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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Who do you trust
  • Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:22:50 -0600


Food Safety in the US: We're on Red Alert
by Andrew Kimbrell Monday, April 12, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/12-3
The United States once had one of the safest food systems in the world,
but now, 70 million Americans are sickened, 300,000 are hospitalized, and
5,000 die from food-borne illness every year. It is a sad fact: since 9/11,
far more Americans have been killed, injured or hurt because of our lack of a
coordinated food safety system than by terrorist acts that challenge our
Homeland Security system. The culprits in this assault on American wellbeing
aren't shadowy terrorist figures, but rather, they are what most consumers
would identify as wholesome -- not harmful -- foods. Peanuts, lettuce,
pistachios, spinach, hamburgers sold to Boy Scout camps, peppers, tomatoes,
and pepper-coated sausages are among the foods that have sickened and killed
Americans in just the last few years. Our children are most at risk from
these food threats, with half of all food-borne illness striking children
under 15 years old.
The Bush administration constantly claimed it was protecting Americans
from potential security threats, yet it completely failed to protect the
public from the clear and present danger of deadly food. Due in part to that
administration's cuts in funding and staff, the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) currently inspects less than 25% of all food facilities in the U.S.
More than 50% of all American food facilities have gone uninspected for five
years or more. During President Bush's last term, regulatory actions against
those companies selling contaminated food to Americans declined by over a
half (Office of the Inspector General: FDA's Food Facility Registry. Report:
OEI-02-08-00060, December 2009). The result is tragically predictable. Large
processing facilities, which now mix foods from across the country and the
world, are not being inspected. Illnesses caused by contaminated foods, which
could be prevented with proper government oversight, are instead causing the
hospitalization of hundreds of thousands and the deaths of thousands of
Americans. Again, the victims are, disproportionately, our children.
The tens of millions of victims of food-borne illness represent only one
segment of the casualties from our failure to require safe and nutritious
food. Because of lax regulation of agricultural chemicals, many of the fruits
and vegetables that should bring us health and nutrition are instead laced
with dangerous pesticides, dozens of which are known carcinogens. Much of the
food marketed to our children and served in their schools are confections
brimming with trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup; these contribute
mightily to the epidemic of obesity in the young and heart disease and
diabetes in our older populations. Under pressure from agribusiness, our
federal agencies and legislators continue to commercialize genetically
modified foods with no safety testing and no labeling for consumers. And,
despite the strong potential of health hazards, food made with new,
nanotechnology-based chemicals are getting waived through to the market,
without any independent testing at all.
Clearly our food safety system is broken and needs a complete overhaul.
With the continuing string of food contamination scandals, even Congress has
begun to pay attention. The Food Safety Enhancement Act (HR 2749) was passed
by the House of Representatives in the summer of 2008 and takes some steps in
the right direction. It gives more authority to the FDA, restoring some of
its power to conduct food inspections and strengthen oversight.
However, it's far from perfect. Bowing to pressure from agribusiness,
lawmakers have exempted livestock producers and any other entity regulated by
the USDA from the new regulations of both this act and its Senate companion,
the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510). In fact, members of Congress were
so committed to the interests of big industrial meat producers that they also
prohibited the FDA from "impeding, minimizing, or affecting" USDA authority
on meat, poultry, and eggs. As a result, these bills contain the stupefying
provision that no attempt by the FDA to combat E. coli and Salmonella will be
allowed. These bacteria are the most common causes of deadly food-borne
illness and are found in products contaminated with animal feces. Since
January 2010, over 850,000 pounds of beef -- mostly from industrial feed lots
-- has been recalled due to E. coli O157:H7 contamination. The members of
Congress have essentially protected the interests of corporations who are bad
actors, while condemning the public to continued sickness from these
contaminants.
Another major problem with both bills is that they begin with the flawed
premise that all producers and processors of food -- whether massive
corporate farms or small family farms -- are equally at fault for our broken
food safety system. New food safety legislation should target the largest
causes of food-borne illness. These include concentrated animal feeding
operations (CAFOs), water and field contamination due to manure lagoon
leakage, and industrial processing systems, not small farms.
The "one size fits all" regulatory approach in these bills fails to take
this disparity into account. It instead places an undue and unsupportable
burden on family farms, small processors, and direct marketers of organic and
locally grown food. These have not been contributors to the contamination
events which have caused major food-borne illness outbreaks, a fact that was
acknowledged by FDA Deputy Director Michael R. Taylor at a July 2009 House
Oversight Subcommittee on Domestic Policy hearing on Ready-to-Eat Vegetables
and Leafy Green Agreements.
It is unconscionable that factory farms would get a pass under the
proposed legislation while family farmers, who often struggle to stay in
operation, are held to stringent, unnecessary and potentially bankrupting
requirements. Small operators would bear the brunt of large fees that
generate the revenue sufficient for the overall food safety program to
operate. Food safety regulation at the farm and processing level must be
appropriate to scale and level of risk. Fortunately, some Senators are
addressing the gaps in their bill. Perhaps the most critical action so far is
that of Sen. Tester (D-MT), who has introduced an amendment to exempt
small-scale and direct marketing farmers and processors, who are already well
regulated by local authorities.
However, most problematic is that the legislation in its current state
perpetuates the regulatory tangle that is our food safety system. Arcane
mixes of regulatory authority between the FDA, USDA and EPA make for
dangerously inefficient government. It is long overdue that we establish a
separate and effective government agency dedicated to food safety. We need to
separate out the 'Food' part of the Food and Drug Administration and
consolidate all authority under a new Food Safety Agency.
We did this for Homeland Security; we should also do it for food security.
After all, it is the lack of food safety in this country that is the far more
imminent threat to all of us, our families and, especially, our children.





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