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Take Action Now – Oppose Fake "Food Safety" Bill S3767

www.mypicshares.com

Who’s the picture of the elderly gentleman to the right? Why, that’s Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat, Vermont. What does he have to do with health freedoms? Keep reading.

Foodborne illness has become quite a ubiquitous event – and people are so used to it happening, they scarcely think twice about the repercussions.

But did you know that 1 in 4 people in this country are stricken annually with some type of foodborne illness?

When I was in my twenties, I contracted a foodborne illness on an average of once a year for 10 years. Yes, I had food poisoning every year for 10 years, some years multiple times. It was during this time that I was eating a lot of processed and fast-food meals. This is not normal and shouldn’t be acceptable to the consumer public!

Five years ago when I decided enough was enough and I would change my eating habits, my health started to turn around. And guess what? I haven’t had an episode of food borne illness since then.

Listen up.

Food recalls could be the end of real food as we know it.

It’s time to communicate to your senator and representative that enough is enough. Food recalls should be waking people up to the practices going on in the facilities where food is grown and being produced. But instead, it’s causing the opposite effect – the government wants to add more safety and regulatory laws onto the already dense pile already in place. This “solution” is not going to make these problems disappear.

Just before the egg recall (July 2010), significant “changes” in the law were made to “make egg production safer”.  This effort started over 10 years ago, but it took nearly a decade to get it done. Funny how the law went into effect and then the recall occurred anyway. Doesn’t this say something about the regulations in the first place – that it’s not the laws, it’s the farming practices?

When are the food safety regulatory bunch going to wake up and get it through their heads? The answer is the entire system is geared toward supporting and growing profits for commodity agriculture. Cargill. Swift. Tyson. Smithfield. And all others of their ilk that control the food system. Those few corporations control over 90 percent of the food people in America eat – including the facility in Iowa that got hand-slapped for the egg recall.  The authorities won’t stop. There’s too much profit at stake.

So it’s up to the citizens of this country to defend and protect and fight for our food safety by demanding bills like S3767 get taken down, and to be sure of a future for small, sustainable farmers who care about delivering a healthy, safe, and nutritious product to their customers. If you think the folks at Cargill and Tyson are looking out for you and your health, think again. They only apologize when they get caught. And when they do, they have enough power and money to absorb the damages of a food recall in the food system. Just because you eat the food and don’t get sick immediately, by the way, doesn’t mean the food is safe OR healthy to consume.

Bill S510, The Food Safety Modernization Act, which has been in process since 2009. This bill has been passed in the House, and now sitting in the Senate has been delayed.

From Health Freedom USA:

Now there is a new bill. “The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning to debate – and approve – S.3767 as early as tomorrow, September 23, 2010. It is entirely likely that while moving this bill forward, the text of dangerous, Codex-friendly S.510 will be introduced into that bill as an amendment; perhaps even elements of the long-discredited fake dietary supplement “safety” bill, S.3002 might worm their way in. Right now, to the tooth gnashing frustration of the Uber Cartel, S.510 has been stalled by Senator Coburn’s courageous hold on it. Please take a moment to tip your hat to Dr. Coburn and honor him for character unbecoming a politician: courage, the ability to act for the common good and willingness to buck the tide for what is clearly right. (Action Item No. 3 above.) Men and women of principle need to know that we know what they are doing and what they are facing for doing it!”

Remember Senator Patrick Leahy? He is the chief sponsor of this bill, as well as a number of other measures related to improving our “food safety”. According to his web site:

“As a senior member of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Leahy played instrumental roles in creating the Farmland Protection Program and the Milk Income Loss Compensation (MILC) program, and in extending the Conservation Reserve Program. He has been a long-time supporter of the organic movement and is often called the “father of organics.” He helped Vermont’s and the nation’s organic industry grow from near obscurity when he wrote and passed the Organic Foods Production Act in 1990. The Leahy charter for organic agriculture has helped it grow into an $11 billion-a-year sector of the American economy.”

Funny thing is, the “father of agriculture” as he is called, he doesn’t really seem to be trying to support the small-scale farmers at all. And notice how he is a senior member of the Agriculture Committee. You can bet he’s in close, personal contact with board members and CEOs of corporations like Cargill, Swift, Smithfield, Tyson. Starting to see a connection now?

The web site goes on to say:

“Senator Leahy has championed effective child nutrition programs, gaining bipartisan support for addressing the nation’s obesity crisis and leading efforts to implement hands-on nutrition education programs in our schools. He has also reached across the aisle to coauthor legislation that would enable the Secretary of Agriculture to more efficiently control the sale of junk food and soft drinks in schools that participate in the federal School Lunch Program.”

Right, Senator. You’ve worked really hard to improve school lunch programs and nutritional standards for the nation. That’s why obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are three of the most pervasive diseases we face. And somehow, obesity rates have continued to skyrocket since 1989. Why is that?

What the bill proposes:

Provisions of the bill increase criminal penalties of imprisonment of up to to ten years for anyone who “knowingly introduces or delivers for introduction into interstate commerce any food that is adulterated or misbranded”. So if you are a farmer who didn’t pay attention to miniscule record keeping data error or a manufacturer selling a dietary supplement with a label reading about the product’s ability to prevent or treat illness or disease, you’d better believe the FDA would step in and declare these actions eligible for criminal charges.

The purpose of these bills are intended to make it more difficult for safety violators to commit crimes and thus make our food system more “safe”, but it provides license to federal entities like the FDA omnipotent authority to rule over any case and to threaten, silence, penalize and imprison small-scale farmers, natural food and supplement makers and distributors. It’s happening right now in Europe.

Regulations like this would require all producers – from the corporate giants to the small-scale farmers to local cooperative clubs and groups to natural and organic food growers – to adhere to these new guidelines. And the ones who won’t be able to meet those requirements will go under – small, family farms and food producing operations and distributors. This legislation would effectively destroy income and way of life for these growers and producers, as well as adversely affect the consumer purchaser of natural, healthy food and dietary supplements.

Take action to preserve our health freedoms and rights!

Please take a moment TODAY and go to the National Health Freedom ACTION site and oppose this bill. Then contact your local senators and representatives by phone or mail and let them know you vehemently oppose more food safety regulations, and that the way to clean up this mess is to support local and sustainable agriculture and growers who practice clean and safe farming practices.

Wednesday, September 23rd is the deadline for this bill to remain on the Senate floor. Take action today and make a difference for our future!

7 replies on “Take Action Now – Oppose Fake "Food Safety" Bill S3767”

Crucial post, Raine. I might add that the FDA already seems to consider all raw milk as “adulterated.” If this bill passes, there is a real danger that everybody who sells raw milk could be prosecuted under its provisions and sent to prison. Since the FDA apparently wants to radiate all produce and eggs, there is a real danger that any unradiated produce and eggs could be considered “adulterated,” and the people selling them could be sent to prison. This is insane.

Everybody who cares about real food should contact their senators and ask them to stop the bill.

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