Posted on 04/19/2008 12:14:59 PM PDT by Dysart
Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee proposed a new set of rules regarding the labels for food and drugs.
According to the new principles, all labels for all food products and drugs should present the following information to the customer: country of origin, the source of a medicine’s active ingredient and its place of manufacture and also, the producer should identify on its web site the place where each ingredient in a particular food product originates.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said consumers must be protected from possibly harmful products and deserve to know where their purchases come from.
"How are you going to know what is in there or whether it's safe if you don't know where it comes from?” Dingell asked. “For example, if it comes from Great Britain, you're going to assume it's pretty safe. If it comes from Canada, it's probably pretty safe. If it comes from China, you're going to say, 'Holy cats, we better watch out,'" Dingell concluded according to the Associated Press.
The new plan is thought out to aid the immense imports made by the Unites States, which at the moment rise above the $2 trillion bar. The products are shipped in from more than 150 countries and after a variety of food and drug safety problems, the decision to improve the system was reached.
The decision will also have a small downside. The Food and Drug Administration is going to solicit new fees from the industry. This will lead to higher food prices as the producers will pass the additional costs to the consumers.
Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives with Consumers Union, commented on the matter by saying that prices probably would not raise much and consumers are very likely to embrace the new policy knowing that their food is safer.
I can hear the howls from Walmart already.
Try contacting them to find out where a lot of their food was grown.
They don’t like to talk about that.
A Democrat has a good idea once in a while, kind of like a stopped clock is right twice/day.
ping
Those SOB's have been proposing and discussing this for how many years now. I know all the republican ever did was propose and discuss and when it was finally passed they put it off forever.
thanks, bfl & a ping
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