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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] OpEdNews - Article: The Festering Fraud behind Food Safety Reform
  • Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:09:43 -0500


OpEdNews - Article: The Festering Fraud behind Food Safety Reform
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Festering-Fraud-behind-by-Nicole-Johnson-091109-384.html

“The general public must recognize that only after the demystification of U.S. agriculture will family farmers, labor, and consumers see beyond corporate agribusiness' manipulations to the point where they will recognize that both their mutual interests and the future of agriculture can be best decided through a system that not only practices political democracy, but economic democracy as well.

-- Ingolf Voegler

From Page 1 of 10 pages in this article:
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"The vested interests behind the creation of the 2009 Food Safety Enhancement Act and its Senate companion bill S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, are the same vested interests who were behind the earlier deregulation of the meat and poultry inspection process. They aim to minimize the regulatory obstacles faced by transnational corporations engaged in international trade, which is increasingly becoming the movement of goods from one subsidiary affiliate to another subsidiary affiliate. And they're using the issue of food safety to con us into consenting to their wishes.

The Fundamental Fraud Undermining Food Safety

After reading Moss's article, one might conclude that what's needed to increase the safety of the food supply is more testing. But that response misses the bigger picture. As illuminating as Moss's article is, it completely ignores the fact that the meat and poultry inspection process underwent a radical transformation in the 90s that took away government meat and poultry inspectors' authority to ensure product safety and handed it over to the slaughter and processing companies themselves. Critics of this surrender of regulatory authority say it's the equivalent of expecting the driver of a speeding car to pull over and write themselves a ticket. It's hardly news that corporations exist to maximize profits, not ensure society's welfare. But if you have any doubts that the honor system adopted by the USDA isn't working, just ask Stephanie Smith.

So, how did one of the most regulated industries become deregulated? For this, we can thank vested interests for engineering a regulatory coup: mandating that Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Plans (HACCP), pronounced ‘hassip', be applied to the raw food in/raw food out stages of food production.

Since the early 70s, HACCP had been used successfully and voluntarily as a food safety approach by industrial food processors. HACCP was originally designed to ensure product safety by including in the production process a “kill” step that rendered harmless any pathogens present in the food product. But along the way, it was decided that the approach should be mandated to raw meat processing alone. The problem is: in raw food in/raw food out food processing, such as meat slaughter and processing, there are no effective, definitive control steps available, such as cooking, to kill pathogens. "



  • [permaculture] OpEdNews - Article: The Festering Fraud behind Food Safety Reform, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 11/18/2009

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