Obama Administration Tightens Food Safety Standards After Recent Round Of Recalls

Yahoo! Finance:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is trying to make Americans' food safer after recent recalls of popular products like peanut butter and cookie dough.

A food safety working group established by President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the government will try and boost the safety of some of the nation's most popular foods, announcing stricter rules for the production of eggs, poultry, beef, leafy greens, melons and tomatoes. The new standards are an effort to reduce instances of salmonella and E. coli contamination.

Read the whole story: Yahoo! Finance

Comments

[plages]

About time, now, shuffle the main FDA players, and keep US safe! Further, in order to create more positions, hire about 10,000 inspectors to over see food corporations, and that includes all meat packing companies!

[jneems]

This is not good news. As usual, the FDA, etc. want to tell us that they are there to protect us. But don't be too sure.

One of the first give-aways is that they picked Michael R. Taylor, a "food safety expert" as Senior Adviser to the Commissioner.

Michael R. Taylor (see bio below) is a former VP for public policy at Monsanto.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/sept_20_bios.pdf

If you believe that Monsanto and the FDA have your interests at heart, then you haven't been paying attention.

[FrozenNorthObserver]

for anybody who has been paying attention to O this should come as no surprise.

Fox to Guard Henhouse? Former Mons anto VP May Be Named To Head F*D*A Safety Working Group
Tay lor thinks the F*D*A wastes too much time on food safety inspections at meat packing plants. Further, he believes that one of their main problems is that they have to slow down their line speed too much.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/fox-guard-henhouse-former-monsanto-vp

[DelawareVol]

Yeah, a Food Czar can't be to far behind after this news...

[Readbetweentheelevens]

"A food safety working group established by President Barack Obama..."

" The group, headed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius..."

from wiki:

"Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops; as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group.

I don't expect anything that favors health from this group.

[KriTiKiT]

so when i eat taco bells 4 meal I won't crap blood and razor blades!

OH HAIL TO THE CHIEF, I CAN EAT FOR a DOLLAR WHEN I GET DRUNK...

[ranchomerced]

Watch... the next step will be the Obama admin will advocate "healthy foods only " to reduce the burden on our healthcare. How's that for hope and change?

[ilexwhite]

This could be potentially disastrous for small farmers who supply farmer's markets. Real, local, seasonal food is endangered when the government gets involved.

[AmandaBC]

Just about every other developed country has stricter food regulations, and farmers are still in business. Remember, it was Canadian and European inspectors that found out about the lead in Chinese toys. All the while, their American counterparts were on vacations paid by the corporate world...

[Radarman]

You know, I've read many of your posts and can say I disagree with most of them. But here you and I have common ground. The bribes, gifts, deals kickbacks and punishments for trying to do the right thing that undermine our inspection and oversight process should disgust everyone. Just a couple of weeks ago the third Inspector General, Judith Gwynn, the Inspector General for the International Trade Commission was fired for trying investigate possible corruption.

Much of the fear of GM foods has at least some basis in fact. Monsanto has a long history of playing loose with the facts. From GM corn that kills pollinating good guys like butterflies and bees. Or drives out non-GM corn, damaging the valuable Maze base line species in southern Mexico. As well as Grow Once crop lines that will not produce viable seed so Big Agra can force the farmers to buy their seeds again and again. But just in case some do they will force the GM seeds on everyone. It is by the way illegal for farmers to hold back a part of their crop for planting next year. Under penalty of law they must buy new.

I guess that is why the present administration has brought in so many ex Monsanto big wigs. No corruption here, nope, nada.

[dausone]

Our food will never be safe as long as we have centralized forms of production and distribution. Local, small scale production and distribution is the answer to curb outbreaks and track them down, shutting them off before the nation can become infected. It would also create a direct dialogue with food producers enabling a sense of trust in the things that are grown and consumed. That trust has been lost by the mechanization and industrialization of our food and you will never be able to regain that trust by making things harder for small family farms.

[scottarino]

Hear! Hear!

[000Jade000]

Hmmm. The article mentions nothing about reducing e. coli by doing things like banning the practice of growing veggies in sludge.

[LemonMeringue]

Very good.

Next step:

Make food producers label genetically engineered food. I want to know if my corn and soy are Monsanto Roundup Ready because Roundup causes Hodgkins Lymphoma which is on the rise.

[MicheleCA]

So tofu & vegan patties join fish as scary to eat!

[Prakosh]

This is a good first step. i am glad to see this.

[mmgbizgirl]

Agreed.