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. 

Use This Food Policy Report Card for Congress to Force Change

Terrific news as Congress returns to work next week after summer break: a report card to grade U.S. Senate and House members on national food policies.  

American voters can use this handy tool to force Congress to change its unhealthy ways on food policy. 

The National Food Policy Scorecard is published by Food Policy Action, a nonprofit group that advocates for...

"...policies that support healthy diets, reduce hunger at home and abroad, improve food access and affordability, uphold the rights and dignity of food and farm workers, increase transparency, improve public health, reduce the risk of food-borne illness, support local and regional food systems, treat farm animals humanely and reduce the environmental impact of farming and food production."

Included on the Board of Food Policy Action, an outgrowth of the respected Environmental Working Group, are:

• Michael Jacobson, Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest
• Ray Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America
• Rev. David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World
• Robin Schepper, former Executive Director, "Let's Move!"
• Tom Colicchio, Chef, Restauranteur, Head Judge of Top Chef
• Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group

Click the following links to use the National Food Policy Scorecard to view...

Congressional legislators, by state, each with a percentage rating on their voting records in support of food policies. "Click a state to see whether your legislators voted to keep food safe, healthy and affordable." Senators are rated on 18 votes and House members on 14 votes taken in the 112th Congress. 

Results of U.S. Senate votes on 18 food policy bills in 112th Congress. Also includes brief explanation of each bill. 

Results of U.S. House votes on 14 food policy bill in 112th Congress. Again, includes brief explanation of each bill. 

Pending Food Policy Legislation under consideration by Congress. Use this page to understand the issues, then contact your elected officials with your views.  Congress is considering issues such as...

• Antibiotics, Drugs - Halts use of antibiotics and other drugs in meat "unless the applicant can show that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health."
• Arsenic - Requires that the FDA establish limits on the amount of arsenic allowable in rice. 
• Food Marketing  to Children - Mandates now-voluntary guidelines for industrial food corporations to stress healthy choices
• Food Safety - Forces Congress to fund and the White House to issue final regulations for the "Food Safety Modernization Act," which was passed into law in 2010. 

Our nation's disastrously unhealthy food policies clearly support industrial fake-food mega-corporations, their powerful lobbyists, and their highly processed products rife with additives, chemicals, fillers, emulsifiers, and artificial flavors and colors.. 

Only American voters can cause Congress to change its unhealthy ways on food policy. The power is in our hands to force political leaders to vote for healthy, real foods, not the fake chemical-laced processed foods sold by their wealthy political donors.  

Use the National Food Policy Scorecard to keep tabs on your elected representatives. Use it today and make your views known! 

The Ugly, Angering Reality of Obama's New Food Safety Regulations

President Obama's sweeping Food Safety Modernization Act ("FSMA") regulations are likely destined to be the No Child Left Behind Act of 2013. Both... 

• Were conceived to address draconian public problems;
• Are voluminous, with over 1,000 pages of rules and guidance;
• Require massive government oversight and enforcement efforts

And both face(d) radically inadequate funding by the federal government, to disastrous public detriment.  Underfunding which will undoubtedly weaken the "enforcement teeth" of FSMA, just as it undercut the effectiveness and precast the failure of NCLB.  

Here's brief background of the Food Safety Modernization Act, to refresh your mind:

• Introduced in Congress in March 2009, and passed by both Houses in late 2010.
• Signed into law on January 4, 2011 by President Obama.
• Actual FSMA rules, requirements, mandates were rolled out by the Obama administration on January 4, 2013, an astonishing two-year delay presumably caused by fear of pre-election political fallout over more government regulations.  (And fear of losing Big Ag political donors?)
• For more, read Obama Burying Food Safety Rules for Political Gain?

The purpose of the FSMA is to stem the shocking level of foodborne illnesses in the United States. Explained the Center for Food Safety in 2012:

"FSMA is the first major piece of federal legislation to overhaul food safety since 1938. Continuous high profile outbreaks related to various foods, ranging from spinach to peanut products to eggs, underscored the need for serious legislative and regulatory reform.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year, as a result of foodborne diseases, 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die.

"... FSMA enables FDA to better protect public health by strengthening its ability to regulate and granting the agency enhanced preventative and mandate authority. The law also provides FDA with new enforcement capacity, such as mandatory recall authority, and the ability to require that imported foods comply with U.S. inspection and preventive safety standards."

Where FSMA Stands in 2013 - The Ugly, Angering Reality
About 1,200 pages of farm-to-table food safety regulations were rolled out by the FDA amid self-congratulatory hoopla and a plethora of admiring press.  

"'It’s a big leap forward in applying modern, preventive measures across the whole food supply. It’s important to see these rules as setting the standards for food safety,” cooed Michael R. Taylor, an FDA deputy commissioner in a Washington Post article, FDA Begins Implementing Sweeping Food-Safety Law.   

Except that it's not. Not being implementing, I mean.  

The FDA's rollout of massively elaborate FSMA regs seemed semi-misleading, and the press stupidly swallowed the public-pleasing bait. 

The ugly reality of where implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act stands in 2013 is this: 

 Merely proposals, issued for public comment - FSMA regs rollled out by the FDA on January 4, 2013 are merely proposals, issued for public comment, and won't be in effect for several more years, at best.

Innumerable exceptions have already been granted to FSMA, exceptions that are  estimated to exempt nearly 80% of all growers and producers.  Included among the exempt are producers with annual sales of $500,000 or less, and producers growing "products that are rarely consumed raw."

Obama Burying Food Safety Rules for Political Gain?

Election year politics are suspected of playing serious havoc with food safety, and putting public health at risk, per The Center for Food Safety and the Center for Environmental Health.

And the Centers are putting might behind their fighting words. 

This week, the non-profits filed a law suit against two federal agencies... the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)... for failure to implement many vital mandates of the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011.  In their legal filing, the Centers explain:

"FSMA is the first major piece of federal legislation to overhaul food safety since 1938. Continuous high profile outbreaks related to various foods, ranging from spinach to peanut products to eggs, underscored the need for serious legislative and regulatory reform.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year, as a result of foodborne diseases, 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die.

"... FSMA enables FDA to better protect public health by strengthening its ability to regulate and granting the agency enhanced preventative and mandate authority. The law also provides FDA with new enforcement capacity, such as mandatory recall authority, and the ability to require that imported foods comply with U.S. inspection and preventive safety standards.

" ... FDA has missed not one, not two, but seven critical deadlines, and counting, in failing to implement FSMA's major food safety regulations."

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have openly urged President Obama's White House to move forward to stop burying food safety measures in the depths of bureaucratic muck. 

U.S. Food Supply Injures More Americans than Gun Violence Each Year

It's puzzling: Colorado-grown cantaloupes killed  more innocents in 2011 than did the recent murderous shooting-spree in a Colorado movie theater, yet no one seems to give a damn. 

Each year, preventable foodborne illness strikes 48 million Americans, hospitalizing a hundred thousand and killing thousands. Each year! 

 In 2011, 36 people died because they ate cantaloupe grown at Jensen Farms in Holly, Colorado. The melons were bought at WalMart, Krogers and other trusted neighborhood grocers.

Cantaloupes that looked, felt, and smelled ripe and healthy. Cantaloupes that were infected, though, with deadly Listeria bacteria. Infected cantaloupes that should have been detected by internal, third-party, or FDA-mandated inspections.    CNN investigated for months:

"... CNN has found serious gaps in the federal food safety net meant to protect American consumers of fresh produce, a system that results in few or no government inspections of farms and with only voluntary guidelines of how fresh produce can be kept safe...

" The 2011 listeriosis outbreak... should not have happened, and it could have been prevented, according to numerous food safety experts and federal health officials.

 "... the story of what happened at Jensen Farms, and why no one stopped the sale and shipments of the cantaloupes... sheds light on serious problems in the nation's fresh produce food safety net, and a voluntary system created by businesses to ensure a quality product, known as third-party audits."

In all, 36 men, women and children suffered painful deaths and 146 others became quite ill because inspection procedures failed to detect  poisoned cantaloupes sold in U.S. supermarkets in May, June and July 2011. 

Tragically, this massacre is not an isolated incident in U.S. modern industrialized food: