Food Safety Modernization Act (HR 875):

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jim G on March 25, 2009 at 10:39am

This looks to be another broad brush attempt to tighten up food safety in this country answering the major E. coli and salmonella outbreaks that have happened recently and actually killed people (lettuce, tomatoes, peanuts, etc.). It seems like they are targeting those large factory farms that ship food across the country (interstate jurisdiction). However, as with all bills of this type, if they don't write it carefully enough or get enough feedback from the right groups it could hit small operations with onerous regulations and inspections (organic farm operations are not specifically mentioned in the bill).

"HR 875 is a food safety bill that, as it is currently drafted, could be applied to all farms, including certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations. The bill would require farms to have a food safety plan, allow their records to be inspected, and comply with food safety regulations."

Really good info and more links at the Organic Consumers Association: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17355.cfm

Good idea to get as much info as possible and then contact your reps in the Senate and Congress to add your opinion.

Permalink Reply by Kelly on April 11, 2010 at 11:00pm

More disturbing information coming in my email.

Codex Alimentarius Trade Commission in more detail:

The codex alimentarius commission is a trade commission, some think its a health commission its a trade law with an aim to protect and promotes biotechnologies genetically modified foods and patenting systems, they have made out publically, its to protect peoples health from poisoning foods and toxins. Unfortunately, codex has been ratified in December 2009 in the United Nations. The info below is from a blog i wrote a year ago on myspace:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&frie......
A Summary of material on the repercussions & threat of
Bio-technology on Humanity from The Codex Alimentarius Trade Commission.
The Basic Human Right to Human & Environmental Health is
disappearing by the end of this year-Human DNA can now be contaminated,
patented & owned. - The largest uncontrolled experiment on life in
human history, the consequences of which cannot be fully predicted.
The Reason:
Codex Alimentarius -Forgotten-the US governments most
powerfully political secret weapon of mass destruction on humanity- a
trade commission (not a public health commission)
"He who controls food controls the world". I.G. FARBEN.
( The Pharmaceutical body which funded Hitler, the founding inspiration for Codex Alimentarius)
Codex Alimentarius Commission will be fully mandatory by December 31st 2009
all 177 countries within the WTO will be Harm-onized (Codex Alimentarius
compliant).
"Having spent the past twelve months investigating Codex
Alimentarius, I am deeply disturbed by the almost total lack of
awareness (or even interest) with regard to the implications of this
pernicious global Commission, particularly amongst those most affected
by the excesses of this restrictive Legislation."-Ian R. Crane
"Every time a Shaman dies, it's as if a ancient library was burnt down" -Marc Plotkin MD. Ph.D
"784,000 People are dying annually and prematurely in the USA alone due to modern medicine intervention." Carolyn Dean MD.
Background on Codex Alimentarius.
Pharmaceuticals are protected from the Codex Alimentarius
Commission, Codex Alimentarius does not serve human health, it is a
commission designed to benefit and serve Biotechnology, Genetically
Modified foods, the Agro-business, the giant Pharmaceutical
corporations and the giant Chemical corporations.
This is the most dangerous governmental political weapon in human history and yet the public are very unaware of what Codex Alimentarius and what it actually is?
Ian Crane says, "thats exactly what they want!" And yet the Codex
Alimentarius Commission will be fully implemented at the end of this
year . Codex Alimentarius protects all corrupt pharmaceutical and GM motives and objectives under the disguise of protecting public health interests, its aim is to stop food labelling, patent seeds and new species, controll food growth world wide and disallow our rights to nutritional health and alternative health therapies. The issue comes down to our DNA. This is the largest uncontrolled human and environmental experiment .
The Codex Alimentarius Commision Goal:
*Global control of food supply.
*No Organic Food.
*Biotechnology dumping
*All Foods Genetically Modified.
* Permit Radiation
*Permit Chemicals
*People have to apply to their local municipalities to be able to grow food in
their own back yard.
*The municipalities will be required to serve
permits on food growth.
*Herbal Medicine will be completely illegal.
*Genetically Modified Crops will be grown in every country despite
public opposition.
*Patenting and ownership of Human DNA
* Patenting of all species contaminated by GM food.
*DNA contamination worldwide
*Alternative Health Therapies will become illegal.
*Low potency nutrientional supplements that will do nothing for your health *Human Genome Project (is actually a eugenics project will be involved in this)-
*Organ Harvesting Cloning Monsanto Patenting and distortion of natures
natural genomes-consequences of which cannot be fully predicted.
*Iradication of mixed crop system for round-up resistant chemicalzed
monoculture.
*Patenting and control of all seed to 6 giant corporations
*The Human Genome has already been patented.
* Suppression of nutrients.
*Sanctions will be applied to countries that do not want to comply with
Codex Alimentarius Commission.
Whom are the fear mongers?
The Pharmaceutical Companies -The Food and Drug Administration.
*Codex Alimentarius functions on a Napoleonic code law-anything not
permitted is forbidden.
Codex Alimentarius is rooted before 1963, (legal rules that courts enforce 1893 - so codex has its roots in the Germanic Austro Hungarian Empire and was the brain child of the german pharmaceutical company IG F arben with the aim to control world food. Codex has altered its mission to serve genetically modified organisms.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is administered by the World
Health Organization (WTO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO), they fund codex and run it at the request of the United Nations
(UN). They give the appearance of being about health and food
worldwide. In 1994 CA declared Nutrients to be Poisons, so nutrients
are now risk assessed under the LD 50 dosage range. Nutrients such
as minerals and vitamins under Codex A., which means now when we buy
vitamins and minerals today with the dosage under a decreased
insufficient amount under vitamin and mineral guideline so that high
potency therapeutically effective nutrients are now ''illegal'' and
unobtainable to the general public!
This is called "Harmonization" in the name of free trade and globalization, but in reality, they are protecting large corporations, and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (dictated to central america by the USA).
The pharmaceutical & biotechnology giants want the European Union to Harmonize to Codex Alimentarius. Sanctions will be applied to countries that do not want to comply with Codex Alimentarius Commission.
Why? "784,000 People are dying annually and prematurely in the USA
due to modern medicine intervention." Carolyn Dean MD.
The pharmaceutical companies are only 80 years old. Big Pharma kill
more people than the US military. In 2002 the top ten pharmaceuticals
earned more profits than the any other industry.
The committees work up rules and standard regulations to step 8
which is presented to ca for ratification, like the vitamin and mineral
guideline, on the ominous date of July the 4th last summer. Mandatory
upon any member country upon the WTO. WTO accepted Codex when it was
formed in 1994 to decide trade disputes around food. Dietary Supplement
and Education Act.
Example of sanctions to be pushed on countries that do not wish to take Codex:
World Trade Organization taxes 150 million Euros a year because the
EU does not want Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone impregnated Beef,
which means the EU have to pay fines to the USA and Canada of about 120 million dollars of increasing fines to keep this food out of the European Community.
GM products will carry the same hefty fines if countries do not agree with the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Codex will remove the labelling on this beef so that the consumer will no longer know the source of the
food they are buying. The European Union, also nickanemed "The Club of
Rome". Since the establishment of the "Club of Rome" there has been
more federal law created within the EU in the last 57 years than in the
USA in the last 200 years.
The Myth of GM -Genetic Roulette.- consequences of manipulating genes cannot be predicted.
*GM is not scientifically proven to be safe or solve world hunger.
*GM is not designed to feed. Its designed to create and make money out of
patents.
*Eradication of political corruption is the solution to world
hunger. Destroying community based farming systems, at the heart of
subsistence based agriculture will also create further
starvation and poverty in third world countries due to the new pressures for
poor farmers to apply for licence to local municipalities to grow food
on their own land.
*Unpredicted effects of transgenic insertion?
Negative impact on wildlife, ecosystems and humans,creating a great loss
of biodiversity. Contamination of organic crops. Co-existence of GM
crops and non GM crops not possible, creating large complications on an
environmentally global scale. The result is control of stable seeds by
a few corporations. There is not a competent regulatory framework held
by the FDA for GM crops. GM food labelling will not be complicit.
Hidden GM ingredients are already creeping into the current food
consumption market. Consumers subject will be subject to a heavy media
spin on GM Biotechnology. Consumers must check for hidden GM
consumption-eg meat products fed on GM.
*Good business for patents:
The outdoor release of GM into the environment means a monoculture that will destroy biodiversity, no consistent evidence to show increase in food yield, this does mean good business on patents.
The patenting and control of all seed to 6 giant corporations. All DNA not expressing proteins contains our entire human history, any new material interferes with the communication between alleles and genes. Horizontal transference to organic products from GM crops . Eradication of mixed crop system for round-up resistant chemical monoculture, increased pesticide residues in GM food.
Will Monsanto still be interested when the patents expire?
What will happen when plants become roundup resistant. What will the GM companies do when GM seed has found its way onto non- GM land?
This is critically dangerous ground for the farmer and soil preservation world wide. GM crops are not sustainable and are not a replacement for nutrients. The contradiction here is that nutrients is being suppressed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
*Biodiversity, wildlife and GM contamination:
Natural laws governing natural gene flow which is very different to the
way genetically modified genes are clinically mutated and developed.
Releasing GM into the natural environment is dangerous to the survival
of natural biodiversity, creating further extinction and elimination of
biodiversity hotspots and contamination from GM non related species to
natural DNA gene flow within related species.
*Thousands of years of evolution being experimented with.
*Consequences seen in evolution up to 1996.
*Uniqueness eradicated for ownership and patents.
*GM food makes up about 60 percent of USA food consumption.
*Soya non- organic animal products are fed on GM crops, grown on large areas in Brazil that were previously Amazon Rainforest.
*Pioneer Overseas Corporation along with others are already gaining registration numbers for the preparation of the GM boom, a boom that has no public support or consent. EC general food law and precautionary principle.
Products:
* Maize Protein products,
*GM Soya Beef and animals that are fed on GM feed.
*Potatoes and other fruit and vegetables are now gm modified/contaminated.
Possible Effects of GM products on Human Health:
*New diseases,
*reduced growth,
*reduced fertility,
*compromised immune function,
*increased allergy reactions and inflammation,
*Reduced nutrient content of food (paradoxically GM is being promoted as a solution to increase nutrients in food but the science shows otherwise). *Increase in Cancer and premature deaths.
Possible Effects of GM products on Environmental Health:
Adverse in every respect! Especially for Biodiversity and conservaion of unique
ecological systems. Eradication of sustainable ecologically friendly
farming.
Sources:
Dr Robert Verkerk BSc MSc DIC PhD
Executive Director of Alliance for Natural Health http://www.anhcampaign.org/message-executive-director
The European Community General Food Law and the Precautionary
Principle (which is being ignored when it comes to ratifying the Codex
Alimentarius).
The precautionary principle has been invoked to ensure health
protection of the community. Thereby giving rise to barriers to the
free movement of food and feed. Therefore it is necessary to adopt a
uniform basis throughout the community for the use of this principle.
ISTAT Report.- United Nations sponsored report-400 scientists from
60 countries said GM will not solve the world hunger problem and shows
no consistent evidence of increase in yield.
Dr Arpad Puztai- Biotechnologist. World Expert on leptims and GM
technology- Lancet. - demonstrated that problems with manipulation of
genes was not due to proteins being expressed but to the process of
manipulation itself, he has been discredited by the government.
Foods in the UK between 1996 and 1999: Comments on "Genetically
Modified Crops: Risks and Promise" by Gordon Conway
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol4/iss1/art11/
http://www.psrast.org/pusztai.htm
F.Wiliam Engdahl -The Seeds of Destruction- How a small
socio-political of American Elite seeks to establish control over the
very basic of human survival: the provision of our daily bread- Control
the food and you control the people, This is no ordinary book about the
perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power,
into the backrooms of the science labs. Behind closed doors in the
corporate boardrooms. Revealing a diabolical world of profit driven
political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic
manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain world
wide control over food sources and production.
Ian R. Crane http://www.ianrcrane.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=43 www.foolmeonce.co.uk
Mass Control: Engineering of Human Consciousness by Jim Keith
Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical industry by John Braithwaite
Carolyn Dean MD
http://www.carolyndean.com/
Paul Antony Tailor.
http://www.thenhf.com/Taylor_Introspective.htm

Permalink Reply by Larry Oliver on April 12, 2010 at 4:07pm

You can get a big picture view of who and what this bill is about at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h875/show ... OpenCongress is a project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation...

Yes, they lean Progressive ;)


Regardless, the bill isn't looking very popular, so it's not looking good to pass... all the more reason to state opposition now, and keep an eye on this thing. I've been told that one phone call carries the weight of 100 emails. If you are inclined to state your opinion to your representatives, be sure to give your name and your city when you contact your Congressional Representative, and your Senators... In the Loveland/Fort Collins areas that would be

Rep. Betsey Markey Phone: 202.225.4676 Fax: 202.225.5870
Local: Phone: 970.221.7110 Fax: 970.221.7240

Sen. Michael Bennet Phone: 202.224.5852 Fax: 202.228.5036
Local: Phone: 970.224.2200 Fax: 970.224.2205

Sen. Mark Udall Phone: 202.224.5941 Fax: 202.224.6471
Colorado callers: 877.768.3255