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There are "food safety" bills now in Congress which are a remake of Hillary Clinton's presidential platform to centralize the USDA and FDA into a single massive "Food Safety Department." A few reminders are in order.
Hillary and Bill Clinton are deeply involved with Monsanto , often called the most evil corporation on earth. The people introducing these bills are friends of the Clintons and/or have their own close connections to Monsanto which is working aggressively to take control over food around the world, whether through patenting of seeds and animals, buying up fish farms in India or privatizing water - if you need it to survive so will be willing to pay through the nose for it, Monsanto is out there ahead of you, getting control over what you need .
This is not the first Clinton foray into "food safety." Bill Clinton also proposed a Monsanto-driven and "harmonized" internationally major "food safety" program. It was HACCP. It is what the Organic Consumers Association described as "The beginnings of deregulation, and how feces became an approved part of the American diet."
Carol Tucker Forman, though taking positions as an consumer advocate, was an outspoken lobbyist for Monsanto's rBGH, favoring corporate interests over the best interests of the public.
"The discovery of drug resistant bacteria in poultry is linked to a food safety decision in 1976 that most people never knew about and few remember today.
Rod Leonard, head of the Community Nutrition Institute said, "Carol Foreman, a newly minted Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, approved that year a change in food safety procedures ... [She] decided that poultry visibly smeared with fecal matter could be safely eaten after the feces was washed away." ...
"Easing food safety standards a generation ago began a deterioration in the nation's food safety shield today that is a public scandal. And, bacteria swiftly become resistant to antibiotics when drugs are licensed as feed additives, creating a public health crisis that is just now unfolding. ...
"Over the past six years, even while representing Monsanto and other corporate clients, Foreman has been one of the most vociferous supporters of Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Program (HACCP), an awkward acronym for a program to deregulate food safety. [My emphasis.]
"The major reason for Foreman's renewed interest in food safety, however, is contained in her explanation for returning to CFA, i.e., she will seek to develop policies 'that assure food safety in a global economy.' HACCP is the keystone of President Clinton's globalization strategy to restrict the ability of Congress and of citizens at risk of health to make food safety a political, or policy issue."
On the promised "food safety" side, HACCP reduced inspections and there has been no drop but a rise in problems with contaminated food. And on the farmer side, HACCP destroyed, in Kansas alone, 72 small, local meat processing plants that had no history of any problems, and led to a centralization of our food supply and increased industry control over our food.So, the "food safety" bills in Congress are the second major plan put forward by the Clintons, each one associated with Monsanto, each one harmonizing with global regulations that favor Monsanto and other multinationals, and each time - if one bothers to look - destructive of actual food safety, good for corporations, and perilous to farmers who are the only real "food safety" we have.
All that by way of introduction to an article based almost entirely on writing by Gail Neilson, who has done an incredible of supplying critically missing background on what is actually happening to US food safety and who is behind it. I am quoting her directly below and then have made changes editorial changes and added some supporting material, but the shape of this article and the research for it are hers.
"It is important to note that no animal identification program will prevent an introduction of animal disease, ensure safe food or prevent a recall." Scott Charbo, Chief Information Officer at USDA March 6, 2004
"If there is no substantial public outcry heard before March 15 of 2009, it will be difficult to impossible for Granny to have laying hens, for your daughter to have a pony, or the organic farm across the street to grow veggies. Only in the last decade have the demon doctors of big agriculture finally come up with a plan so devilish that it just might succeed in running farmers off the land for good. Can you imagine America with no family farms?
"Take a look at current House bills HR 814 and HR 875 (Senate version S.384). They are driven by Monsanto, a large corporation that has eyes on controlling all the world's agriculture. These bills will strangle family farms in red tape, and levy confiscatory fines, causing farmers to simply give up. Then the Big Ag corporations can grab their land, snapping it up at bargain prices."
Safety or Monopoly?
But these are food safety bills, aren't they? Well, no, they aren't. Media touts these bills as promoting food safety. But what do they actually do? Digging into them, you'll find they're not about food safety at all, but instead remove border checks on foreign food coming into the US, and establish legal food monopolies! A sponsor of those bills, Congresswoman Rosa Delauro (D-CT) is working with Monsanto to create these so-called food safety laws. How can a member of Congress get away with this? Her husband, Stan Greenberg, is her Monsanto connection. He works for various politicians and corporations as a pollster, strategist and master manipulator.
Aren't Any Farmers Worried About These Bills?
They sure are. They have been fighting to stop them from happening for years. Yet the 2009 report on US Animal Agriculture that "supposed" experts prepared for Congressmen never touches on concerns voiced by farmers! It speaks for international meat packers, and grain traders, “promoting their exports, resolving their trade disputes, and reassuring their markets” but never once for our American farmers The international Big-Ag has a voice, but what about US farmers? Who's interest should Congress represent anyway?
There has been an increase in recalls since 1995 ...
[I]t all goes back to a fundamental change in US food safety based on the WTO AoA ratified in 1995, a policy written by a Grain Trader named Dan Amstrutz, VP of Cargill. The new improved food policy touted in HR 814 and HR 875 is written by the same corporation which posted record earnings last year while people rioted over food prices, shortages and children starved.
Ratification of WTO AoA. meant the USDA and FDA had to change food
safety practices. The AoA introduced the concept of "low risk areas" and
importing without quarantine or food safety measures. Monsanto, Cargill
and the rest of big Ag knew the decrease in testing and open borders
would cause tainted food, So they came up with a corporate friendly
"Food Safety System". The new system
1) looks good to the consumer
2) transfers liability to the farmer
3) bankrupts independent and organic farms
And best of all, it's a paperwork system tailor made to hide the true source of contamination. Most of the system was implemented right away but the system has addition elements which is what the current bills in Congress are about. But American farmers have been too smart to fall for the "tagging and paperwork" part of the system that now comes next. It was clear it's designed to bankrupt them.
The WTO AoA system waved in front of the public as a "food safety" plan, actually cut safety to the bone - labs are closed, the borders are opened to animals from countries where there are animal diseases, and reports of tainted food sky rocketed. For example, take Bovine TB. One port of entry was turned over to a Mexican Cattlemen's Association, while testing in California was decreased from 10,576 a year in 1995 to 1,425 a year in 1999. The USDA now reports “The number of carcasses found infected with TB is 15 times higher than in 1986.”
And what of our farmers' fear of being wiped out by these bills?
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