The Food Safety Bill S510 has bounced around so much that people have had trouble keeping up with its current status. But the real question about the bill is not where it is now -- (in the Senate attached to an appropriations bill) but why certain groups hail it while others abhor it. (To keep track of the bill and for more information on its evolution, go here.)
On the one hand, the bill's supporters argue that the bill is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reign in the food giants, while on the other side, people fear that their gardens and seeds will be outlawed, and their raw food suppliers raided and shut down by Homeland Security. Grist reported that a recent FDA pathogen hunting raid on cheese producers came up empty handed.
On the pro-bill side, House Democrats, and a whole host of organizations, like Consumer's Union, General Mills, Kraft Foods and others, have lined up in favor of it. To urge passage of the Tester Amendment, which holds the hope of exempting very small growers and producers, even writers, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser gave the bill their tepid last minute support. For more detail on that, read my earlier blog here.
Meanwhile, the bill's opponents critique its across-the-board application of costly bureaucratic reporting procedures (backed by new criminal enforcement provisions) which were designed to nudge huge agribusinesses (that cause most of the existing safety hazards) into compliance. Groups such as the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance argue that adhering to these procedures will wipe out the burgeoning small industry of organic and sustainable food growers -- thus removing the safe food upon which many health-conscious people rely. The Tester Amendment shelters those who gross less than $500,000 a year -- but many medium sized suppliers are omitted from that exemption.
In its underlying presumptions and philosophy, I contend that the bill mirrors the different emphases of conventional and integrative medicine. While conventional medicine's strength is offering powerful treatments after disease manifests, the integrative approach aims to build health, and thereby prevent disease before it happens by addressing the causes of disease. In the same way, organic growing practices emphasize the health of the soil, plant, and food, while agribusiness relies upon heavy pesticide use, radiation, and other harsher interventions to kill germs in food grown in assembly line fashion. While the industrial food supply is a reality, the debate over the bill stems from a fundamental disagreement about whether industrial values and methods should predominate in determining safety. Forbes' Gregory Conko is among those who question that the bill will be effective in producing safer food. He writes that,
"More frequent inspections may seem superficially appealing because current law only requires facilities to be inspected at least once every 10 years. But the new law would merely require inspections for most facilities every five years, and once every three years for identified "high-risk" facilities.
Doubling the rate of inspections of the tens of thousands of food production facilities in the U.S. would account for most of the bill's $1.4 billion four-year cost. But does anyone really believe that a single inspection every three to five years would do much to catch unsafe producers? Even if they occurred more often, the usefulness of inspections is limited by a practical inability to detect microbial pathogens (visually)."
"The bigger the supplier, the proportionately fewer the inspections, according to the way the FDA inspects now and will continue to inspect," says James Turner of Citizens for Health.
As interpretations over the dense and evolving legal language of the bill baffle easy answers, one thing is clear, much of the language is vague, leaving key decisions to the discretion of the FDA Secretary. While people can rest assured that the bill contains no current language that outlaws home gardens, certain provisions leave open how the bill could be interpreted to apply to dietary supplements, organics and other mainstays of integrative health, says Turner.
Further, the integrative health community has had past experience with how the FDA operates, as drugs like Avandia remained on the market for years despite troubling safety records. So apart from the bill's wording, a cause for concern is the latitude of interpretation by those enforcing the bill. The FDA Food Czar, Michael Taylor, comes from Monsanto and played a role in instituting rGBH, a hormone used in conventional milk.
Should the bill pass, the integrative health, raw food, and other interested communities that have failed to take action to defeat this bill, may be forced to face up to the relationship between nutritional and health advice, and activist health oriented social policy. I'm nearing completion on a book about this, and I encourage anyone interested in this type of insight to sign up for action ezines at www.healthjournalistblog.com
To take action on S510, go here:
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David Katz, M.D.: How The Environment Affects Your Health
If big ag is for it; then it is bad.
Many thanks!
Also, many pharma companies own the companies that make supplements. Which makes sense, they have the manufacturing know-how and know there's money to be made.
Take what you like, but if supplement companies aren't interested in maximizing profits, they're the first companies in history to do so. It only gets out of hand when we don't hold them to some standard of business...same with any company.
If I were a Christian I would suggest this is God's way of wiping out our degenerate culture. But being non-partisan spiritually I suppose it is just our way of self-destructing while pretending to do otherwise.
Congress loves to rubber stamp our pretensions and denials and self-deceptions, so the bill will probably pass to much fanfare and life will go on until it stops.
* Lower nutritional quality when produced at certain points in the cow's lactation cycle; and
* Increased somatic cell counts (i.e. more pus in the milk)
The court's decision notes that those higher somatic cell counts "make the milk turn sour more quickly and is another indicator of poor milk quality."
While the "compositional difference" debate may seem to be semantic wrangling (although that "pus" mention sure is eye-catching!), the appeals court's determination suddenly and unexpectedly undercuts the FDA's entire rationale for allowing the sale of unlabeled rBST milk for human consumption."
http://indyfromaz.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/a-salt-fattery/
Secondly, while we would all like to see the facilities be inspected more frequently than the bill requires, it is important to note that what the bill requires is more frequently than what is happening now. Once every five years sounds real nice when you compare it to the once every ten years that is the norm without the bill.
Lastly, while regulations will be written by FDA post-passage, there are written provisions in the bill which explicitly protect organic standards. Even though Michael Taylor worked for Monsanto in the 1990s (prior to working for a nonprofit environmental think-tank), he does not have the final say within the FDA. That falls on Dr. Margaret Hamburg who is an experienced public health professional.
Yes, visual inspection every five years--- as opposed to every ten years may "sound nice," but as a visual inspection, it's inadequate to either assess food contamination or prevent its causes. That is why applying the same inadequate system more frequently does not match up to the claims that this approach to safety will deliver it.
Second, although Dr. Hamburg is indeed the FDA commissioner, and as you mention has "the final say," she is a medical doctor, internist and public health expert, with no special expertise in food. It is Michael Taylor who serves as newly appointed Deputy Commissioner for Foods, will therefore be the one developing and advising on food policy which Dr. Hamburg will sign off on. The press release details both Taylor's appointment, and his role in the development of the HACCP inspection method critiqued here (http://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/ConstituentUpdates/ucm197828.htm)
Your comment implies that Taylor had only cursory involvement with Monsanto. But the Washington Post called him "Monsanto's chief lobbyist," and in classic revolving door style he has gone back and forth between FDA and USDA agency appointments and work for Monsanto directly and through their legal advisors, King and Spalding. In the breaks between these employments, Taylor has led initiatives to spread biotech and patented seeds to African agriculture, again serving Monsanto which owns the patents.
Once again, a visual inspection every 5 years is better than a visual inspection every 10 years. No way around that. They can still spot areas where cross-contamination can occur and point out measures that need to be taken to improve the facility.
As for Taylor, let's not overlook David Dorsey, the FDA's acting deputy commissioner for policy, planning and budget. How about the unnamed staffers who will be doing the grunt work?
The public also gets a say on the regulations. Public comment and FDA town hall meetings are prescribed by the bill.
Aside from the fact that Taylor doesn't operate in a bubble, connecting Monsanto to this bill is pointless. They don't stand to gain from a bill that dictates that new regulations can't contradict organic standards. If you want to consider biotechnology and crop regulation, this bill serves to practically ensure that the FDA will never be able to require that farmers have to use GM seed.