FDA Blackballs Top Food, Clean Water Activist Group

Consider Food & Water Watch as you ponder year-end giving to worthy organizations. Put Food & Water Watch at the top of your giving list for two main reasons:

First, FFW is perhaps the most effective and prolific organization in working "to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced" both in the U.S. and around the world.  

Second, the FDA is apparently blackballing FFW, in a strong-armed attempt to intimidate and silence this "non-profit organization that advocates for common sense policies that will result in healthy, safe food and access to safe and affordable drinking water."

Through info research  and dissemination, an authoritative website, events, media coverage, and protests, in addition to "tens of thousands" of petitions and comments filed with the FDA yearly, FFW is involved in dozens of vital issues, including...

• Food safety, including factory farming
• Food and water justice
• Groundwater protection, including fracking
• Water conservation
• Water privatization, including bottled water
• Federal budgeting
• Consumer food labels, including GMOs
• Congressional Farm Bill legislation
• Climate change

Seems the FDA chafes at watchdog FFW's vigilance  at protecting the public and public health. And FDA brass have apparently taken action to blunt FFW's influence and access... 

Reported FFW yesterday:

"Last week, a representative from the USDA’s Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) Office informed Food & Water Watch staff that its invitation to participate in a USDA event featuring CFC registered organizations had been cancelled. The representative stated in an email on December 5, 'I regret to inform you that I’ve been notified your organization has not been approved for entrance into USDA to attend the USDA-CFC event on December 10, 2013.  I do not have specific information on the reason approval was not granted...'

"This email denial came two weeks after Food & Water Watch staff members were turned away from an earlier CFC event at the USDA on November 20, 2013 when an agency guard insisted the organization was not on the confirmed list for the event, contrary to an email confirmation Food & Water Watch received from the event organizer on November 12, 2013. 

Food & Water Watch staff has attended multiple CFC fairs over the past several years without incident. The CFC is the Federal Government’s workplace giving program that encourages federal employees’ charitable giving...  Despite inquiries, Food & Water Watch has yet to receive any further information from the USDA as to why the organization was refused entry to this charity-related event."

Is the FDA attempting to...

• Limit contributions given by federal employees to support FFW?
• Inhibit FFW access to FDA resources and decision-makers?
• Deter FFW investigations?
• Curtail FFW activism and advocacy?
• Suppress FFW's free speech rights?
• All of the above?

The terrific news is that Food & Water Watch is clearly putting strong pressure on the FDA to protect  public health over corporate profits... or the FDA wouldn't push back, or push so hard, against FFW. 

The FDA should know better: FFW is not going away. Far from it. 

"Clearly, we are a thorn in the USDA’s side. But to block us from entry to this event by denying our security clearance is not only bogus—it’s intimidation. But we won’t be intimidated,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director. “We’ll continue to force the USDA to do its job to protect consumers, not corporate profits.”

Show the FDA that you support the causes of safe food, clean water, and food and water fairness.   

 I ask that you consider Food & Water Watch as you ponder year-end giving to worthy organizations. Click HERE to donate to Food & Water Watch. 

Ag-Gag Laws to Hide Factory Farms: Good News and One Huge Caution

Some great news, and a caution, from state lawmakers as the U.S. Congress remains mired in gridlock, bickering, and indecision...

"Ag -gag" bills were killed in all 11 states pondering punitive measures for truth-telling by journalists and activists about factory farming practices. 

The 11 bills died, were defeated or vetoed as 2012- 2013 legislative seasons ended in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Ag-gag laws are legislation aimed at prohibiting or severely restricting the filming or photographing of meat-industry factory farms, commonly called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). 

In 2013, CAFO-grown animals account for more than 85% of all beef, pork,  and poultry sold for human consumption in the United States.  A plethora of major public health and environmental hazards can be directly traced to CAFO's, including:

• Contaminated meat resulting from diseased animals
• Meat laced with antibiotics, growth hormones, many other drugs
• Heavily contaminated area water systems
• Deterioration of air quality, increase in greenhouse gases
• Squalid animal living conditions
• Unsanitary working conditions

For more, click these links to see Contaminated Meats in Grocery Markets Grow Due to Gag Laws (Fake Food Watch) and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (Wikipedia). 

The "model" ag-gag law, drafted in 2002 by controversial pro-corporate lobbyist group ALEC, makes a crime of "entering an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to commit criminal activities or to defame the facility or owner."

A consortium of 70 established groups, led by the U.S. Humane Society and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have successfully fought ag-gag laws on the grounds of freedom of speech, public health, animal welfare, and environmental issues.    

The 70 citizen-activist groups represent food, farming, public health, civil liberties, environmental, animal welfare, labor, and journalism interests. 

Strict ag-gag laws remain in force in six states, all with large CAFO facilities : Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah.

The great news is that the political tide is turning against ag-gag laws. Thanks to public pressure and that of public interest groups, state-level politicians have been forced to ignore the demands of wealthy meat-industry donors... and instead legislate for public good! 

Commented Nancy Perry, senior vice-president of the American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to Food Safely News:

"Ag-gag legislation threatens a wide array of public interests—including animal welfare and food safety—by silencing the very people in a position to document abuse.

"We hope the defeat of these 11 bills encourages lawmakers to shift their focus toward achieving accountability for those who are inflicting abuse on animals and putting consumers at risk instead of focusing on misleading efforts to suppress whistleblowers who want to expose those problems."

Caution!  Don't assume, though, that the threat from ag-gag laws has been neutered.  In Pennsylvania this year, the fracking industry attempted to have passed the nation's first ag-gag law "to criminalize anti-fracking activists who seek to expose environmental harms brought on by the gas drilling industry."  

To Vegan or Not to Vegan for Lent? Dared by a Daring Friend

Lin, a health-savvy friend, has challenged me to go vegan, as she is, for Lent. 

My husband and I are already near-vegetarian, and rarely eat red meat. Frankly, our vegetarian habits are motivated more by health and taste than by ethical or global warming concerns.

Veganism is defined by Doris Lin, another avid vegan friend and About.com Guide to Animal Rights:

"Vegans eat plant-based foods, such as grains, beans, vegetables, fruits and nuts. While vegans have a wide variety of foods to choose from, the diet may seem very restrictive to those who are used to an omnivorous diet...

"'You just eat salad?” is a common comment from non-vegans, but a vegan diet can include a wide variety of Italian pastas, Indian curries, Chinese stir-fries, Tex-Mex burritos, and even 'meat' loaf made from textured vegetable protein or beans. Many meat and dairy analogs are also now available, including sausages, burgers, hot dogs, 'chicken' nuggets, milk, cheese and ice cream, all made without animal products. Vegan meals can also be rather simple and humble, such as a lentil soup or yes, even a big, raw vegetable salad."

The vegan quandary for me is that  "Veganism... requires abstention from all animal products, such as meat, fish, dairy, eggs, honey..."  A vegan diet is often described as non-dairy vegetarianism. 

Here's the problem:  We like dairy and eggs. A lot. Especially cheeses. Soft cheeses, hard cheeses, exotic and unique cheeses. Better versions of  everyday cheeses as Swiss, Jack, and Provolone. Also, I start each and every single morning with Trader Joe's Honey Greek yogurt. And the cupboard feels bare to me without a dozen eggs in the refrig.... eggs that we use in easily a week. 

Vegetarianism isn't much of a challenge anymore for this two-person home. But veganism? That's a whole other kettle of pseudo-fish... Lin, Lin, you're asking for a lot. 

My think-outside-the-box friend cites her reasons for dabbling in a vegan diet as:

Contaminated Meats in Grocery Markets Grow Due to Gag Laws

The beef, pork, and poultry you buy at the market is more likely from a diseased animal because of laws in five states severely restricting free speech about meat-industry factory farms. 

Iowa, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and Kansas legislatures have all passed "ag-gag laws," a moniker earned because of extreme pressure from agriculture industry ("Big Ag") lobbyists to pass such statutes. 

And Big Ag, via politicians receiving Big Ag donations, has proposed ag-gag laws in more states, including Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Illinois and New York. 

State ag-gag laws and penalties vary, but per Food Safety News, mandate:

"In North Dakota, it is a class B misdemeanor to enter an animal facility and use or attempt to use a camera, video recorder, or any other video or audio recording device... Violators face jail terms of 30 days."