Monday, January 24, 2011
Food Safety Bill
Have you been hearing things about the Food Safety Bill that ended up passing in Congress the end of 2010? I didn't hear a lot about it but enough to get me worried and wanting to know the truth. While I still don't know quite who/what to believe, it was good to get a better perspective on the issue. This site says it's a bad thing for everyone, this one details why this bill won't actually affect those of us who home garden (or even small farms), and this site suggests what is next. Personally, I feel the FDA has too much power as it is (and the majority of America is still as unhealthy as ever) and they certainly don't need any more!
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5 comments:
I'd be interested in hearing why you think that the FDA has too much power. From what I know about the FDA, and from what I learned in my Food and Drug Law course, the FDA's power is actually quite limited. They can't even order a recall of tainted meat, etc. (they have to ask the meat company to recall it and hope that the meat company agrees to do so).
Maybe "power" isn't the correct word. Maybe I should've said misguided, extensive influence. I realize the FDA has helped protect us in the past, but they are not the know all about the safety of food and drugs that so many trust them to be. For example, just because they say the flu vaccine is safe and recommend it to everyone over the age of 6 months does not mean it's right for everyone. And trying to interfere with people's own produce-producing gardens is not something I agree with. (That smells of big government to me.) Nor is their clamping down on private raw milk distribution. I just feel like they are trying to extend their misguided influence into places where it doesn't belong.
I have plenty of problems with the FDA, the first one being with the drugs that get fasttracked though with minimal testing (only to get pulled after causing deaths...but not until after earning money which was the whole point...)
I have not read up on this bill very much. Everything I have heard from pretty much every source I've read indicates that it is an effort to protect factory food production and shut down the little guys (ie, that it's politically motivated and lobby-funded, and probably because the little/local/non-factory-food movement is gaining ground).
It seems to me like the FDA needs more "power," or maybe they need to be more thorough. But if you look at all the recalled drugs over the years it seems obvious that we need to improve the system. I don't think the government could ever regulate your garden Katrina. How would they? And growing food for personal use and growing it for sale and distribution is a very different thing.
Yes, I think they just need to somehow become more effective. I don't see how the government could ever regulate my garden either, so it seemed stupid to try. Thanks again for the Pollan link. I think he has a better handle on this thing than other stuff I read.
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