Posted on 11/20/2010 4:46:25 AM PST by don-o
The Food Safety Bill s510, considered both influential and controversial, was just passed in the Senate. This comes almost a year and a half after the House passed a bill calling to tighten the nation’s food safety rules. It will be the first time in 70 years that the FDA’s food safety system will be modernized. The bill will permit the FDA to increase inspections of food producers, track fruit and vegetable shipments and place stricter manufacturing standards to attempt to avoid outbreaks of contamination.
Some highly respected health experts are in fact on both sides of the debate—Michael Pollan (Omnivores Dilemma and Food Rules) publicly urged people to call their Senators to prevent the bill from passing, whereas Marion Nestle (Food Politics and What to Eat) thinks it’s about time for updated food safety regulations.
Little is known about the possible unintended consequences of the tighter restrictions that will come with the updated food safety bill. Many individuals and citizen’s groups are concerned that the bill was passed without time for discussions and refinement of the details. In the days leading up to the vote, groups encouraged the public to contact Senators for fear of the immediate passing of the bill without amendments.
Opponents of the bill were concerned that the cost of compliance and large amount of paperwork required would inevitably put small businesses, smaller suppliers, and those who sell directly to consumers, like small family-owned farms, vendors at farmer’s markets, out of business. This has the potential to significantly interfere with organic and small scale food manufacturers as well as various natural supplements.
It seems that only time will tell if Food Safety Bill s510 will actually make our food safer, or if it will lead to a host of other unintended problems.
Considering the safety of our food supply is timely. Increased cases of food borne illness have put consumers on alert. However, are increased government regulations and more red tape the answer? Or is getting back to basics and encouraging more local sustainable agriculture an obvious missing piece to this puzzle?
It is most definitely anti small business in scope. I was discussing this with some Minneapolis lefties who are big on “sustainable local organic” farming, and they were outraged, as well as a bit surprised that they were agreeing with someone on the right. There are a lot of organic farms in Minnesota, and nearly all of them are small family owned businesses. The scale of these farms make the requirements of the tracking paperwork an impossible burden. Using the free market viewpoint, I called this the government using excessive regulation in order to reduce marketplace choice, in order to favor big agribusiness (which recieves most of the agricultural subsidies, BTW). The Food Safety Bill has nothing to do with food safety.
Yikes, I’m sounding like Jason Lewis!
It amazes me that we need a bill to protect food. If the food comes from outside the borders of the US, then it should be checked for safety.
When I think about this, I have to wonder why we worry about food safety when the US government allows people to cross the borders bringing in a resurgence of communicable diseases that we had under control or wiped out.
We have whooping cough back, drug resistent TB, polio, MRSA, to name a few.
Odd times we live in.
“If the food comes from outside the borders of the US, then it should be checked for safety.”
It does - by giving lots of money to the originating countries.
This is the same Congress that gave is Obamacare. Trust ‘em?
Food has always been a weapon of dictators, against their own people. This gives BOZ that structure.
ping to the Agenda 21 list you’re keeping.
This bill is part and parcel of agenda 21: codex alimentarius. Research this if you don’t know what these are. NWO.
Who wrote the Bill?
Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970’s, ‘If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.
It’s quite simple really. Control the food, control the people.
I agree with your first statement, but as concerned patriots we make a mistake in granting Obama too much power and villainy.
Eventually Obama will be gone, but what remains are his statist allies, both new and extant. We cannot ever let our guard down regardless of who is POTUS or in power.
Just another in a long line of un-American and un-Constitutional bills to stamp out our freedom and liberty and usher in the New World Order...all controlled by the U.N. and the cronies of those who are in office...
These Progressives are the worst.
Toll-Free number to the Congressional Switchboard
(866) 338-1015
Controlling the food supply isn’t in my copy of the Constitution. This is bad.
Help me out here. Are you saying trying too kill the bill when the House votes reconciliation is wrong?
AND
Please add me too, thanks don-o
Done.
Of course.
Thanks and for coming up with an action plan.
Nancy the wicked witch has pledged to pass S510 unamended as-is.
“Don’t be fooled by the name- it’s a naked power grab”.
Absolutely. No backyard gardens. You are in violation if you grow tomatoes, for example, and give some to your neighbor. It is a way of CONTROLLING what we eat and the ability to grow our own food. Bad, bad, bad. As a frequent consumer of front yard stands with tomatoes, cucumbers, etc... that were picked that morning from their own garden, I am outraged. Control the populations food and you control the population. Just a thought.
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