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FDA asks lawmakers for more regulatory powers - Federal news, government operations, agency management, pay & benefits - FederalTimes.com
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXNJNjYBvw]YouTube - Criminalize Organic Farming? EXCUSE ME?! BILLS: HR 875 and S 425[/ame]
On February 23, the Federal Times reported on HR 875, a bill that would grant the FDA sweeping new powers to regulate food. It was introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro and arrived shrouded in hype, specifically the hysteria surrounding a recent salmonella outbreak linked to products from Peanut Corp. of America.
Add to the hype last year’s outbreak of salmonella in imported peppers and a 2006 E. coli outbreak that was linked to fresh spinach and the stage is set to implement the FDA’s “food protection plan” requiring farmers and food producers to register with the government every two years.
“If there’s any good that can come from this tragic outbreak, it is long-overdue changes that can help protect the American public from the food supply,” Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said in early February at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. In short, the government will tighten its grip on the food supply and will ultimately strangle small, independent farmers.
Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told the Federal Times the FDA needs full access to the records of individual food manufacturers.
DeLauro’s bill also represents a power grab on the part of the department of Health and Human Services (the FDA is an agency under HHS). “DeLauro’s bill would also mean a big reorganization at the Health and Human Services Department: It removes food safety functions from FDA and places them in a new agency within HHS,” an admitted bureaucratic nightmare. “After what we witnessed with creating the Homeland Security Department, we realized that it’s very complex, setting up a new agency,” said Lisa Shames, director of food safety and agricultural issues at the Government Accountability Office.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXNJNjYBvw]YouTube - Criminalize Organic Farming? EXCUSE ME?! BILLS: HR 875 and S 425[/ame]
On February 23, the Federal Times reported on HR 875, a bill that would grant the FDA sweeping new powers to regulate food. It was introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro and arrived shrouded in hype, specifically the hysteria surrounding a recent salmonella outbreak linked to products from Peanut Corp. of America.
Add to the hype last year’s outbreak of salmonella in imported peppers and a 2006 E. coli outbreak that was linked to fresh spinach and the stage is set to implement the FDA’s “food protection plan” requiring farmers and food producers to register with the government every two years.
“If there’s any good that can come from this tragic outbreak, it is long-overdue changes that can help protect the American public from the food supply,” Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said in early February at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. In short, the government will tighten its grip on the food supply and will ultimately strangle small, independent farmers.
Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told the Federal Times the FDA needs full access to the records of individual food manufacturers.
DeLauro’s bill also represents a power grab on the part of the department of Health and Human Services (the FDA is an agency under HHS). “DeLauro’s bill would also mean a big reorganization at the Health and Human Services Department: It removes food safety functions from FDA and places them in a new agency within HHS,” an admitted bureaucratic nightmare. “After what we witnessed with creating the Homeland Security Department, we realized that it’s very complex, setting up a new agency,” said Lisa Shames, director of food safety and agricultural issues at the Government Accountability Office.
