“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