In the words of Bill Tomsom, reporting for the Dow Jones Newswires, the bill "would give the FDA the power to mandate food recals, keep better track of fruit and vegetable shipments so that contaminated commodities can be found more quickly, and a set of new standards for food manufacturers." But many worry that this government expansion could have severe effects on small farmers, family restaurants, and even our local farmer’s market. “Health Ranger” Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com wrote:
Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, has been called “the most dangerous bill in the history of the Unites States of America.” It would grant the U.S. government new authority over the public’s right to grow, trade and transport any foods. This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer’s markets. It would criminalize the transporting of organic produce if you don’t comply with the authoritarian rules of the federal government.
On a more moderate note, Thomas Eddlem writing for New America reported:
The bill would increase funding to the Food and Drug Administration and give it greater regulatory power over foods and medicines. It would require all food producers to register with the FDA and pay new taxes (which the bill calls “fees”) that recoup all the inspection costs for the new army of regulators the bill would create. The impact of S. 510 upon small producers and farms is unclear at best.
If FDA regulators determine a “reasonable probability” exists that the food “will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals,” then S. 150 also gives the FDA authority to shut down the business or farm.
Again, another huge problem that can be seen lies not in the intentions (preventing food-borne illnesses is a worthy cause), but in the dangerously vague wording within the bill, which would grant significant increases in federal power, without establishing clear limits or checks on that new power. “Reasonable probability” can be interpreted in so many different ways, that it will be almost impossible to maintain just standards of consistency and predictability when applying this law.
In regard to the financial burdens that smaller operations will be facing, Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) proposed an amendment that would exempt family farms and small restaurants from FDA regulations. Unfortunately, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has said that he already has the votes necessary to pass the bill without that amendment.
In anticipation of the impending vote on this bill, the John Birch Society, along with countless other libertarian, limited-government, and constitutionalist groups, encouraged citizens to write to their senators. In a sample letter they provided, they wrote:
The Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 150, represents a massive expansion of government regulation of the food industry, even though there is no authorization in the Constitution for this. My right to produce, distribute, and consume the foods of my choice is part of my right to life and liberty under the Constitution. I reject the imposition of an extensive and all-controlling regulatory food bureaucracy.
Food safety is best achieved at the local level; small farmers and local food processors are part of the solution to the food supply, yet S. 150 would grant more power to an opaque and unaccountable agency, hyper-regulating small producers out of business, leaving the industrial food system with the highest ranking of problems of disease and illnesses, to commandeer the marketplace.
This “Food and Safety Bill” poses a threat to local markets and economies, not only due to the regulations which could cripple our local farmers and organic growers, but through inevitable price increases as producers are forced to comply with vague and burdening federal mandates. And, as if that weren’t enough, the bill also includes a foreign aid program designed to assist foreign importers in competing with U.S. farmers.
The producers selling at our Farmer’s Market, or growing vegetables for their family business weren’t the ones responsible for the massive outbreaks we’ve seen, including the salmonella outbreak. And yet, it won’t be corporate producers who will be at risk of going out of business. While regulations may or may not be a step in the right direction at a corporate level, imposing further burdens on local markets, which are already struggling in this recession, by indirectly causing price increases and job losses is not a solution.
Yet opponents of this bill are upset by more than just the impacts on local economies. This bill, as another in what has been a ridiculously expensive series of government expansions, will again follow the now hackneyed assumption that problems can only be fixed by increasing the size of the already incapable bureaucracy that has not been able to fix them. We already have twelve agencies responsible for food safety. And yet here we are spending huge sums of money once again and handing over even more power and control to these agencies that have obviously not fixed the underlying problems.
Dr. Coburn addresses the issues of underlying problems with the way the FDA is attempting to “fix these problems,” which includesd some pretty enlightening points and information.(Check out the YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz58kpAl_Y&feature=channel)
And finally, aside from the arguments about how this will hurt us economically and about how it won’t actually solve the underlying problem, we still are faced with the issue of increased government control and regulation about what we can eat, which medicines we can take, and other important, individual life and health decisions. Until the end of this lame duck session, we can only hope that our letters and our clearly voiced and written opposition will actually be considered when our representatives in the Senate vote on this bill.
Our current government may tell us that we need them to decide these things for us because it’s for our own good or our own safety, but Thomas Jefferson warned us back in 1778 that “If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”
Cross-posted at True North and Ladies Logic.
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