FDA's Food Safety Czar (Monsanto Lobbyist Michael Taylor) Harrasses Small Dairy Farmers:

[amborin]

Democracy Now and Credo Urge Obama to Fire Monsanto Lobbyist Michael Taylor, FDA's Food Safety Czar

Why is a former Monsanto lobbyist currently serving as the FDA's food safety czar waging war on small dairy farms
that produce fresh milk?
While factory farm operators are getting away with serious food safety violations, raw milk dairy farmers and
distributors across the country have been subjected to armed raids and hauled away in handcuffs.

The Food and Drug Administration is running sting operations followed by "guns-drawn raids usually reserved
for terrorists and drug lords" as part of a crackdown on unpasteurized milk. Meanwhile, the FDA is letting
the highly consolidated industrial meat and factory farm industry off the hook despite growing problems.

Not surprisingly, the person responsible for prioritizing armed raids on small dairies over holding agribusiness
accountable is a former Monsanto attorney and chief super lobbyist. Monsanto's Michael Taylor is the second
highest-ranking official at the FDA, and as Food Safety Czar is responsible for implementing the day-to-day
policies that govern the food safety laws for the U.S. 2

snip

Incredibly, Michael Taylor and FDA inspectors have not arrested or fined the Iowa agribusinessman
— Jack DeCoster — who was wholly responsible for the half-a-billion eggs that were recalled in 2010
salmonella-tainted egg recall.3 Though this industrial agribusinessman endangered the health of millions,
Michael Taylor thinks Amish farmers producing fresh milk are more deserving targets of his FDA enforcement
raids with guns drawn.


Care to sign the petition?

CREDO is joining our allies at Food Democracy Now! in calling on the president to fire
Monsanto's Michael Taylor from the FDA. Midwestern farmers will play an important symbolic
role in President Obama's reelection campaign. We need to let the president know that we
stand with small farmers and not Monsanto!

Michael Taylor seems focused on entirely the wrong aspects of food safety enforcement.
Rather than making sure that food safety inspections are done properly at our nation's
largest factory farms, where antibiotic resistance has run amuck, Taylor has been leading
a departmental crusade against small raw milk dairy producers. So far several dairy farmers
have been subject to a year-long undercover sting operation from the East Coast to California.



http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/fire_michael_taylor/?r_by=26966-2504529-CyNmYrx&rc=paste1

[Tippy]

1. Credo does a good job with it's petions and such...I rarely turn down one of Credos Petitions

The more people who get on board and get involved the better it will be for all of us...GET ACTIVE....

[SpiralHawk]

2. k and r

eom

[MahayanaLotus]

3. You're asking Who?

To do what? Do you truly believe Obama gives a sh*t?

[izquierdista]

4. If you want to get sick from cow products,

the government has decreed that it MUST be from E. Coli on meat and NOT from Campylobacter in milk, so there!

[bullwinkle428]

5. This is the kind of "federal regulation" the right wing LOVES.

[Supersedeas]

9. Regs that shut down small market competitors

[court jester]

6. lobbyist rule: Promise Broken

Former Monsanto Exec. Appointed to the Head of the F.D.A.!

Michael R. Taylor, J.D., was appointed Deputy Commissioner for Foods. This was announced on the FDA’s website the day after the earthquake in Haiti. Michael Taylor is a former top executive, lawyer and lobbyist with biotech giant Monsanto Co. He has rotated in and out of law firms, Monsanto, the USDA and FDA.

During his former stint in the FDA during the Clinton administration he helped write the rules to allow rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) into the American food system..."

Change feels good, at least I hope so...


"Of the 513 promises we're tracking, this one has become the most controversial. It is the cornerstone of President Obama's campaign theme about limiting the influence of special interests.

During the campaign, Obama said many times that lobbyists would not run his White House, and the campaign delighted in tweaking rival John McCain for the former lobbyists who worked on McCain's campaign..."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/mar/17/obamas-lobbyist-rules-promise-broken

[Modern_Matthew]

7. Sadly, it's people like him that demonize government regulation. nt

[Odin2005]

8. K&R

[DirkGently]

10. ANOTHER big business lobbyist serving in the administration?