(salmonella update) Food firms lobbied on U.S. policy (* admin killed FDA record keeping)

[UpInArms]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The food industry pressured the Bush administration a few years ago to limit the paperwork that companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained that the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.

The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million in the current salmonella outbreak.

Under pressure in 2003 and 2004, the White House agreed to dilute record-keeping proposals by FDA safety experts.

According to government records, business groups met at least 10 times with the White House between March 2003 and March 2004, as the FDA rules were under debate.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/135/story/619072.html

[ingac70]

1. Food and product safety needs to be front and center this election season. n/t

[UpInArms]

2. the number of food-born illnesses seems to have exploded

under this mal-administration's reign.

My pitifully small garden doesn't produce enough to feed my family all year but I certainly wish it did.

[Mnemosyne]

41. *co tossed much of the food regulations that Clinton passed, in 2001.

It was in "Bushwhacked" by Molly Ivens.

[Demeter]

3. Of Course They Did

You wouldn't expect anything less from BushCo. They are very thorough when it comes to destruction of public health and wealth in every way and in any nation!

[bronxiteforever]

4. SHAME on the White House-How little is reported about the private sector ruining the FDA under Shrub

K & R-apparently the average person does not count. Making it tougher for INVESTIGATORS to find food
related illnesses-horrible. Who suffers the most from these illnesses-the young and old.
:argh:

[tblue37]

30. Apparently the businesses themseves also suffer--

since the inability to pin down the source of the outbreak not only led to over $100 million in losses for tomato growers, but has also led more and more people to start growing their own prduce or at least buying it from local farmers' markets. The agribusiness biggies probably won't get back most of those customers.

[bronxiteforever]

31. Victims of "E. coli conservatism" -- government shrinks and shrinks until people get sick.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-lotke20-2008jul20,0,4053081.story

Local is a counter balance for the agribusiness and I read it here first years ago in the DU!

:hi:

[Gman]

5. You knew all along without this article that this had to be the case

given the difficulty the FDA has had trying to find the source. We know they have fucked up everything and that there are fucked up things we know about like the economy, but things we have yet to find out about like the FDA.

[Grinchie]

34. Just wait till the truth about GMO Foods makes its way into the headlines

The toxic effects of the GMO Corn, Soy, Cotton and Canola crops are just now hitting the Blogosphere, and it shows that the EPA, FDA and USDA have trashed evidence that GMO Crops are poisonous and detrimental to our health, as if we didn't have enough to deal with.

Please read Genetic Roulette and Seeds of Deception and become informed and take precautions to protect yourselves.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Thanks a pantload, republicon homelanders

Drown our government in the bathtub to unleash the depradations of republicon cronies, and visit a sickness upon the citizens.

This has got republicon FAIL smeared all over it.

As usual.

[JerseygirlCT]

23. Uncomfortably apt there...

especially for those suffering from the results of this laxity!

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Incompetent, through and through.

And, of course, heinously immoral, unethical and inhumane.

[Mabus]

8. Which companies employed which lobbying firms?

And how much did they spend to endanger the health of the American public? That's what I want to know.

[UpInArms]

11. well, you can just know that

Cargill
Monsanto
ADM
ConAgra
WR Grace

had their lobbying hands all over this

here's just a minor peek into their nefarious deeds

Monsanto's Roundup Spawning Superweeds

01/10/2003
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Washington, D.C. - Few inventions have altered agriculture recently as much
as Roundup weedkiller, but now scientists are concerned that farmers are
using the herbicide so heavily it is losing its effectiveness against some
of the world's peskiest weeds.

"It's going to happen. It's inevitable," said Bob Hartzler, a weed
scientist at Iowa State University.

Known generically as glyphosate, Roundup is powerful yet environmentally
benign. It has led to the widespread adoption of soil-saving techniques
that reduce land erosion and combat global warming. Even home gardeners are
likely to have a version of Roundup in their garage arsenal.

Roundup has been around for nearly 30 years but exploded in popularity in
the late 1990s with the development of genetically engineered soybeans,
cotton and other crops that are immune to the herbicide. That change means
farmers can spray their fields with the relatively cheap weedkiller
whenever it's needed with no fear it will harm the crops.

Roundup-immune soybeans now account for 75 percent of all the soybeans
planted nationwide and in Iowa. Some 33 million pounds of glyphosate were
sprayed on soybean crops alone in 2001, a five-fold increase from 1995,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Scientists are finding Roundup-resistant weeds in a variety of states, from
Iowa to Delaware. Scientists are so concerned that some 200 showed up for a
symposium on the issue last month in St. Louis.

Monsanto Co., which invented both Roundup and the Roundup-immune crops, has
applied to the Environmental Protection Agency to alter Roundup labels to
add special instructions for farmers in areas with resistant weeds.

...more...

[Mabus]

12. I was looking on OpenSecrets for the 2003 - 2004 period

and there's a whole host of companies and groups that used lobbyists. It's hard to tell which ones are the fifteen alluded to in the article.

Believe me, I know about Monsanto. I've lived most of my life in Kansas and herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals getting into, and staying in, the environment is a big concern. Around the time I was graduating law school I was doing some pro bono research on how water quality reports were being done in Kansas for a local environmental group. What I found was appalling. Water testing was being done before winter snow melts and they weren't dipping far enough down into the water systems to get a good count on the heavy metals and chemicals. All in all, the quality of the water was lower than reported with the quantities of heavy metal, chemicals and pharmaceuticals was higher than reported when tested by independent labs.

[madeline_con]

25. According to the AP...

AP report: Food lobby's success cut into investigation of salmonella, other health factors
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally published 8:47 a.m., Friday, July 25, 2008
Updated 12:02 p.m., Friday, July 25, 2008



Participants in the meetings included companies and trade groups up and down the food chain, including Altria Group Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc., when Altria was Kraft's parent; The Kroger Co.; Safeway Inc.; ConAgra Foods Inc.; The Procter & Gamble Co.; the American Forest and Paper Association; the Polystyrene Packaging Council; the Glass Packaging Institute; the Cocoa Merchants' Association of America; the World Shipping Council; and the Food Marketing Institute.



http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/jul/25/ap-report-food-lobbys-success-cut-investigation-sa/

[Mabus]

43. Thank you

My stepdaughter is here and I haven't had time to look stuff up for myself. I was interested in the companies because former lobbyist Jim Slattery is running for Senate in Kansas. He did lobbying for Verizon during time periods when they were seeking immunity for cooperating with the Bush administration's illegal wire taps on Americans. I was curious to find out who the companies were and whether or not Jim or his lobbing law firm were involved in this too.

[shraby]

9. Poetic justice would be Bush, Cheney and

some of those people who have stopped inspections and paperwork to get the dribblin' shits for eating what wasn't inspected.

[pattmarty]

10. You know these ass holes fucked up royally when the............

........organization that represents Tomato growers asked for MORE federal oversight. They were at first targeted as the culprits for the outbreak and ended up losing millions of dollars.

[stubtoe]

20. Good point! Maybe that was the "unintended consequence"!

:rofl:

[aquart]

40. Yep. They had no way to prove they were innocent.

Shortsighted fools.

[libodem]

13. It's bizarre that salmonella jumped

from products such as eggs or chicken to vegetables. Everything seems to be deregulated these days. No oversight anywhere. Profit is king. People are sheep. Myself, I think its stinks of economic hitmen fucking with Mexico. Somebody is mad that since the US has made it tougher for the workers to come here the farms have gone south of the border. I think Mexico is being punished. Remember I never met a conspiracy theory I didn't like. Especially when it comes to these bush bastards.

[ingac70]

26. Not odd that its in veggies...

places like Mexico use human excrement for fertilizer, and crap like salmonella is what you end up with.

[arikara]

32. Its not odd at all when you look at their farming practices

Eggs and chickens should not carry salmonella but the agri-business birds are kept in horrendous, filthy, cruel conditions so disease is epidemic. They turn around and use the waste for fertilizer, so the diseases are spread into "fresh" veggies which likewise should not carry salmonella.

Of course the FDA who is owned by the corporations will do nothing to change this.

[Grinchie]

35. Thank Clinton Era for Factory Farms.

Thats why Hilary Clinton was a loser from the start.

[Supersedeas]

44. something smells

[seafan]

14. The ONLY electronic tracking Bu$hCo wants is of the personal lives of all of US.

That's it.



Bush WH guts food safety tracking system in 2003-2004

July 27, 2008

.....

The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained that the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.

The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million in the current salmonella outbreak.

Under pressure in 2003 and 2004, the White House agreed to dilute record-keeping proposals by FDA safety experts.

.....

Add this to the pile. Along with Bush's morally bankrupt, cowardly, spineless enablers in Congress.

[LaurenG]

15. As an aside I don't think tomatoes or peppers had salmonella

as 3 out of 4 people in my house were sick with it last month. I was the only person in the house not sick and I am the pepper and tomato person. In fact I don't eat dairy or meat so it's interesting that the poisoning is blamed on vegetables. :shrug:

[Grinchie]

36. I agree, a good washing of these items would reduce Salmonella to zip.

Could it be that our "Great Looking" produce inspires a generation that thinks food is clean according to how it looks?

As a farmer, I can assure everyone that as an Apple or any other fruit ripens on a tree, there are a huge number of life forms that pas through the tree looking for food and shelter. Birds especially, visit every part of the tree in huge numbers, daily, looking for insects.

Most people are so far removed from the actual life of their food that they have no idea how contaminated it could potentially get.

I alway was food without exception, and so should everyone else. If I eat it in the field, I peel it.

Perhaps it a new indication of Horizontal Gene Transfer from GMO Crops that has modified the Salmonella bacteria.

[bulloney]

16. Republican/Big Business Mission Statement:

My desire to make a buck supercedes your right to exist.

[NashVegas]

17. How Much Will Electronic Tracking Cost Small Farmers?

Globalizing (unnecessarily) the food supply brings inherent risks.

Just as big business makes more by not having RFID, they'd kill the indies even harder if it was law.

Check out NAIS.

http://www.ruralheritage.com/stop_nais/assault02.htm

[Grinchie]

37. The RFID Initiative is meant to destroy the independent farmers

Or at least remove them from a major part of the market.

Factory Farms would be exempt, as all they would have to do is claim the birds or animals were sequestered their entire lives in a coop, therefore, removing the need to implant millions of birds with RFID tags and then accounting for them on maturity.

Meanwhile, Farmer Fred's Free Range Chickens would all need to be tagged and tracked. Tyson gets a free lunch, and Farmer Fred gets a hundered hours or work and bookkeeping in order to have the "Privilege" of selling his chickens. RFID is another Patriot Act ploy to reduce our liberties.

[DeepModem Mom]

18. More evil. K&R

[stubtoe]

19. I don't think it was "unintended consequences" at all.

I think that was the plan all along.

[Phred42]

21. More proof that Conservatives will kill you for a nickel

[lligrd]

22. I Wondered What Happened

The FDA, while never competent, has become even less so during the last 8 years. They use to track these food poisonings with little problem.

I wonder if the food services realize they shot themselves in the foot yet. When consumers don't know what is causing an illness, they quit buying anything they suspect might be. I know quite a few people who have begun growing their own vegetables.

[bulloney]

38. Part of the problem is we're importing more food than ever. About 1% gets inspected at the border.

The major food companies fight like hell to keep inferior food imports coming across the border.

I remember reading the transcript of congressional testimony from William Lehman from the early 1990s. Lehman was a USDA inspector at the U.S.-Canadian border near Sweetgrass, Montana. He reported a shipment of beef tainted with e-coli that originated from Australia. He was unsure how to handle this because he knew that if if beef originated from Canada, he lets it through with minimal if any inspection. But this beef originated from Australia. He contacted his superiors and was told to treat the shipment as though it originated from Canada. Lehman testified that the beef was purchased by Jack-in-the-Box restaurants that had the e-coli deaths. He fought for better inspections and was harassed out of his job until he died a premature death a few years later.

This is an example of how the major food companies have manipulated the markets to allow them to bring in shit from all over the world. Consumer safety be damned.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

24. This ought to also be an impeachable offense

intentionally endangering the quality of the US food supply, hence the health and safety of not only citizens of the US but those of all countries that buy our food. Of course this also negatively impacts our economy and worldwide reputation.

[sam sarrha]

27. many local family farms lost millions each.. to protect Mexico's despicable reputation..all they

had to do is look at the cultural demographic of who eats jalapeno peppers to know where it came from..!!!

the FDA should have to pay the local farmers what they lost in having to plow under good tomatoes.. and fire the incompetent FDA administrators responsible.

the FDA recently got busted for letting its employees make 6 figure "CONSULTING" fees from the people they are supposed to be testing for this very same thing.

the FDA's budget has been looted to the point that i am surprised they can pay the light bill, my brother is a police captain and FBI graduate who said they did the same thing to the DEA, who cant do their job either

NOLA was given about $180,000,000,000 for hurricane protection, the Bu$h administration looted NOLA's funds so bad the levies were built lower than the level of a minor Storm level.. because of loss of funds. Bu$hitCo is nothing but a pack of PSYCHOPATHS, AND BUTT LICKING CHANEY SYCOPHANTS.. DROPPING THEIR PANTS FOR A CRUMB OF HIS ROBBER BARON INFLUENCE.

[DBoon]

28. Upton Sinclair is rolling in his grave...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle


Who would have seen a political party intent on rolling back the clock 100 years, to the days of The Jungle

[tblue37]

29. Republican fat-cat businessmen can't see beyond their short-term

interests to protect their own (not to mention our) long-term interests.

[Grinchie]

33. Any hint of an Audit Trail scares the crap out of the Corporations.

As soon as there is any way that investigators can link food borne illness back to a producer or distribution path, the big agricultural producers will be subjected to accountability for their ongoing contamination of our food supply.

As a family farmer, I take pride in what I produce. If you nourish and take care of a crop from seed to harvest, you tend to honor the gift of the bounty that nature gives all of us for truly minimal cost except "Forcing" us to be outside, in the fresh air, subjected to bird song, negative ions and nature.

When food becomes a mechanised product, and we force food to be just another widget, the respect for it diminishes, and the people that handle it become careless and irresponsible.

Add to this the fact that big agricultural systems tend to pay little to nothing to the people that harvest the product, it's no wonder that contamination can occur.

To put this in perspective, the workers that harvest produce may or may not be provided with porta potties. If they are, then one must consider the amount of time it would take to walk from the end of a twenty or more acre field to use the facility and return to work. Combine that time loss for an underpaid worker that it earning pennies per pound of produce harvested, you can see that relieving ones bodily systems can be a costly liability for the poor migrant worker.

Now they don't teach this in American Universities, but there are a great many cultures that have used plants for many things in the past, before there was a WalMart on every corner. There is one multi use tree in the Pacific that had over 300 uses to the people, and one of those uses was to provided leaves for "toilet paper".

After learning of this observation, I could see how easily that this habit could be responsible for the E. Coli outbreaks here in the United States. It all boils down to humanized working systems, and the review of this bullshit term or "Increased Worker Productivity". When you treat labor like beasts of burden, situations such as the spinach leaf for toilet paper scenario are more likely to occur.

Add this contamination to a poorly paid fast food or restaurant worker, and you have the opportunity for contamination to spread everywhere.

As people used to say: Don't spit in the well, you might drink from it.

In this case, it's big business that has spit on labor, and labor is spitting on our food.

In regards to the record keeping being killed by the White House, that is in line with the destruction of millions of emails and the methods used to circumvent accountability. Impeach the bastards, take away there pensions, and remove Secret Service protection, as they have proven that they are unworthy of that public expense.

[aquart]

39. So the food industry sabotaged itself. Brilliant, fellas.

[glowing]

42. You do understand what the AP is trying to do with this article don't you?

That same bill would have small farmers tagging all their livestock while, large corporate farms would get a by-pass for it... It would cost small independent farmers butt loads to tag their animals so that the govt could monitor them by satellite. All the while large coporate farms, the one's usually at the root of the outbreak, would have an out for this.

The reason it was not passed was because rural famers said "NO".. And the idea of tagging all their pigs and chickens and cows was canned.

Don't fall for this line of shit.. Demand for better farming practices. Demand for monopolied corporate agriculture to stop using GMO's and tons of fertilizers and pesticides to grow our foods. Demand better animal husbandry practices from them....

AND if its coming from the AP and puts the FDA in some "glowing" light.. be suspect.