UPDATED INFORMATION
By James J. Gormley
Here at Citizens for Health (CFH) we’ve been working diligently to keep you updated on all of the latest developments in policy and legislation affecting your health freedoms. One example is S. 510, The Food Safety Modernization Act, which is a flawed effort to improve the government’s system for ensuring the safety of our food supply.
CFH strongly supports food safety, however S. 510 would ultimately make our food less safe, not more. In addition, the bill would do so at the expense of health food retailers, manufacturers, and consumers of natural foods.
While S. 510 has undergone some revisions along the way it still falls far short of what we consider acceptable. And, given that our information suggests it could come up for a vote shortly after Labor Day, there isn’t sufficient time to ensure that the bill is overhauled before a vote comes up.
That is why we need you to send a message to your Senators today using the form at the bottom of this linked page.
Among our concerns:
1) What the bill says: If the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) believes that there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to an article of food (and any other article of food that the Secretary reasonably believes is likely to be affected in a similar manner) will cause serious health consequences, then the source would have to give HHS agents access to all of its records.
Our concerns: Simply believing there’s a potential hazard isn’t enough - there should be proof before HHS intrudes upon the livelihood of our health food manufacturers. Taking it a step further: What constitutes “reasonable,” and by whom is it determined? There needs to be evidence, and it needs to be clear and definitive.
2) What the bill says: It mandates use of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) as a means of identifying sources of contamination.
Our concern: HACCP is a risk-based algorithmic approach to food safety that allows many shortcuts and involves a monumental amount of expensive paperwork and record-keeping with NO improvements in on-site, physical inspections.
3) What the bill says: If the Secretary determines…that there is a reasonable probability that an article of food is adulterated or misbranded…the Secretary shall provide the responsible party an opportunity to cease distribution and recall such an article.
Our concern: Similar to #1 above, what level of evidence will constitute “reasonable” probability? In addition, the words “adulterated” and “misbranded” have been applied by the FDA so liberally over the years that they’ve become watered down as descriptors of contamination.
And, lastly, the biggest problem of all with S. 510:
4) What the bill says: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the U.S. is a party.”
Our concern: No other countries ensure that all of their internal regulations are consistent with WTO or any other treaty or international agreement – so why should the United States sacrifice its sovereignty? As if that wasn’t reason enough, we all share the concern about what might happen to the affordability of – and especially our access to – the products and services we choose to maintain our health and wellness if the United States was required to harmonize with the WTO, SPS, the Uruguay Rounds, and Codex!
In an interview here’s what health-freedom attorney Jonathan Emord said about what’s wrong with S. 510:
“The major problem with the bill is that it fails to recognize, let alone protect against, abuses that are common in the inspection process. Moreover, it creates a financial incentive for FDA to perform repeat inspections of facilities as a revenue-raising measure or as a means to penalize financially a company disfavored by the agency. The notion that expanding FDA inspection authority will somehow arrest instances of adulteration is absurd. FDA inspects after complaints are made, not before, and FDA inspections are rarely the means by which the market acts to protect consumers from harm. Most often the company itself acts to reduce the risk of product liability, and the media seizes upon the information and broadcasts it widely. At a time when the nation can ill afford imposition of yet another tax on companies that make essential products, this Congress in its ‘infinite wisdom’ is doing precisely that. S. 510 is a bad idea that will not work to stop adulteration but will enable the FDA to abuse its power and may well drive some good firms out of existence.”
The bottom line: If the above problems and deficiencies are not fixed or eliminated immediately from S. 510, then it must not pass. It gives the HHS/FDA almost limitless authority since it would allow the fox to guard the henhouse. What constitutes reasonable belief and reasonable probability will be moving targets, moved up or down by the FDA at will. By further pushing the risky HAACP algorithmic approach to food safety down industry’s throat, consumers will be less safe since there will a greater reliance on mathematical and statistical hazards models and less reliance on physical, on-site inspections. Furthermore, the sovereignty of U.S. law and regulation will be further undermined and compromised by referencing international standards and bodies in internal U.S. statutes.
Send your letter now, and urge your Senators to Save Safe Food – Stop S. 510! To make sure that language is included banning BPA, please click here.
by Helena Bottemiller via www.foodsafetynews.com
Jan 03, 2010
Part one of a three part discussion with Harry Hamil, founder of North Carolina’s Black Mountain Farmers Market, on how he would change the Senate food safety bill to lessen the impact on small and sustainable agriculture
Harry Hamil has worked to revive local, healthy food for people in western North Carolina since 1995. He and his wife, Elaine, work full time growing, distributing and retailing locally grown food at the Black Mountain Farmers Market, a year-round market the couple founded in 2003.
Since the passage of the House Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749) last July, Hamil–who has a rare affinity for detail and a keen understanding of the policy making process–has focused full time on the pending FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) in the Senate, advocating for changes that would help lessen what he foresees as a detriment to the burgeoning small and sustainable agriculture movement.
Food Safety News had a chance to discuss, in detail, some changes Hamil would like to see made to the food safety bill before it clears the Senate.
Part I: Regulation should be appropriately scaled
Hamil, like many small and sustainable agriculture advocates, sees S.510, as it’s currently written, as “one-size-fits-all” regulation with the potential to force small growers and producers out of the business.
“They’re calling for increased regulation because of globalization,” says Hamil. “We aren’t globalizing, folks. We’re producing it locally–local health food for local people. The level of regulation that applies to us clearly is different.” Hamil would like to see the regulations in the bill tiered so that they are more appropriately scaled.
Hamil points to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) new egg rule, finalized last summer, to help minimize Salmonella Enteritidis, as an example of of the kind of tiered regulation that could be applied to the rest of the food industry.
“The egg rule says very clearly that the rule shall apply to egg producers with greater than 3,000 layers,” says Hamil, who explains that the rule is tiered because the smaller producers, of which there are few, just don’t have the same impact. “Federal regulation needs to focus on those food production enterprises with the potential to distribute products to large numbers of people rather than those distributing to small numbers of customers.”
Continue reading about How to Fix S.510: A Sustainable Ag Perspective
By Jim Turner, Chairman, Citizens For Health
This Wednesday, November 18th, the U.S. Senate plans to consider a massive “food safety” bill entitled “The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act”.
This bill (S. 510) will strengthen the forces that for the past fifty years have led to unsafe, nutritionally compromised food and will undermine growing efforts working to thwart those forces. (To read the bill and view co-sponsors, go to www.thomas.loc.gov and enter “Food Safety Modernization Act” in the search field).
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial“. The Senate’s food safety initiative, though intended to be beneficial, follows the House version by leading food down the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “modernization” path that Congress designed for drugs. (This House version, H.R. 2749, has the same drawbacks and originally failed; later in the same week it was passed under different rules).
Click here to send a letter to your Senators urging them to amend or oppose S. 510!
The FDA’s drug modernization approach places high-cost drugs at the heart of a dangerously costly health system, contributes to thousands of drug-related deaths, and leads to the approval of many unsafe drugs that end up being recalled. It also makes FDA drug regulation perilously dependent on the financial support the agency receives from drug company fees.
S. 510 – in keeping with this flawed drug modernization path – gives powerful incentives to large, concentrated food manufacturers (the sources of the most significant threats to our food so far) while undercutting producers that are smaller, safer, and often local.
Today Citizens for Health launches its food safety campaign and our first goal is to amend or defeat S 510. If the bill passes without any meaningful, substantive changes, we will seek a Presidential Veto. If the bill that is finally signed fails to address our concerns sufficiently we will work to establish and implement regulations to minimize the negative impact on food safety that will surely result, and we will redouble our efforts to maximize the food choices and food and health information available to all.
And, remember: we are not opposing food safety. We are working to advance it by opposing misguided attempts to build a flawed, drug-like bureaucratic structure on top of a crumbling food safety foundation that desperately needs to be shored up and repaired.
We need your help to win – click here and send your letter to your Senators now!
During this process we will regularly address key food safety issues and the food safety decisions we make – as a nation and as individuals – that shape our lives. It is essential that we all have the opportunity to understand how these issues and decisions affect our ability to trust our food supply. In a very real sense we, as a nation, are what we eat.
We welcome a robust discourse – here at Citizens.org, in your community, and in policy. And, ultimately, we all look forward to safer, healthier, more trustworthy food.
On a final note, consider this remark by Mark Twain: “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” Now is the time to act to minimize the damage that will result from passage of S. 510.
I thank you for staying involved in this discourse and look forward to hearing from you. Take a moment to share your comments at blogcomments@citizens.org, and don’t forget to click here now to send a letter to your Senators urging them to oppose or overhaul S. 510.
James S. Turner, Esq.
Board Chair
Citizens for Health