Here are a few excerpts from recent posts on David E. Gumpert’s The Complete Patient blog (post one, post two) dealing with the torturous but quick progress of controversial food safety law HR 2749 though the American legislature and with the FDA’s actions against a small but successful company that sells natural products that have been used for healing purposes. Has the FDA has become a tool of pharmaceutical corporations who’d like nothing better than to reduce competition?
Competing with pharmaceutical companies for your health dollar? -- not if the FDA can help it.
“It’s been a tough week for anyone concerned about food rights.
And a cheery week for the technocrat enforcers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who can see the way clear to harass owners of small farms and small health-care businesses and push us toward an ever-more-sterilized food system.
First, a federal judge dismissed the suit filed in federal court last year challenging the legitimacy of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The judge apparently felt that because NAIS is voluntary, it’s not something that needs to be interfered with. Based on the way many states are implementing it (signing all farms up automatically, unless you manually opt out), we know it’s about as voluntary as an army private volunteering for latrine duty.
The Bovine 