Last week we told you about the threat posed by Sen. Leahy’s new bill. This week we want to explain how important it is that all of us take action—immediately.
The first problem, as we noted in our original piece, is that the bill calls for a jail term of up to ten years for any food or supplement producer who “misbrands” a product. Excuse us, but what does misbranding have to do with food safety? Is this another example of Congress not wanting a good crisis (recent food contamination) to go to waste? To this bill’s credit, it is short and more-or-less understandable. So why does it wander off the food safety subject almost at once?
And keep this important point in mind: the FDA contends that any food or supplement producer who mentions the potential of a product to prevent or treat disease is guilty of misbranding—even if they have piles and piles of scientific research from Harvard or some other top institution. So this bill would create a potential ten-year jail term simply for citing the best science.
The FDA will use this new stick to intimidate, harass, and unfairly punish. The word “misbranding” has no place in this bill. It vastly increases FDA power over food and supplement producers without enhancing food safety in any way.
The second problem is that this bill defines contamination as “adulteration.” But the legal definition of “adulteration,” like “misbranding,” is highly technical, and the FDA’s current definition of adulteration includes minor and unintended administrative and clerical errors.
The third problem is that the bill is sloppily written, which can be dangerous when the time comes to enforce the law. Placement of the key word “knowingly” is ambiguous: does the long jail term apply to those who “knowingly introduce” the product into commerce, or to those who “knowingly adulterate” it? On top of that, the bill seems to apply to someone who sells a contaminated product, but not to someone who contaminates it in the first place if not a distributor.
The original House food safety bill included these kind of jail sentences. The Senate HELP Committee rejected them, and we were assured by key senators that the Senate would not allow them to be added in conference with the House. The new Leahy bill attempts to make an end-run around the HELP Committee by getting the Senate on the record as being in favor of these jail terms for misbranding and adulteration. If the Leahy bills passes, it will likely be combined with the Senate food safety bill, and the final conference bill will then almost certainly contain the long jail terms.
As with the recent McCain bill, it is very possible that Sen. Leahy does not fully understand what his bill is doing. It is also possible that the impetus for the Leahy bill may have come from Congressman Waxman in the House, but this is speculation.
What particularly concerns us at the moment is that the Senate might pass this dreadful legislation right away before leaving on October 7 to go campaign. That’s why we need everyone to take action without delay.
If you have not done so already, PLEASE write to your senators immediately and ask them to stop this bill! Take action now!
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TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR SENATORS Click this link to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter. |
Please stop this bill from happening!
I think company officers should be held accountable for what they say on thier labels! I say bookm dano!
Please keep the Health Food Industry alive as it has been keeping people healthy for generations. It is.good honest old fashion food and vitamins and supplements and has never killed anybody. Contrary with drugs. Factory farm yards however can contaminate milk and meat and vegetables. The chemincals, the pesticides and as of late GMO. There you can put your best foot forward. But please leave us the health food stores and organic growers or I would not be able to work anymore, I would be in so much pain. Me and many others.
Thank you
Barbara Conrad
Mr. Leahy-
Please do NOT vote to pass this bill. The FDA And the USDA are and have been very corrupt for decades. Let science bear the evidence, not these two agencies.
One reason this must be stopped… because it is frivolus and unnecessary – the guiese of his intentions are already covered under laws that protect consumers from false claims and false advertising, and adulteration is covered when harmful.
The attempt to open the door for more litigation of harmless practices, to require a legitimizing background that does not exist thus grinding the entire healthy and nutritional food industry to a halt (potentially) is wasteful and will back the courts up even more, will create even more ways that drug companies can litigate their way towards increased monopoly of anything that goes into our bodies towards improving our own health. Perhaps the drug companies are angling towards labeling and producing supplements as drugs?
Frivolous, ridiculous… equivalent to rying to classify spinach as a drug because it’s good for us.
Yes to all of Andrews comments and assessments. That’s precisely what Leahy et al have in mind. This is willful malice and it’s un-American. This is nothing more than a thinly veiled grab for control of the food and supplements market by the large international agra and pharma industries. The USA is “obligated” to “Harmonized” (emphasis on HARM) with Codex Alimentarius- a UN mandate backed by WTO threats of trade sanctions.
Codex has not been able to pull off its coupe d’état in America so they went to Europe where they were successful. Now they have turned their greedy attention back on the USA. There are many in the US Government who think that the New World Order is good for everyone including people in the FDA, CDC and USDA with ties to these international fascists.
This is a battle for our freedom. This is a battle for our sovereignty. This is a battle for our health. This is a battle to keep a body of international corporate fascists from destroying our choices and freedoms. If we lose this battle we will lose our health. If we lose our health we will lose our ability to defend ourselves from totally dominated and subjugated.
Watch for the moves in congress after the new 112 congress is sworn in. (The 111th was unsuccessful in passing S510 and S3767). If they are successful, supplements will become ineffectual or non- existent. Vaccinations containing harmful neurotoxins(and god knows what else) will become mandatory. Our food will become adulterated to the point where it will contain little nutritional value. GMO foods will become the only choice because of corporate greed.
My question is why wouldn’t Monsanto executives and other multi-nationals doing business in the US also have to go to jail for 10 years if they continue to sell their adulterated foods. Answer: because they maintain strong ties with the FDA, USDA, CDC,HHS etc and they have the financial ability to fight any legal battle that might be brought against them- (Highly unlikely)…Notice most of the indemnification language used by the FDA which protect large agra and big pharma.
This is where we are at in the USA today. We must remain vigilant against tyranny. Freedom requires diligence. Get involved. Inform your friends. Have them stand up for their rights. Don’t put the responsibility of your freedom on the shoulders of so few by remaining disengaged. Its now or never. You must decide what kind of world you want to live in and then take action. Its your freedom to do so. Its your right. Inform your representatives that you are not in favor of any action by the Federal government to proceed with S510 or S3767 like bills until corruption in the FDA, USDA and CDC, HHS etc are clean up and not until these agencies are brought back to function as their original mandated mission statements require them to do. We live in a democratic Republic not a fascist state. Don’t allow a small number of nefarious Senators or representatives destroy your freedoms.
Mr Leahyh, Leave the supplement issue alone! Your bill proves the ignorance and corruption of those dealing with the FDA and the gov’t trying to regulate our choices. This has nothing to do with the safety ( absence of contaminants) of food produced for consumption. I do not trust the FDA to be honest, fair or without corruption when it comes to vitamins or other supplements.
Yes!
The FDA has CLEARLY sold out decades ago. The FDA works for the eugenic Rockefeller clan and is doing EVERYTHING they can to bring us poor or worse health. The FDA’s goal is the depopulation of the USA via food, drugs and medical care.
This sounds harsh but it is the ONLY conclusion which fits the thousands of actions which the FDA has taken over the decades which are otherwise inexplicable.
I rely on food grown organically and/or without chemicals and have never been ill from ingesting such foods. Likewise, I also rely on a number of natural supplements from several manufacturers and have stayed quite healthy for my 71 years. Please don’t let the FDA tamper with things that are working. It’s undoubtedly the “factory farms” that have been at the root of some of the outbreaks, not the locally owned farms.
I was raised hearing about vitamins and organic foods, and how I raise my own hens and veggies. As a health educator, I have seen amazing results with vitamins and supplements and really feel that my life, and the lives of my patients, would be shortened by the Codex destruction of our access to naturally formed vitamins.
I wish this site would send us links to THANK those in Washington who have helped our cause–like Senator Tom Coburn or OK. We have to thank and support those brave people.
I do as well. And I resent the government stepping in and trying to take that option away from us!
This is yet another “in” for drug companies to take control of our lives and to turn more profits. Please stop this bill. It takes away more freedom – that is unAmerican.
The word “misbranding” has no place in this bill. It vastly increases FDA power over food and supplement producers without enhancing food safety in any way.
The second problem is that this bill defines contamination as “adulteration.” But the legal definition of “adulteration,” like “misbranding,” is highly technical, and the FDA’s current definition of adulteration includes minor and unintended administrative and clerical errors.
The third problem is that the bill is sloppily written, which can be dangerous when the time comes to enforce the law. Placement of the key word “knowingly” is ambiguous: does the long jail term apply to those who “knowingly introduce” the product into commerce, or to those who “knowingly adulterate” it? On top of that, the bill seems to apply to someone who sells a contaminated product, but not to someone who contaminates it in the first place if not a distributor.
The FDA should stay out of heathy and personal use of supplements/herbs. Every time some one in the senate/congress opens their mouths it’s about the almighty dollar and what kind of cut they can get…I personally do not trust any of them.
It sounds as if this bill would be another nail in the coffin of obtaining good food and unaltered food and or supplements. Is there a way to be precise and unambiguous.
Labels should be precise and pointed and used in a proper context appropriate for that particular product.
Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity. For example the same piece of information may be ambiguous in one context and unambiguous in another.
I am very concerned that my right to chose what I take for my health will be taken away. I want the final say so on what supplements I take, not some politician. I want to have access to all the latest science, pro or con, and I make the final call. As long as the information can be backed up, then let it be.
We All have to continue to Stay vigilant and continue to be Active and fighting for our Rights. I know that Congress is being lobbied by the Big Drug companies just as much as you do and that they Do Not really care about Freedom.
Please stay involved…keep fighting and Keep Being Positive too. Always say Please and be courteous too.
We can and will prevail….Thanks to ANH and to Life Extension too.
Patrick Leahy’s Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010 Must Be Stopped!
Senators Leahy and McCain are One World Corporatists. The intent is clear. Monopoly control of the food supply and eventual political control of the food supply for world control. McCain and Leahy et.al are only the puppetts….the puppet masters should be our goal. That would be the control of the Federal Reserve and systematic booting of these traitors from our government.
That said I have and will continue to make my weekly calls to my deaf and dumber senators to stop this harassment of honest family farmers.
I agree but go one further…can you imagine the loss of jobs that will be affected when these idiots take control? Never mind – I’ll be damned if someone is going to tell me what I put in my body. They’re already trying to make certain phermaceuticals mandatory – like flu vaccine for medical workers and how about the genital herpes vaccine for girls/women of child bearing age? Smacks of control to me…thought it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime, at 65. Wrong. They’ve been screwing around trying to take natural cures away from us for too many years. Unless we get some really smart, powerful people on our side, I’m afraid the fiction we’ve been watching on sci-fi is going to be a reality soon.
I urge you to defeat this bill. P. Leahy’s Food safety Accountwbility of 2010 because it is too controlling for the US government potential interference with certain ethical issues re food safety. As such irt is not benign for the manufacturers and distributors of foods. Please stop this bill. Thank you, eugene
Please stop the Leahy food safety bill.
I run a small restuarant and I could go to jail for ten years if I sell something that has a missprint on the packaging. If this bill passes they will do these kinds of things to small businesses just like they arrest farmers for planting seeds.
Brian you are correct! The chain reaction this bill could create is beyond the comprehension of this Senator and all their followers. All the scientist that work in research to find out the benefits of the natural ingredients may also have to be stopped and probably a lot of professionals will have to go to jail as well for publishing their findings. Obviously from their work is where we get the information to confirm our understanding of those benefits. Who is the government protecting? Not us citizens! The jails are not going to be big enough – just imagine from the manufacturers and their stuff, the distributors, stores, the sales people involved and them they may think to arrest the consumers as well. They may decide to send an army to search our houses in case we have a vitamin supplement in our medicine cabinet. How big these concentrations camps are going to be? Are they all following the law by taking only prescription DRUGS? If this is the case is good for us as they may not last very long alive from all the side effects the DRUGS CAUSE.
There is nothing that comes out of the congress that is good for the American public.
They legislate for the benefit of their special interest friends and to enhance their own ill-gotten wealth.
Patrick Leahy’s Food Safety Accountability Act has nothing whatsoever to do with the real problem in Food Safety which comes from factory farms. Factory chicken farms gave us salmonella. Factory pig farms of Mexico gave us swine flu, and yet, Senator Leahy wants to attack the food supplements that I get at the health food store. I don’t care what he says about labeling. I am going to take all the supplements I want.
You know as well as I do that tryptophan was taken off the market under the guise of “contamination” when it was actually done so that the Big Pharma could market their sleeping pills and depressants while charging 1,000% profit.
Tell Senator Leahy to get his nose out of my vitamins and supplements. Tell Senator Leahy to find himself some business and then mind it. Tell Senator Leahy that the diseases in our food supply come from the gigantic petri dishes that are called factory farms.
Sincerely,
Mike Kelly and Family
Mr. Leahy’s bill is unwise and should be defeated. It appears to be another effort to demonize natural supplements and represents wrongful government intrusion into the health of citizens. Unfortunately, we live in a drugged society where it appears commonplace to create new diseases and the man-made drugs to allegedly control them. Thank You.
dear senator leahy: i wish you would do a little more research into food safety bill that you are proposing. i beleive you are being misled in thinking that controlling food & supplements is a good thing. please look at the studies & compare the dangers of fda approve drugs & that of food & supplements. i am sure that you will find there is no comparison. to impose a jail term that is going to far. please reconsider action on this bill. thanks chuck
My husband and I rely on a number of natural supplements and have never experienced any illness as a result. Please don’t let the FDA interfere; perhaps they should address pot growers. We all
know the detrimental effects pot has on our brains!
This bill is a horror show. We are the United States of America, not Soviet Russia or Communist China. Obama and his minions have propelled us down the totalitarian road to slavery at a mind boggling rate of speed. We are a free people. We refuse to be intimidated and ruled over by tyrants who want to rule us with an iron fist in the face. This bill is a sham and does nothing to insure food safety. Rather, it insures monopolies for whomever the corrupt govt. favors and jail terms for everyone else. We need to spend more time inspecting imported foods, not fussing over label wording and banning free speech to cite proven benefits of products. Promote the honest free market, let the people decide which products they prefer.
Stop this bill. The government has interferred enough in our lives. This is all about the almightly dollar, not what is best for us and our health. Let us make our own decisions on supplements. Leave the FDA and the people in Washington out of it.
Does Senator Leahy have a gun to his head? How about Kucinich? Let’s see what Russ Feingold will throw at us next. Maybe too much is placed into the category of political corruption. Maybe we should investigate what type of elbow twisting is going on.
The simple truth is that the FDA has been working against the American Citizen for decades. In an honest government the FDA would have been abolished decades ago. We have the most dishonest government in the history of this country IMO. Until we elect honest citizens to represent honest citizens I am afraid David Rockefeller will get his wish and this country will be populated by very few people and most will be illegals.
I am tired of the senate and congress thinking they are Gods. Whatever they do, you can bet it benefits THEM and not the AMerican public. i think THEY need to be jailed in my opinion. I hope they have a shock waiting for them at the Pearly Gates.
This is how they will get rid of vitamins and supplements that you don’t have to have a prescrip for and force us to eat their genetically engineered poison.
I can’t stomach the lot of them. they need to be voted OUT!!! and should also be limited to 1 at most two terms. they get too comfy. Communism is knocking folks.
Please do not support any bill that interfers with the availability of nutritional supplements. I am
81 years old and credit my good health to nutritional supplements because I have had more than
one life threatening illness which nutritional supplements cured. I was plagued with respiratory
infections aquired from my school age children and their friends for a few years. The children
would recover quickly, but my illness would linger for weeks. I started thinking of what it takes to
make antibodies and remembered biochemistry at Columbia University Medical School in 1953 in which it was said that B vitamins and certain minerals were required. I started taking B-complex, minerals and vitamin C. Later added vitamins A and E. I became so healthy that I did not get sick
for over 30 years. I took no over-the-counter nor prescription medication. Money goet tight so I
stopped the supplements. After 5 or so years I started getting sick with life threatening illnesses.
I returned to my supplements and have been healthy since. NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS IS
THE ROUTE TO LOWER MEDICAL COSTS.
Yes, everyone needs to understand that “misbranding” is an accusation that FDA can stick to any food or drug product, based on the flimsiest of reasoning. But, congressional lawyers draft these bills, not folks who are actually involved in food safety. Clearly the lawyers intend to give the FDA “reasoning” the full force of fact. Unconscionable. Odd that this comes from the normally smart Leahy.
I have to agree with all the above. The consumer should have a right to choose whether to eat the food he cooks and the supplements he takes. It is not the role of government to dictate what should or should not be available the the consumer.
Do these guys sit up all night and think up all this nonsense !
Please, in your articles give the Senate or House bill reference number. For instance, the bill reference number for the Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010 is S. 3767. With this information, it is easy to go to the new website Votility.com, do a search for the bill number and then cast your vote up or down for the bill. Supposedly your state’s US Senators and Representatives will receive some kind of record of how their constituents have voted for a particular bill. I just voted “No” for this food safety bill and added my comments on the Votility site and found that I am the only one to have done so. I think the Votility website can become another place that ANH should direct its readers as part of the Action Alerts.
Thanks,
Greg R
I have written my own letter to Sen. Scott Brown – as his response regarding this bill, just a couple of days ago, was not favorable.
Basically, he kept telling me how important food safety was, and ignored my issues. So, I’ve sent him a response – through his site.
Thank you for always keeping me/us informed! You’re doing a great job!!
As a natural healer–everything natural we do is threatned by the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry, (big Pharma) and Allopathic medicine run by AMA and FDA. When I had incurable cancer, I prayed and was led to use and then study natural medicine. It worked–15 years later I am in so called “spontaenous remission” and alive. Why are pharmaceuticals among the top 6 killers of Americans? Synthetic means my body cannot utilize the synthetically produced chemicals that created side effects requiring more synthetic pharmaceuticals to treat the side effects until the toxins cause debiltating dis-ease or death. Watch tv commercials – lawyers – we’ll help sue for this or that drugs effects. More drugs pulled weekly.
Im an American – let me choose how I treat myself or seek natural practitioners not afraid of losing their license or doing jail time because they use what Pharma copies synthetically to obtain patents for profit–let’s get back to humanity not the love of money.
I am so incredibly tired of having to defend our rights. I am an adult. I do not need the government telling me what I can and can not put in my body. This is getting ridiculous. I hate it that our elected officials are being bribed by the pig (not a typo) Pharmaceutical companies. We should not have to be defending our rights every single day to our own government. Just stop this madness and do something useful with your time in office. May it be short lived.
What are this guy’s qualifications to know anything about these matters?
Why don’t you work for the good of the people instead of your own financial gain by the lobbyists for a change?
We live in a country that punishes the little guy for trying to follow within the rules and let the big guy get off with barely a slap on the wrist. Sen. Leahy a fellow Democrat makes me ashamed of him for coming up with this ridiculous bill. This is why I am not a dye-in-the-wool Democrat because of these callous actions that will hurt most people and enriched those who only care about being more wealthy.
This message needs to get out to the American People and if we have to throw those out responsible
out of office so be it.
Unbelieveable! He should be looking into the rampant cronyism in the FDA. Many of these “approvers” worked in the very companies they want the FDA to approve of their products.
And these “approvers” due the bidding of their masters by trying to disapprove of their legitimate competitors. Like supplement manufacturers and the natural food industry.
This guy should be recalled in his State and we should demand this!!!
The Leahy food safety bill would create a whole new class of political prisoners in America, people who have done nothing wrong but simply been targeted by corporations to eliminate competition. Amnesty International ought to be aware of this potential and involved in the effort to defeat it too.
I am very tired of our Government trying to dictate everything we can or cannot do. Of course, what they dictate is always in the favor of big pharma or other special interest groups – never anything that would benefit us. We seem to have a corrupt FDA and unfortunately the politicians encourage it every chance they can. You know the adage – “Follow the Money.” I say “throw the bums out” and let’s get some common sense in the government and people who will work for the people. I have had it!
Geez! AMA and Big Pharmaceutical companies have been trying to gain control over our access
to vitamins, minerals and supplements for several decades now. They must be desperate because they are trying to keep us occupied with S.5l0, Codex Alimentarius, and God only knows hjow many others they might be trying to sneak through without us finding our about it!.
The FDA needs to quit playing “attack pit bull” for big business and learn about what is going on
in the real world. One thing for sure they would definiitely quit proclaiming that the vitamins, minerals and supplements have never been tested. If they put out just a little effort to earn their
money, they might even find out what a small percentage of the medicines they approve have
been tested. They would also learn that the most reliable medicines came from some smart
people collecting home remedies and studying the plants or substances they used. This is true from the digitalis which came from the foxglove plant, right on down to many of the modern
chemo drugs, such as Etopicide which comes from the Mayapple plant.
What the FDA doesn’t admit yet (and the reason the pharmaceuticals want control so badly) is that the plant or herbal is safer, because it still is the natural substance with the safeguards
built in. The patented synthehtic version has no safeguards.
For all of you who are interested in learning what our Creator is growing in our own yards,
those (poke sallet) pokeberries that are now ripe, are not poison, and are fantastic at jump starting your immune system. You should also read up on the broad leaf plaintain, dandelions, thistles, sheep sorrel, dock, etc. which are also rampant and welcome in my environment.
They are not weeds, they are beautiful plantns that make good medicine.
….after submitting my plea to senator reed, he sent back a canned answer indicating he’s FOR that bill and with lip service thanked my interest !!!!!
Dear Mr. ramella:
Thank you for contacting me regarding food safety. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this critical issue.
I recognize the need to restore public confidence in the safety of the nation’s food supply and the importance of providing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the appropriate resources and authority needed to perform that vital mission.
As a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, I have been actively engaged in addressing this matter and was involved in deliberations during the 110th Congress on the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA), which was signed into law on September 27, 2007. Along with provisions aimed at improving the safety and transparency of the FDA’s drug approval process, this law also established a number of important safeguards in order to increase the safety of our food, including an early warning and surveillance system to identify adulterated food and disease outbreaks associated with consumption of such food.
Given the occurrence of recent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, more should be done to improve and modernize our food safety system. As you may know, Senator Durbin introduced S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, to address many of the problems with the current food safety system by increasing the frequency of food inspections, tightening recordkeeping requirements, extending oversight, and mandating food product recalls if a firm with suspect product fails to do so voluntarily. The bill also increases scrutiny of food imports, which account for an increasing share of U.S. consumption. You may be interested to learn that the HELP Committee approved S. 510 on November 18, 2009, and the bill is currently pending consideration by the full Senate. Additionally, the House of Representatives passed a companion measure, H.R. 2749, on July 30, 2009. A number of proposed amendments to S. 510 are still under consideration
For your review, I have enclosed a Congressional Research Service report on this matter. I hope you find this material helpful.
It is my hope that the Senate will soon pass legislation to provide much needed improvements to our food safety system. Please be assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind should the Senate consider S. 510 or similar legislation on this important matter.
Again, thank you for contacting me, and please do not hesitate to write, call, or visit my website, http://www.reed.senate.gov, in the future for information regarding this or any other matter.
Sincerely,
Jack Reed
United States Senator
http://reed.senate.gov
Mr. Leahy,
If you really are sincere in helping Americans, please return FDA to congress and take it away
from the drug company’s hands!! It was the biggest mistake to listen to Mr. Bush to let the drug co’s pay the FDA. So much has happened since that was changed-and nothing has been good for our health!
With this and all that this government has tried to pass we the people need to educate ourselves politically, educationally, economically, socially, and spiritually. We must take back our rights to freedom and stop letting them walk all over us. Let us put an end to this bill and others like it.
Both political parties have spectacularly failed to solve the problem of soaring medical costs. A major part of any workable solution is healthy food. Don’t penalize people who produce good, healthy food.
I deeply resent the implication that I – and most Americans – are too simple or stupid to know how to live well and that the natural and alternative practitioners some of us might turn to for guidance are incapable of doing so responsibly. Just because there are a few persons who have made poor choices or some unethical practitioners, does that mean all the rest, the ones who know better and who actually do good must be stopped as well?
From past evidence, the ethics (and loyalties) of the FDA should be considered highly questionable. This agency has made too many rulings regarding drugs and other substances which have resulted in harm and even death to innocent victims while clearly favoring big pharma, chemical companies, the corporate food giants and factory farming conglomerates over the people whom the FDA is supposed to serve and protect. Yet the agency itself suffers no consequences while we are expected to continue to put our faith and our lives in the hands of this overly powerful government authority.
In addition, those elected official who support the power of the FDA to control and prohibit our health choices cannot be trusted either and need to be removed from office.
I neither desire nor need a government agency to tell me what is good for me or what I am allowed to do regarding my own health.
As Americans, our constitution states that it is our right to to live our lives to the best of our ability and as we see fit. We are told we have certain liberties which include the pursuit of happiness and no one can deny that good health is one of the paths which lead to a happier, better life.
Constitutionally, and therefore legally, as well as morally, we have the right to choose, to decide for ourselves what we will or will not place in our bodies.
While I will vigorously and passionately defend our constitutional rights, particularly to chose our own path in life, these ‘rights’ are in truth not something to be granted by any human being, agency or government. They are God given rights, and they superseed all man made laws; no government or agency on Earth has the right to impose itself over the laws of God.
But they keep trying. Clearly we owe it to ourselves and to our children to resist false authority which threatens this legacy and the right to live well.
Please vote ‘NO’ on S. 3767, the new ‘Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010’. It does not guarantee that foods will be safe. I can only eat ‘organic’ or ‘non-GMO’ foods because foods containing mercury, lead, fluoride, Bt-toxin, glyphosate, glufosinate, or 2,4-D are very toxic to me, even when the amount of these poisons is very small. And the worst part is that there is currently no requirement to list these toxic poisons on a foods label, even when their presence is significant enough to cause a measurable increase in blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stomach problems or even cancer.
What S. 3767 does instead is create server penalties for infractions, even minor infractions of food labeling such as referencing a product’s benefits, even when that reference comes from a peer-reviewed and published document, and for minor record keeping violations. The FDA has a long and unjustifiable history of of targeting natural and organic foods and food products that are healthy, safe and affordable.
As one of your constituents, I want you to know that I take dietary supplements regularly, and value their help in keeping me alive. I almost died from prescription medications trying to negate symptoms of consuming commercial foods containing real [and unlabeled] poisons, and from commercial foods lacking in essential vitamins and minerals. S. 3767 is an attack on healthy, natural, organic and non-GMO foods grown by small local farmers. IT MUST NOT PASS.
What a real ‘Food Safety Accountability Act’ should do is require food labels to list any poisons containing in that food if the amount is greater them 50 micrograms per kilogram for solid foods, and 50 micrograms per liter for liquid foods. That list of toxins must include mercury, lead, uranium, fluorine, Bt-toxin, glyphosate, glufosinate, 2,4-D and other toxins that injure the human body or cause cancer. Foods containing unsafe levels of methanol, formaldehyde, cyanide, or any pathogen should have these chemicals and organisms listed on their label as well. This is what is needed for food safety.
Please, Senator, defeat this bill.
Thank you for considering these comments and views.
Sincerely Scott McVay
Here’s one more good reason……Michael Taylor. Michael started as a lobbyist for Monsanto. Then he went to work at the FDA, where he “over-saw” the passing of Monsanto’s rBGH and GMO’s. Then he left the FDA to take a VP job at Monsanto…….and now he’s back at the FDA again. hummmmm…..
Is it time to take our Soylent Green yet?
Has anyone asked what happens to the people working in the supplement/health-food/natural medicine industry if we should lose it? What, does the government think that all these people would be absorbed by Big Pharma, the FDA, AMA, etc? With the economy as it is right now, could we stand losing such a huge industry and the jobs it provides? Not to mention the fact that millions depend on natural medicine for their health. We can’t even estimate the loss of productivity we would see if people lost that health giving option.
But the main reason we need to support health freedom is just that — we should be free in this country to choose our own health options. We will continue to fight this battle.
As I keep saying, the FDA is incapable of doing the job it is designated to do. ie, protect the American public from ineffective and dangerous drugs. It has been clear for many years that the FDA simply rubberstamps the reports given them by Big Pharma. How did we get in a position where the only testing done on “new” drugs is by the manufacturer who, time and time again, conceals unsatisfactory results and only submits the positive results to FDA? I’d like to see the statistics on how many people die annually from prescription drugs vs, the number who die from vitamins and food supplements. What happened to “First, do no harm” Poor old Hippocrites must be spinning in his grave!
I wish from all I know that a good investgator could tell the American people who thier co-horts are and how much illegal money they have received to do these kind of things. I know at least once the FDA director was paid seven million dollars to aprove pills that they knew would start
killing people from the beginning. The FDA has taken lincenses from Doctors who cured deseases
because they used supplements and a healthly life style. I believe we need to get read of the whole lot of them and find framers who have made a living on small frams and send them to Washington–things would get better! Our country has gone down the drain!
We know that “misbranded” will not apply to the various junk food with MSG, sodium benzoate, phosphoric acid, sodium aluminosilicate ( ?? ), Red 40, aspartame, acrylamide, massive fructose corn waste, etc. This will apply to taking out nutraceuticals currently “misbranded” as food while pharmaceutical drugs like Avandia are “misbranded” as medicine. It will apply to supplements that people take in order to reduce the tax burden of the USA by decoupling from the medical insurance cabal as much as humanly possible, thereby driving down real insurance costs while the insurance CEOs continue to give raises and bonuses to themselves anyways. The insurance cabal’s growing corporate profits and stock tickers will then keep doctors from finally paying off their student loans and force them to join an HMO or hatch some IPO fraud by forming a corporation to pay their bills. An organic egg with lutein and omega-3 will then be misbranded as “food” by claiming such quackery as “lutein” or “omega-3 fatty acid,” and the whole of good citizens of the USA will be in jail except for corporate crooks thanks to lobbyist bribed senators. Add an explicit clause that says this does not apply to nutritional supplements and we might believe you have good intentions.
Please stop this bill
Why is my first comment still “awaiting moderation?” It was posted on Sept. 23.
It was caught up in our spam filter for some reason. It was approved and posted, sorry for the delay.
Leahy is up for re-election. Find a wy to inform the people of Vermont about him and have him OUT of the Senate. Problem solved! Too aggressive? Well, somebody needs to help us get our freedom back. I’m working on it in other venues with success.
I will not support anyone who supports the”Leahy Bill”!