Feeding the future / the example of lead

From Jamie Lincoln Kitman’s “The Secret History of Lead”,  in “The Nation”:

“…when commercial interests ask us to sanction genetically modified food on the basis of their own scientific assurances, just as the merchants of lead once did.”

“The next time you pull the family barge in for a fill-up, check it out: The gas pumps read “Unleaded.” You might reasonably suppose this is because naturally occurring lead has been thoughtfully removed from the gasoline. But you would be wrong. There is no lead in gasoline unless somebody puts it there. And, a little more than seventy-five years ago, some of America’s leading corporations–General Motors, Du Pont and Standard Oil of New Jersey (known nowadays as Exxon)–were that somebody. They got together and put lead, a known poison, into gasoline, for profit.

So what’s the CFIA been up to lately?

Remember the CFIA, that official Canadian Food Inspection agency, that was so concerned about wiping out a flock of heritage Shropshire sheep a few weeks back? Well maybe that wasn’t such an isolated incident. What can we make of this latest development on the food safety front? Is this a real problem that’s being covered up? To protect what, short term business prospects of continuing to sell more salmon in the supermarkets? And for that, they’re willing to scupper the international credentials of a university science lab? Is this is a government agenda, rogue “regulators”, or what? Are we still living in Canada?

From Mark Hume, in the Globe and Mail:

“A lab that revealed the first evidence of an infectious virus in British Columbia salmon should be stripped of its international credentials, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

In a letter to the World Organization for Animal Health, the CFIA urges the international agency to accept the findings of an independent audit that recommends “suspension of the reference laboratory status,” of the facility.

The lab is run by Frederick Kibenge at the Atlantic Veterinary College-University of Prince Edward Island.

Big sugar’s sweet little lies

From  Gary Taubes and Cristin Kearns Couzens in Mother Jones

“….Their winning campaign, crafted with the help of the prestigious public relations firm Carl Byoir & Associates, had been prompted by a poll showing that consumers had come to see sugar as fattening, and that most doctors suspected it might exacerbate, if not cause, heart disease and diabetes. With an initial annual budget of nearly $800,000 ($3.4 million today) collected from the makers of Dixie Crystals, Domino, C&H, Great Western, and other sugar brands, the association recruited a stable of medical and nutritional professionals to allay the public’s fears, brought snack and beverage companies into the fold, and bankrolled scientific papers that contributed to a “highly supportive” FDA ruling, which, the Silver Anvil application boasted, made it “unlikely that sugar will be subject to legislative restriction in coming years.”

FDA as a tool of the pharma industry

Here on the Bovine we don’t usually cover the supplements scene. But often, in the raw milk controversy, one does hear claims that the FDA is acting as a proxy for industrial interests that want to see raw milk stamped out because it’s competition for supermarket milk. And this story details a couple of example of the FDA being used by the pharma industry to remove natural products from the market to make way for future allopathic drugs. 

From Elizabeth Renter, on the Activist Post:

Vitamin B6, naturally present in a variety of foods, is necessary for proper nerve function, protein synthesis, regulating blood sugar, and producing antibodies and hemoglobin. In other words, it’s pretty important stuff. But, while many people get their B6 through supplements, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking to make things a lot more difficult—by slowly taking all forms of B6 supplements off the market so Big Pharma can make millions off of prescriptions instead.

According to the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), the FDA has already begun their crusade. They removed Pyridoxamine (a natural form of B6) supplements from the market at the request of BioStratum, a pharmaceutical company.

Fear and loathing in the dairy industry

David E. Gumpert reveals why those dairy industry types have their knickers in a knot over raw milk. From the Complete Patient blog:

“Why does the dairy industry push the U.S. Food and Drug Administration so hard to crack down on raw dairy producers?

The dairy industry seems to be mostly in the background, and any publicly-offered reasoning is always to the effect that illnesses from raw dairy taint the entire dairy industry. Of course, we know that is ridiculous, since fear of raw dairy wouldn’t taint the dairy industry, but rather push more of the market toward pasteurized dairy…if there was a serious risk from raw dairy. The problem with the dairy industry’s rationalizing is that there isn’t a serious public health risk from raw milk. 

“When Food Kills” — we wonder why…

From Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times:

“The deaths of 31 people in Europe from a little-known strain of E. coli have raised alarms worldwide, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Our food often betrays us.

Just a few days ago, a 2-year-old girl in Dryden, Va., died in a hospital after suffering bloody diarrhea linked to another strain of E. coli. Her brother was also hospitalized but survived.

Every year in the United States,325,000 people are hospitalized because of food-borne illnesses and 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s right: food kills one person every two hours.

Hiding how factory food is grown “behind closed doors”

From a New York Times editorial:

People are getting more sensitive to the ethical dilemmas involved with what can easily be seen as systematic torture of other species for corporate gain. In this picture (from Tumblr) , rabbits are restrained for "scientific" testing of chemical products. Will pictures like this soon be verboten?

“A supermarket shopper buying hamburger, eggs or milk has every reason, and every right, to wonder how they were produced. The answer, in industrial agriculture, is “behind closed doors,” and that’s how the industry wants to keep it.

What’s allowed in commercial milk?

Gordon Watson sends this report from B.C.:

The article, below, contains a statement of great importance to the Campaign for REAL MILK = ie.  “And yes, the American dairy industry is allowed to bleach milk with hydrogen peroxide and benzol peroxide, as well as water it down. ”

I’m inclined to believe that it’s true, having been hidden under some ‘deeming-provision’  = Orwellian doubletalk, which re-defined the term ‘milk’ to mean something other than plain, simple real milk

Laws vary from province to province … let’s get the facts.  Call up your local dairy processor, and  – politely – ask them a few pointed questions. Let me know the answers.