Michael Pollan Issues Urgent Call to Senators on Food Safety Bill

This Monday a vote on the Food Safety Bill S510 will affect food quality, safety and price-- and the rights to health supplements-- for years to come. Last week, author Michael Pollan added his voice to the group of citizens and organizations urging people to contact their Senators to assure that the bill that passes will not undermine the movement of organic, local sustainable growers and food producers.

Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) as well as the Organic Consumers Organization want concrete assurances that the bill, as written, won't apply the regulations explicitly crafted to regulate large industrial facilities (factory farms and industrial agriculture and manufacturers) to small businesses (family farmers, organic growers, farmer's markets, food artisans and local suppliers).

Working behind the scenes, knee deep in legislative policy discussions, health activists have sought to achieve flexibility within S510 for the burgeoning consumer-driven industry in healthier, locally grown foods, supplied by small to medium size operations-- as well as for health supplements.

As of now, a refinement of the bill, unveiled last summer, called the Manager's Package, states that "raw agricultural commodities that the Secretary has determined are low risk and do not present a risk of serious adverse health consequences or death" may at the discretion of the FDA Secretary be asked to comply to modified regulations only. In addition, this new version omits "any requirements that conflict with or duplicate the requirements of the national organic program established under the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990..." This is a step forward for organic and smaller growers.

However, since that protection is discretionary (and since the new FDA Food Czar is a former Monsanto executive) that protection would be enhanced by the Tester Amendment, proposed by Senator Jon Tester. That amendment got support from Pollan, Schlosser, and 128 national organizations. Its provisions would assure that small businesses (under 500k in sales), and those who sell direct to consumers would be exempted from onerous paper work and compliance provisions, necessary only for large industrial suppliers. The concern has been that the costs of compliance and paperwork would drive small suppliers out of business. If the Tester Amendment is included in the bill, it will help. Senator Tester in a press briefing today, said that, "Without this amendment, my concern is that small suppliers will be crushed under the weight of these regulations." You can go here to call your Senator, and urge to him or her to vote "Yes" for the Tester Amendment, and also mention the talking points below. Update: The Tester Amendment has passed, but PR firms for agribusinesses are lobbying for its removal behind the scenes.

With dietary supplements recently outlawed abroad, there is tremendous concern about this bill being a Trojan Horse for a take down of the healthy supplements industry. New language has been added to exempt "...any dietary supplement that is in compliance with the requirements of sections 402(g)(2) and 761 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 USC 242(g)(2), 379aa-1)."

What's more, S510 would enforce automatic harmonization with CODEX, an international law that would supercede American law.

The organization, Citizens for Health (CFH) also points out disturbing and unacceptable language in the House version of the bill, which "calls for the effective imposition of martial law through cordoning off potentially affected geographic areas in the case of a perceived food transport safety threat in order to halt the movement of food." This leaves the door open for the abuse of such power, CFH claims. Their action link is href="http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/750/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5255" target="_hplink">here.

To call both your Senators, find their contact information at www.Senate.gov or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Or for a more comprehensive list, go here.

For health insight, activism and radio, www.healthjournalistblog.com

 

Follow Alison Rose Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlisonRoseLevy

Comments

[Nalini Chilkov]

02:44 PM on 11/21/2010

Another example of industry and corporate interests unduly influencing good judgement and good health safety policies and endangering our rights. Already GMOs genetically modified foods are becoming more common in our food supply with no knowledge of the long term safety and risk of ingesting foods that have had their genetics artificially manipulated. This is sure to cause health risks down the road.

[crujcu01]

12:36 PM on 11/26/2010

Did you know that since the mid-1990s just five biotech companies - Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow and DuPont - have bought up more than 200 other companies between them. Isn't the new Food Czar connected to Monsanto? Isn't Monsanto the company suing farmers over the use and reuse of their genetically engineered seeds?

[Alison Rose Levy]

07:59 AM on 11/19/2010

Although expected to be voted on today, the vote on S510 has been delayed. Some have asked whether regulating food for safety is a good thing. Many experts agree that it's vital, especially if it were done in the proper fashion, implemented appropriately, addressed some of the major problems in the commoditization of food, and did not impinge on the purveyors of healthy foods and supplements. However the safety inspection methods used have already proven themselves to be inadequate, the enforcement will be done by an agency with an industry revolving door, and which has failed to enforce the existing laws, it will instate rather than address poor practices, like monopolizing seeds, GMOs, bad treatment of animals, and the champions of healthy food and small farms are fighting at every step to protect healthy products and get CODEX compliance out of the bill. Some experts I've spoke to say that the whole thing needs to be scrapped and rethought. I address that in an prior post: http://healthjournalistblog.com/will-the-food-safety-bill-really-make-food-safe/

[lbsaltzman]

10:45 AM on 11/22/2010

Thank you for your hard work on this issue. We live in a world of corporate dictatorship, and preserving what freedom is left is important.

[Alison Rose Levy]

08:17 PM on 11/18/2010

Update: The Tester Amendment was accepted as part of the Manager's Package and will be included in the bill. This addresses a major concern about the bill, but there are still are some problems, which you can learn more about at: http://www.citizens.org/?page_id=2312

[Alison Rose Levy]

12:00 PM on 11/18/2010

With the revised version of the Tester Amendment in the bill, we can now call our Senators and tell them to vote: NO on the bill itself, knowing that there is at least some protection. Link to Senator's phone numbers.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

[Alison Rose Levy]

10:30 AM on 11/18/2010

Breaking news: There is now a new revised version of the Tester Amendment based on negotiations. It will either be included in the Manager's package or voted on separately. I'm checking but I sense that it would be best to include it in the package to assure it's part of the bill. Call Senators now to request this. More to follow...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/michael-pollan-issues-urg_b_784652.html

[right Alice]

09:00 AM on 11/18/2010

Here is a quick way to write your senator - just fill in the blanks:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4613#Action

[Alison Rose Levy]

09:08 AM on 11/18/2010

Thanks!

[right Alice]

09:23 AM on 11/18/2010

Thank YOU!

I am so not surprised that this article is not front and center.

[Last Gasp]

01:46 AM on 11/18/2010

he doesnt look healthy. needs to eat meat.

I used to be a vegan. two years but then i learned about WAPF. Now I'm much healthier and happier and boy i wish others new about it.

[janecol22]

11:58 PM on 11/17/2010

I love MP but he is being naive. The food industry needs to look very closely at what has happened to small handmade children's item manufacturers after another 'safety' nightmare bill was passed - CPSIA.

http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/Resources/TheProblemsWiththeCPSIA.aspx

Family farms and small growers and producers have everything to lose with S 510...and BigAg has everything to gain. We will all eat what they tell us to eat.

[Alison Rose Levy]

05:50 AM on 11/18/2010

This is also similar to when the FDA took over over-seeing drug safety. Check out the radio program, I did with James S. Turner of Citizens for Health for a full discussion of how this bill will be enforced at: http://healthjournalistblog.com/radio-show-food-safety/

Also my earlier Huffington blogs about this topic: http://healthjournalistblog.com/tainted-meat-rotten-eggs-food-safety/ and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/will-the-food-safety-bill_b_740312.html

And please do sign up for my free ezine which offers health activism links at www.healthjournalistblog.com

[babybecks]

10:41 PM on 11/17/2010

I'm someone who tries to follow these issues, GM foods specifically, and I can tell you, it is complicated to understand. I didn't start following as closely as I should have, until I listened to a piece on Diane Rehm about the "frankenfish." Many of the things I learned about the fish, and GM foods in general was quite shocking.

Alison- Great piece! It would be really cool if you could perhaps do a "what GM means, and what you should know about it" type article. I think if people had a real understanding in layman's terms about it, they would really start paying attention. It is not savory information...

[sfbbmom]

10:10 PM on 11/17/2010

It is critical that people get to their representatives so that small family, organic, free range, grass-fed, pastured, local, humanely raised, heirloom, and self-seeds are protected. And that there must be labels for all GENETICALLY MODIFIED foods and food products. (Ala "high fructose corn syrup" 90 percent of American soy (also fed to factory farm animals), corn, zucchini abnd yellow squash are genetically modified. European studies show that third generation lab animals fed genetically modified foods are over 90% sterile. There was no adequate testing of genetically modified food. Monsanto seeks a world mnonopoly on food and seeds. The Third world cannot afford this, as this detroys traditional famining and forces farmers to but Monsanto seed. There is an agricultural and health crisis, if not catastrophe, looming, and this health bill is like a stealth bomber to seal the Monsanto agenda and make it very very difficult if not impossible to undo. Farmers markets where fresh, local organic foods can be purchsed will languish, as the farmers will not be able to afford the insurabnce, etc. Already after the "egg recall" scandle, our local suppliers of pastured eggs were put out of business due to huge increases in their insurance policies. This must be turned around. Also the subsidies to the factory farms growing genetically modified corn and soy and other crops must stop.

[sfbbmom]

10:17 PM on 11/17/2010

Dear all. Sorry for typos.

[Alison Rose Levy]

05:43 AM on 11/18/2010

This bill instates rather than addresses the problems you mention. It's an industry supported bill that will be enforced by revolving door industry executives within the FDA. It will change the entire food landscape. The Manager's package, Tester Amendment, and requests to omit supplements, and to avoid harmonization with the archaic worldwide control exercised by WTO and CODEX are palliative measures to influence the reach of an inadequate, problematic bill. It would be better if the healthy food audience got up in force and on the phone today to tell their Senators to kill this bill and come up with something that addresses the root practices of industrial food and agriculture that harm our food supply. In the absence of that degree of awareness and action, asking for these palliatives gives more wiggle room for later challenges, when people wake up to what S510 will mean to the food they rely upon. However, currently for every hundred people, I would estimate that there are 10 nutritional experts offering advice, 35 people seeking advice, 50 people ignorant of food related concerns, and 5 people sufficiently aware to take action. This makes it hard to defeat the bill, resulting in a mixed message to the Senate-- don't pass this bill but if you have to-- change it in these ways.

Alison
www.healthjournalistblog.com

[Jonathan Angelilli]

07:37 PM on 11/17/2010

Such a crucial topic, more relevant to health care than any health care legislation.

[Alison Rose Levy]

07:39 PM on 11/17/2010

So true! And a lot of good nutritional advice will be harder to follow if we lose our healthy food supply.

[citizen625]

05:20 PM on 11/17/2010

The fact that the house version of this legislation was introduced by Rep. DeLauro the wife of Stan Greenberg who gets money from Monsanto tells me the fix by agribusiness is in. These groups leave civil disobedience as one of the few forms of protest. People with mortgages and can't afford to get thrown into jail. Go anywhere in the world and the number of food producers has gotten smaller since globalization became a buzz word. Buy and support local people.

[Sharon Hanson]

04:52 PM on 11/17/2010

I sent it to both of my Senators. I can't believe how many of these bills they try and slip through the cracks. You know companies like Monsato are lobbying hard for their form of the bill and that can only mean one thing for the rest of us. More poisons in our food in the form of RoundUp Ready.

[Alison Rose Levy]

05:05 PM on 11/17/2010

This bill has been a long time in the making, but the complexities of the bill make it hard to grasp. I was on a press briefing earlier in the day with Senator Tester, and a lot of the media people did not understand the issues. They somehow believed that multi-million dollar assembly companies that treat foods as commodities in a way far removed from their agricultural origins were not getting a fair break if a local farmer is allowed to sell some lettuce at a farmer's market. Incredible really!

[Bill Wagner]

01:10 PM on 11/17/2010

It is just totally deplorable to me that the Food Czar is a former Monsanto executive!!! Unbelievable. There is a vested interest in EVERY PART of this godda&* administration!! It is nuts and has got to stop. Call your senators regarding this bill!!!

[Alison Rose Levy]

01:35 PM on 11/17/2010

Few have followed and monitored the activities of the FDA for as long as James S. Turner, Chairman of Citizens for Health, has. He's been at it since 1968. He points out that former Monsanto vice president for public policy, Michael R. Taylor, as the newly appointed FDA food czar in his role as the Deputy Commission for Foods, will be the one to oversee the Food Safety Modernization Act's implementation. Turner told me in an interview last month, that his concern from past history is that, "the FDA enforcement pattern has been to ignore, placate or make a deal with the giants, and then turn around and pick on the growers it can outsize and intimidate -- the medium and small ones. Add to that, the new inclusion police powers imposing criminal terms of five to 10 years for any violations, this bill will come down like a hammer on small suppliers," Turner told me. This is one reason that CFH is urging the points in it's current letter.

Alison
www.healthjournalistblog.com

[Ninian Williams]

03:57 PM on 11/17/2010

This legislation is so morally and ethically wrong. And allowing Taylor to be FDA food czar having been Monsanto's VP is such a clear conflict of interest.....Those with the power to vote his or her conscience as well as to guard and protect the life and liberty of their constiuents should take heed to do the right thing, and not be bribed or goaded into voting for what is ostensibly a mega-agra corporate coup d'etat over our food production.

[right Alice]

09:09 AM on 11/18/2010

It's all special interest -- that's how we just got the TSA body scanners.
Chertoff, while head of Homeland Security, had a contract w/ its manufacturer.