Billy wrote:
In article ,
"Steve Peek" wrote:

As I understand it, the USDA is charged with facilitating farm sales,
and the FDA with consumer protection. The USDA has far greater funding
than does the FDA. Presently, if there is reason to believe that food
products are tainted, e,g. rat shit in the peanuts, melamine and
cyanuric acid replacing high protein flour, or salmonella on eggs,
they can only request that the responsible party voluntarily recall
their product. Under the new bill, the FDA could unilaterally issue a
recall. I find this a reason to support the bill.

Herbal Legacy subscribers, it is time to take action! Last week the
Senate passed a bill (S.510 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act) that
massively increases the scope of what the FDA can do. Dr. Shiv Chopra
had this to say about the bill:

"If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public's right to grow, own,
trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature
makes . It will become the most offensive authority against the
cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products
of one's choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural
law or, if you like, the will of God."

Having read the summary and watched the two videos at
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510&tab=summary I
can say that the above description by Dr. Shiv Chopra is completely
false. The FDA would be, if the bill passes, charged with setting
regulations. These regulations may be objectionable or not, however
they can't be judged until they are written.


I don't have a dog in this fight but where the USA goes Oz often follows so
I had to check it out.

I found the interpretation of the critics to be quite alarming so I had to
look at the source document to see what they were on about. Here it is:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-...10es.tx t.pdf

Not wanting to spend hours on a 300 page document I followed just one thread
of commentary about the bill preventing seed saving and exchange. The bill
says nothing explicitly about the issue, seeds are not mentioned. The
critics construct a long chain of interpretation that starts from provisions
to maintain suitable conditions in food processing facilities and ends up
with total control of all seeds. This is extreme paranoia.

If you want to see the symptoms of someone sucked up by a tornado who will
never see Kansas again look he

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/200...minalize-them/

If this the best they can do I wonder about the quality of the rest of their
analysis. Is there is any more balanced and reasonable commentary out
there? I am not saying that this bill is totally benign but the case being
made against it here is very poor.

I cannot imagine why this is headed OT. If goverment control of seeds isn't
on topic what is?

David