Potlucks bite the dust: "Food safety" shows its true colors

by Steve Green

P.J. Huffstutter is one of the few journalists in the country paying close attention to the rising tide of "food safety" laws. In her latest article, "Raw food raid raises questions over existing milk laws -- and the safety of potlucks," she appreciates how serious - and odd - things are becoming.

People respond to the words "food safety" as the government's sincere concern for health, not noticing the FDA "food safety" division has recently asserted in court that the public has no fundamental right to their bodily and physical health.

What is going on?

Perhaps it might help for people to know that the FDA's "food safety division is being run by Monsanto, an almost universally reviled corporation for its assaults on farmers, its lies and lies, its corruption (inspiring an international movie) and it's being at bottom of the barrel of corporations in terms of ethics. Yet the Monsanto connection to "food safety" is being missed, though the same Monsanto person designed it, is running the FDA division now, and is expected to run the giant centralized agency the dangerous bill S 510 (now in the Senate) would create, with unlimited penalties and no judicial review even over the appropriateness and validity of his actions. That gem is in Rosa DeLauro's food safety bill, one that could be transferred to S 510 at any moment.

DeLauro is pushing now for S 510. Her husband works for Monsanto, a company his website calls progressive.

Central to the FDA's "food safety" campaign is raw milk with government declaring that it is an extreme threat to human health and using that resumption to create government control (with weapons drawn) over locally produced food, and, as we see with potlucks, over home made food as well.

While it is only corporate food which is killing anyone, the corporations are doing what they can to create a parallel universe of danger from local food, their direct competition. Danger from raw milk is their prime example, being promoted by corporate media, and piggybacking on the fear people have over deaths from the meat industry.

So, the relevant question becomes: How dangerous is raw milk?

From an article on the FDA, by Philip Rudnick, Professor Emeritus, Chemistry, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Raw Milk

A Medline search [search terms: raw milk death/raw milk fatality/raw milk fatal/raw milk fatalities] produced a single citation of a single case of death in 1983 of a 72-year-old woman during "an outbreak of illness caused by raw milk" (Tacket CO, Dominguez LB, Fisher HJ, Cohen ML. JAMA. 1985 Apr 12;253(14):2058-60.) Since Medline citations go back to 1949,

this means that, absent information to the contrary, there has been one Medline-documented fatality over a period of 57 years from the consumption of raw milk produced in the United States.

How do FDA-approved drugs compare? Even if one considered only the last 21 years of this 57-year period (starting with the GAO Report year of 1985), using the conservative figure of 100,000 deaths per year from the use of properly-prescribed-and-used FDA-approved drugs, then the death-toll from the use of FDA-approved drugs over this considerably shorter period of time has been at least 2,100,000 victims.

When one looks at the relative safety of raw milk compared to corporate pasteurized milk, the standards are actually higher for raw milk. This is true for the nutritional value as well.

http://www.realmilk.com/whichchoose.html

Raw Certified Milk	Pasteurized Milk
A. Cleanliness Regulations Tested daily at an independent laboratory for the Certified Milk Commission. Bacteria count for standard plate count: 10,000 per ml maximum for Certified Milk or Cream. Streptococci test once a month.	A. Cleanliness, CA State & County Law Tested once a month by the Health Department Bacteria count for the standard plate count: 50,000 per ml maximum before pasteurization; 15,000 per ml maximum after pasteurization for milk, 25,000 per ml maximum for cream. May not exceed 750 Coliform per ml in raw milk before pasteurization, taken at farm pick-up. No regulation requires test for Streptococci.
B. Herd tests in Los Angeles County, CA All dairy cows in a certified milking are vaccinated for brucellosis between the ages of 2-6months. Each certified cow is blood tested for brucellosis before entering the milking herd and receives a blood test at least once a year; thereafter reactors are removed. All raw certified milk is ring tested at least 4 times a year for brucella. If the ring test is positive, then entire herd is blood tested for brucellosis and any positive reactors are removed. TB skin test is performed annually on all cows in the certified milking herd by a state veterinarian. If reactors were found they would be removed from the certified herd. All certified milk dairy herds are free and are maintained free of TB because of constant vigilance and testing. Herd sanitarian from the County Medical Milk Commission visits the dairy weekly or more often. A health inspector from the county visits the dairy at least monthly.	B. Herd tests in Los Angeles County, CA All dairy cows are vaccinated for brucellosis between the ages of 2-6 months. All dairy cattle moving within the state must bear evidence of official calfhood vaccination. All dairy cattle must be blood tested for brucellosis if imported into California and reactors are removed. The milk from all dairy herds is ring tested at least 4 times a year for brucella. If the ring test is positive then the entire dairy herd is blood tested for brucellosis and any positive reactors are removed. TB Skin Test is performed on all cows by a state veterinarian at intervals longer than one year. If reactors are found, additional tests may be required. Reactor cows are removed. Health inspector visits dairy monthly.
C. Employee Health Examinations Once a month examination of each employee at certified farm. All new employees have a complete physical examination and tests when starting to work on a certified farm. Once a month throat culture and examination for streptococcus. During the year other tests are made at regular intervals. Another step to insure disease-free milk. Stool specimen is required from each employee bi-annually. Chest x-ray or skin test for TB required annually.	C. Employee Health Examinations Examination required at time of employment. None required. None required. None required. None required.
D. Nutritional Values Enzymes, catalase, peroxidase and phosphatase are present. Phosphates is needed to split and assimilate the mineral salts in foods that are in the form of phytates. Wulzen Factor (anti-stiffness) available. X Factor (now believed to be vitamin K2) in tissue repair available. Protein--100% metabolically available; all 22 amino acids, including the 8 that are essential for the complete metabolism and function of protein. Vitamins--all 100% available Vitamin A--fat soluble Vitamin D--fat soluble Vitamin E--fat soluble Vitamin K--fat soluble Vitamin B--Complex: Vitamin Bw--Biotin Vitamin B --Choline Vitamin Bc --Folic Acid Vitamin B1 --Thiamine Vitamin B2 --Inositol Vitamin B2 --Nicotinic Acid Vitamin B2 --Riboflavin Vitamin B2 --Pantothenic Acid Vitamin B3 --Niacin Vitamin B6 --Pyridoxine Vitamin B12--Cyanocobalamin Vitamin C Antineuritic vitamin Minerals--all 100% metabolically available. Carbohydrates--easily utilized in metabolism. Still associated naturally with elements (instable). Fats--all 18 fatty acids metabolically available, both saturated and unsaturated.	D. Nutritional Values Pasteurization destroys the enzyme phosphatase. Absence of phosphatase indicate that milk has been pasteurized. Wulzen Factor destroyed (anti-stiffness nutrition factor lost). X Factor--No evidence of alteration by pasteurization. Protein--Digestibility reduced by 4%, biological value reduced by 17%. From the digestibility and metabolic data it is concluded that the heat damage to lysine and possibly to histidine and perhaps other amino acids destroys the identity of these amino acids and partly decreases the absorbability of their nitrogen. Vitamins Vitamin A--destroyed Vitamin D--Not altered Vitamin E--Not altered Vitamin K--Not altered Vitamin B complex--pasteurization of milk destroys about 38% of the vitamin B complex. Vitamin C is weakened or destroyed by pasteurization. Infants fed pasteurized milk exclusively will develop scurvy. Antineuritic vitamin: Testing of pasteurized milk indicates destruction of this vitamin. Minerals-- After pasteurization the total of soluble calcium is very much diminished. The loss of soluble calcium in regards to infants and growing children must be a very important factor in growth and development, not only in the formation of bone and teeth, but also in the calcium content of the blood, the importance of which is now being raised. Carbohydrates —no evidence of change by pasteurization. Fats--Pasteurization harms the fat content of milk.
E. Possible Damage to the Health of Consumers from Drinking Pasteurized Milk Dr. J. C. Annand has written a series of articles in which he has advanced the theory that the increase in the incidence of heart disease was proximately related to the on set of pasteurization of milk. Different population groups were studied in various parts of the world. His theory is that the heat process of pasteurization alters the protein found in milk and as a result heated protein is responsible for the large increase in the incidence of heart trouble in citizens of western civilization, during the course of the past generation. Dr. Kurt A. Oster has advanced the theory that homogenization of milk is proximately related to the atherosclerosis which is so prevalent in citizens in developed countries of the western world. The reduction in the size of the fat particles caused by homogenization permits them to be assimilated into the stomach lining in a manner that was not contemplated by nature. When these fat particles along with xanthine oxidase get into the bloodstream the human system sets up a defense mechanism which results in the scarring of arteries.

How is it that the FDA, which misses both the utter harmlessness of raw milk and its special nutritional value, and which itself is associated with the millions of deaths, has been put in charge of "food safety" for local food?

Food supplements are also being targeted for FDA raids.

Rudnick is amused that food itself, by FDA's peculiar reasoning, can be declared a drug.

"It's a bird, it's a plane…

"If recommended "for the prevention and treatment of scurvy", it's adjudged a legal (and therefore safe) FDA-approved drug.

"If recommended "for some possible health benefit in cancer", it's adjudged an unapproved, illegal, and possibly hazardous drug. As a supplement distributor, you would be threatened with closure of your business or would be raided.

"If not recommended for anything, it's adjudged a legal dietary supplement.

"It apparently is FDA's view that if a company makes a claim that milk helps prevent rickets, milk suddenly becomes a drug."

-Federal Judge Lowell Jensen, District Court, San Francisco,

in the _Nutricology_ case, September 23, 1993

The Hazardous-Nutritional-Supplements-Target of FDA Police Raids:

Annual Deaths From:

FDA-Approved Drugs (1).......60,000 - 140,000

Food Contamination (2)...........................9,100

Aspirin (3)......................................................90

All vitamins (4)............................................. 0

Uncontaminated amino acids (4)..................0

Commercial herbs (4).................................... 0

Thus, with food supplements as well, the utter harmlessness of food (nutritional) supplements are met by FDA attacks versus vast numbers of deaths by the drug industry being met by the FDA giving them a pass.

[Didn't the FDA threaten health stores and websites that they may not even use the words "flu" or "cold season" during the swine flu (when the government was saying 90,000 might die) to point customers toward food (nutritional) supplements that would boost their immune system to avoid getting the flu? On the other hand, didn't the FDA just write a new rule for the drug companies, allowing them to change ingredients in vaccines with only the approval of a single FDA employee ?]

And now, at just the same time that nutritional local food is being attacked by the FDA, there have been four bills this year alone aimed at removing the public's access to all food (nutritional) supplements, while the FDA would not even take a single drug off the market though it has already killed 80,000. FDA left that CEO free to continue killing but used Interpol to kidnap and imprison an herbalist against who there were no complaints and who had harmed no one.

One would almost think the FDA is attempting to remove access to nutrition itself. To health. (But wouldn't removal of good food and food supplements lead to ill health? Who would profit by that?)

Is the FDA just confused about what is dangerous and what needs stopping - 80,000 deaths or none? Could it be something other than confusion? And in either case, confusion or something else, why is the FDA in charge of food safety at all, especially when they have declared in the court that the public has no rights over food or even their health? Haven't they essentially admitted what seems true from the statistics and their actions already, that they don't care about the public's health, and nutrition be damned?

And yet the FDA - run now by an executive of what has been called the most evil corporation on the planet - proposes to take control of all food in the US, using what are curiously (perhaps humorously to them?) called "food safety" laws.

Perhaps the following might give a fuller picture of the impact of such food safety laws, as applied (already inappropriately and brutally) to local farmers and food producers.

1. Against a background of no fatalities or illnesses or complaints,

2. at a time when the country greatly desires to expand fresh local food production everywhere across the country, and

3. at a time when millions people are out of work and making and selling food has traditionally provided a means of income and a way to start home-owned businesses,

Corporate "food safety" laws are attacking every kind of local and interpersonal food activity,

though those activities allow families to pass skills, history and traditions to their children,

though

those activities

encourage sharing and connection,

though

those activities

are the very foundation of diverse cultures and religious groups,

though

those activities

are the heart of all communities,

though those activities offer the means to restore our local and nationals economies,

though

those activities

are the most basic of all labor,

though

those activities provide

local and personal control over food - a life and death issue.

Below is a very small sample of corporate-introduced "food safety" laws raining down now across the country, destroying Americans' most basic human rights to come together and enjoy food and each other as they always have, destroying the very fabric of our local communities and their distinctiveness, and blocking sharing itself, the most fundamental of moral actions and human impulses.

preventing people from bringing home made goods to churches for bazaars.

preventing vendors at markets from selling home made goods (including distinctive (and ethnic) foods unavailable in any other way).

preventing people who went through certification classes and paid fees to sell home made goods at farmers markets from donating those same goods to food banks.

preventing people from donating food to the homeless.

preventing children from bringing home made goods for school fund raisers.

preventing farmers from bringing fresh eggs to markets unless in a refrigerated truck though eggs have never needed this before and do not need refrigeration at all,

preventing farmers from selling products they have been making for their own families and selling to neighbors for generations.

The "food safety" laws are broadly and vaguely written, giving virtually endless power to the state. And in that broadness, they are malleable and can be raised at any time to put any farmer or food business out of business (the grease trap is not big enough, the stove needs to be replaced, the kitchen needs to be converted to stainless steel, the farmer needs a separate facility for capping his milk bottles, the farmers needs million dollar equipment to clean seeds, etc.). The laws might even be used to declare a home unfit to provide food to a family because those in it haven't paid for and passed certification classes and the home hasn't passed inspection or the owners have not produced the endless HACCP paperwork the laws set up.

It is easy to see why Vandana Shiva has called "food safety," the Law of Food Fascism.

It is almost as though a new form of discrimination is slowly coming down on all Americans from their own government, a new civil rights struggle that has yet to be defined as such, and what people are being cut off from is not schooling or housing or public accommodations but the very basics of existence, food and health. Survival. Life itself.

What is certainly clear is that there is no limit - any food could be taken away any person could be punished - and those running this have no stopping those killing people but a long and ugly history of crushing those providing health. Is there any logic to all this?