much for conspiracy THEORIES either, but when it's a conspiratorial FACT, yeah, I take notice. |
Posted 03/15/09 08:23 AM celticreeler Rolla, MO |
Food is medicine. It had better be right. That's my first idea here. Being a "locovore" (eating what is produced locally) is more attractive every day. Second, contrary to what most of the intelligentsia believe, man is not omniscient, and is not clairvoyant. Humans have difficulty predicting, usually, what is "safe", because that involves proving a negative (i.e., that something is not "unsafe"). Think of the antiepileptic drug Felbamate, the drug Cefamandole, or the first Rotavirus vaccine. Problems after marketing. Agribusiness thought it was a great idea to add ground up dried animals to protein supplement blocks. Then came prion diseases. The problems start when we think we've "got it all figured out." |
Posted 03/15/09 08:57 AM BruceLayne Lexington, KY | There are 12 government agencies tasked with ensuring food safety, and it's not working, and the government response is predictably... we need more government.
How about we let the free market fix this? Get all 12 of those agencies out of the food safety game that they're losing so badly, and let a little consumer rage focus on the companies instead of trying to compel government to fix a problem. For example: Salmonella is an intestinal infection, and while I'm not a biologist, I'm pretty sure that peanuts don't have intestines. So let's simply stop having mice and rats crapping in our peanut butter. It's not that hard. A plant manager takes responsibility for the product his company is producing, delegates some of that responsibility and allocates the needed resources to prevent salmonella infested rodent crap in our peanut butter. This isn't a matter of rodent crap in the peanuts, because the peanut butter is sterilized when it's cooked, so the packaging is probably being contaminated. It's not difficult to make 100% salmonella free peanut butter. Basic hygiene is all we need, but I've seen knee jerk government meddling that includes irradiating all sealed peanut butter containers to kill any pathogens that were introduced by unsanitary manufacturing. It'd be much less expensive and much safer to simply clean up the manufacturing, and besides, I don't want to eat any mouse crap, even if it has been sterilized. Putting the responsibility for food safety onto a government agency only increases the risk. Those regulated by government tend to assume that the government is taking the responsibility, because legally they are, yet government can't make our food safe. Illegal immigrant farm workers crapping in the fields is the source of most of the E. coli that we keep finding in our produce. Technology to the rescue. Solar powered produce harvesting robots! John McCain said that no American would be willing to pick lettuce, but a Made in the USA robot would do it cheaper than an illegal immigrant, and without introducing any E. coli into our food supply. I wondered if anyone else noticed the Monsanto ad in the online article. Ugh. I'd like to put some rodent feces in their peanut butter. |
| Posted 03/15/09 09:31 AM smashysmashy dover, NH | It's funny, the two things I would actually like to see regulated will never ever be touched by this administration, yet they will make every other ridiculous regulation they can think of. They are: labeling GMO foods, and regulating artificial sweetners.
Here are some personal experiences: In my lab I genetically modify bacteria all the time. The results are not predictable! You always get unwanted and unexpected results, even when you get it right. Now that is bacteria! Modifying plants is a whole new level of unpredictability. How GMOs entered our food supply has absolutely nothing to do with science and all to do with lobbying. I've said this before on here, but I think it is a good story. I teach the laboratory section of intro to microbiology at my university. We do an experiment where we use different substances to determine if they are mutagenic in bacteria. It is a decent prediction that a substance is carcinogenic; of course bacteria can't get cancer so we can only imply that a substance has carcinogenic potential if it can mutate bacteria. Tobacco is always the #1 mutagen. Right behind tobacco is artificial sweetners. You can bet your ass I don't touch either of those chemicals. |
Posted 03/15/09 11:08 AM Peale09 Valparaiso, IN | Once I heard a John Stossel interview in which he mentioned food safety. Being a consumer advocate, he once believed it was the government's job to protect us from contaminated food. But the more he researched, the more he found that keeping food safe is a good business decision. If a company produces food that makes you sick, they lose sales, they have to have an expensive recall, and they might even get sued. All bad for business.
With the number of people in our country, and the amount of food that is produced, it's amazing how safe our food supply really is. The food problems mentioned in the article only represent a tiny fraction of the food consumed in the US. Let's keep things in perspective... our food supply is safer that it's ever been. I don't know of a single person who got salmonella from peanut butter. This is just an excuse for another one of Obama's signature Power Grabs. Every time someone gets sick or hurt, it's time for Big Gov to jump in with an expensive, intrusive program akin to chasing a fly with a sledgehammer. It doesn't help that mass hysteria is fed by the news, either. |
| Posted 03/15/09 12:01 PM mlang52 Robinson, IL | peale09,
Good comment! I agree totally! If one applies what you said, to the reasoning for the drug war, one comes out with a completely different mind set on it! The illegal use of drugs (both the illegal and the controlled type) are far from the #1 killer in society today. And, part of the reason they are, is because of their prohibition! Regulated, we could decrease the access to kids. The way it is, the mob (cartels) controls the sales! And the last time I checked, dealers still don't card! And, they don't care what is in that bag! Remember the "cheese" deaths, in the grade school kids? If drugs were legal and regulated, the producers would assure they were of consistent purity and free from contaminants. If they did not, people would stop using that brand! (Sorry about the thread hijack!) Problem is, we have seen how much we can trust the FDA, to do it right! |
Posted 03/15/09 5:47 PM JimCasy Seattle, WA | For those who do not know of HR 875 which c00kiem0nster referred to:
http://blog.friendseat.com/rosa-delauro-hates-small-farms1/ I am moving to Washington state at the end of the summer to start volunteering on organic farms. Sure, I just got a geoscience degree, and I could make bank working for an oil company... but like James Calloway said, growing your own food is a revolutionary movement in itself! |
| Posted 03/16/09 03:40 AM Matt875 Monroe Township, NJ | I would suggest everyone research "organic foods" they are foods WITHOUT drugs or growth harmones(something that has been connected with several cancer cases and is in all meat prouducts unless you buy organic foods but even thats not a sure thing because the organic standard is so low in this Country). Once it is understood what Organic foods are and I suggest a Google search on "organic foods" I would then suggest a search on "Codex Alimentarius." I hope people realize how bad the food situation is in this Country and I hope people support the "small farmer" again which has been destroyed by big corporations in this Country. One last note "Codex Alimentarius" which is now supported(thanks to a wonderful vote in our great congress) by both the UN and US. The food is very unhealthy now but its about to become MUCH unhealthier. Honestly I can't stand the drug companies as if they weren't a monopoly already they want to be an even bigger one now it seems. I wonder what else "Globalization" has in store for us? This is going to be great for the big Corporations of the world.
Codex Alimentarius - Dare you ignore it? More and more people are becoming concerned about the shady, secretive organization that is Codex Alimentarius - the thinly-veiled propaganda arm of the international pharmaceutical industry that does everything it can to promote industry objectives whilst limiting individual options to maintain health (which would diminish mermbers profits). Codex alimentarius is one of the major bodies behind the effort to limit access to nutritional products and information. Its motivation is not rocket science and neither is the source of its funding - money that somehow expected to return a profit to its members . . . Most of the information available regarding codex alimentarius refers to its role in the USA, but it is not a US-specific body. Far from it, Codex has wiggled its dirty little tentacles into just about every national or international body concerned with public health. Posing as a benefactor, it then uses its significant financial and political clout to do its masters bidding. As you can read in the excellent article below, there is much to be concerned about when considering codex alimentarius - ignore it at your peril. Codex Alimentarius - The Sinister Truth Behind Operation Cure-All (From an original article by Ruth James) What's really behind Operation Cure-All? Is it just the FDA and FTC taking their power too far? Or is there a deeper, more sinister purpose to this campaign? Who are Codex Alimentarius? How could a country that prides itself in its freedom of speech, freedom of choice, and freedom of information be facing such severe restrictions in health freedom and dietary supplements? Haven't the people made their will known? Didn't our government pass the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 to insure our right to health supplements? Indeed, our government did. But the FDA and FTC have found ways to get around that. The laws put in place to protect us are being ignored. And what's worse is that those laws are about to be superseded, if the powers that be have their way. OPERATION CURE ALL IS JUST ONE MEANS TO AN END You see, Operation Cure-All is just a tactic, a vehicle, in a much bigger overall plan. It is a result of "Codex Alimentarius" (meaning food code) -- a set of regulations that aim to outlaw any health information in connection with vitamins and limit free access to natural therapies on a worldwide scale. WHAT'S BEHIND CODEX ALMENTARIUS? Behind the Codex Alimentarius Commission is the United Nations and the World Health Organization working in conjunction with the multinational pharmaceutical cartel and international banks. Its initial efforts in the US with the FDA were defeated, so it found another ally in the FTC. Now Codex, with the FTC and the pharmaceutical cartel behind it, it threatens to become a trade issue, using the campaign of Operation Cure-All to advance its goals. Codex began simply enough when the U.N. authorized the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization to develop a universal food code. Their purpose was to 'harmonize' regulations for dietary supplements worldwide and set international safety standards for the purposes of increased trade. Pharmaceutical interests stepped in and began exerting their influence. Instead of focusing on food safety, Codex is using its power to promote worldwide restrictions on vitamins and food supplements, severely limiting their availability and dosages. REAL GOALS OF CODEX This is to bring about international 'harmonization.' While global harmony sounds benign, is that the real purpose of this plan? While the stated goal of Codex is to establish unilateral regulations for dietary supplements in every country, the actual goal is to outlaw health products and information on vitamins and dietary supplements, except those under their direct control. These regulations would supersede United States domestic laws without the American people's voice or vote in the matter. HOW CAN IT BE POSSIBLE? Americans gasp at the thought. It goes against everything America stands for. Many believe this can't be possible. The truth is, it's not only possible, it's required by the Codex Alimentarius agreement. In fact, under the terms of the Uruguay Round of GATT, which created the World Trade Organization, the United States agreed to harmonize its domestic laws to the international standards. This includes standards for dietary supplements being developed by the United Nation's Codex Alimentarius Commission's Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use. The Uruguay Round Agreements carry explicit language clearly indicating that the U.S. must harmonize to international standards: "Members are fully responsible under this Agreement for the observance of all provisions.... members shall formulate and implement positive measures and mechanisms in support of the observance of the provisions.... by other than central government bodies." [WTO TBT Agreement at Article 3.5]" In other words, the federal government must NOT ONLY CHANGE FEDERAL LAW, but must ALSO require state and local governments to change their laws as well to be in accordance with international law. Not only that, but Codex Alimentarius is now enforceable through the World Trade Organization (WTO). If a country disagrees with or refuses to follow Codex standards, the WTO applies pressure by withdrawing trade privileges and imposing crippling trade sanctions. Congress has already bowed to this pressure several times and so have the governments of many countries. While the exemption clause (USC 3512(a)(1) and (a)(2) was created to supposedly protect our laws from harmonization to international standards, it has proven to be totally ineffective. The United States has already lost seven trade disputes despite the exemption clause. Due to the enormous pressures put on them by lobbyists from multinational corporations (who contribute millions to congressional campaigns), Congress bowed to pressure and changed U.S. laws. It appears our government (as well as al others) is being manipulated one way or another to serve the goals of the UN, the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization. Food control equals people control -- and population control. Is this beginning to sound like world government and one-world order? Could this be the real goal behind Codex Alimentarius? The United States, Canada, the Europeans, Japan, most of Asia, and South America have already signed agreements pledging total harmonization of their laws including food and drug laws to these international standards in the future. WHAT CODEX WILL BRING What can we expect under Codex? To give you an idea, here are some important points: Dietary supplements could not be sold for preventive (prophylactic) or therapeutic use. Potencies would be limited to extremely low dosages. Only the drug companies and the big phytopharmaceutical companies would have the right to produce and sell the higher potency products (at inflated prices). Prescriptions would be required for anything above the extremely low doses allowed (such as 35 mg. on niacin). Common foods such as garlic and peppermint would be classified as drugs or a third category (neither food nor drugs) that only big pharmaceutical companies could regulate and sell. Any food with any therapeutic effect can be considered a drug, even benign everyday substances like water. Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding (escape clauses would be eliminated). All new dietary supplements would be banned unless they go through Codex testing and approval. Genetically altered food would be sold worldwide without labeling. According to John Hammell, a legislative advocate and the founder of International Advocates for Health Freedom (IAHF), here is what we have to look forward to: "If Codex Alimentarius has its way, then herbs, vitamins, minerals, homeopathic remedies, amino acids and other natural remedies you have taken for granted most of your life will be gone. The name of the game for Codex Alimentarius is to shift all remedies into the prescription category so they can be controlled exclusively by the medical monopoly and its bosses, the major pharmaceutical firms. Predictably, this scenario has been denied by both the Canadian Health Food Association and the Health Protection Branch of Canada (HPB). The Codex Alimentarius proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies. In these countries, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal as is vitamin E above 45 IU, vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg and so on. Shering-Plough, the Norway pharmaceutical giant, now controls an Echinacea tincture, which is being sold there as an over the counter drug at grossly inflated prices. The same is true of ginkgo and many other herbs, and only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplements as medicines which they can sell to health food stores, convenience stores or pharmacies." It is now a criminal offence in parts of Europe to sell herbs as foods. An agreement called EEC6565 equates selling herbs as foods to selling other illegal drugs. Action is being taken to accelerate other European countries into 'harmonization' as well. Paul Hellyer in his book, "The Evil Empire," states: "Codex Alimentarius is supported by international banks and multinational corporations including some in Canada, and is in reality a bill of rights for these banks and the corporations they control. It will hand over our sovereign rights concerning who may or may not invest in our countries to an unelected world organization run by big business. The treaty would make it impossible for Canadian legislators either federal or provincial to alter or improve environmental standards for fear of being sued by multinational corporations whether operating in Canada or not. This will create a world without borders ruled by a virtual dictatorship of the world's most powerful central banks and multinational companies. This world is an absolute certainty if we all sit on our hands and do nothing." This is the future the FDA and FTC are striving to bring us via Codex harmonization. Is this a future we are going to willingly accept or prevent? WHY TARGET THE INTERNET? It is no accident that the FDA and FTC are targeting Internet health sites through Operation Cure-All. We are standing in the doorway of an unprecedented revolution -- the information revolution brought about by the Internet. Now all people everywhere have the ability to learn about anything that interests them with just a few clicks. History has shown that informed, educated people change civilizations -- they change the flow of thought and they change the flow of money. They can even change the direction of a country. When similar transitions have happened in the past, the powers that existed did not give up willingly. The Catholic Church fiercely protected its practice of selling 'indulgences' as a forgiveness of sin. When the practice was abolished, the Catholic Church lost a great deal of power and money. When the printing press was invented, books were banned and printers were imprisoned by the authorities, who feared an educated public could not be governed. In the same way, the medical monopoly (and the UN) now fears that a public educated in health and privy to the shortcomings of modern medicine could not be controlled. Loss of control means loss of revenue and loss of power. And they are doing everything they can to stop progress so they can contain their losses and strengthen their power. The printing press changed the world. Can you imagine what life would be like today if the book banners had their way? But because the printing press won out, society progressed and freedom was embraced. The Internet is changing the world in an equally significant way. While the entire Internet can hardly be suppressed, the pharma-cartels and their backers are looking to protect their interests by restricting as much information as they can on the Internet. Will we, the people, win out again -- or will the UN and the World Health Organization agenda and the pharmaceutical cartel change the course of history and take us back to the "dark ages" of medicine? WHAT CAN WE DO? Step number one is learn as much as possible about this issue. Here are some websites where you will find a great deal of information: John Hammell's International Advocates for Health Freedom website: http://www.iahf.com "The Health Movement Against Codex Alimentarius" - article from Dr. Rath's website: http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUTICAL_BUSINESS/health_moveme... 'U.S. and European Leaders Agree on Principles to Harmonize Dietary Supplement Regulations: 'http://www.crnusa.org/shellnr112000.html Federal Register where the FDA states its intention to harmonize with Codex standards: http://iahf.com/codx-fda.txt Read, "WHOSE TRADE ORGANIZATION? Corporate Globalization and the Erosion of Democracy" by By Lori Wallach and Michelle Sforza, Public Citizens Global Trade Watch: http://www.tradewatch.org/publications/wtobook.htm Sign the petition - Click on 'Sign Health Freedom Petition:' http://www.iahf.com/index2.html Also sign the European Anti-Codex petition at: www.laleva.cc Signing petitions is fine, but not nearly as effective as writing to your congressmen and congresswomen. Write to them insisting we hold a PROPER Oversight Hearing on Codex. An oversight hearing was held in March, but the truth was not allowed to come out. Witness who could have exposed what was going on, and who wanted to testify, were denied the opportunity to testify. Congress is strongly resisting another Codex hearing, telling their constituents it is not necessary. This could not be further from the truth. Contact information for representatives: http://www.house.gov Contact information for senators: http://www.senate.gov Copyright 2001 Ruth James rjames@therealessentials.com www.therealessentials.com CTM Comment: Codex is of course the single most virulent assault on human freedoms in recent times. The desire to control of vitamins, minerals, herbs and other nutritional factors has ironically come about as a result of the inability of orthodox medicine to destroy the practice of the public practicing health without drugs. Now government and the chemical industry will seek to control and profit from that which was available directly to the public in times gone by. Overturning the Codex by a mass public backlash is CTM’s sworn goal. This can be accomplished only with large numbers of the public all committed to this endeavor. As the above article states, the Internet itself has been able to grant access to information freely to anyone seeking it, and this has destabilized the flow of money and profits to institutions which have traditionally believed their highly lucrative monopolies to be safe. There can be no more pressing reason to join the Campaign for Truth in Medicine for FREE than to assist us in pressuring for the scrapping of Codex. http://www.natural-health-information-centre.com/codex-alimentarius.ht ml |
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