Fox to Guard Henhouse? Former Monsanto VP May Be Named To Head FDA Safety Working Group
By Susie Madrak Tuesday Jul 07, 2009 6:00pmSometimes I'm just rendered speechless, and this is one of those times. Natasha Chart via Sustainable Food at Change.org:
Obama's considering appointing a former Monsanto vice president, Mike Taylor, to head the Food Safety Working Group at the FDA.
As Jill Richardson writes at LaVidaLocavore at the link above, Taylor thinks the FDA wastes too much time on food safety inspections at meat packing plants. Further, he believes that one of their main problems is that they have to slow down their line speed too much.
Everyone who's read anything about the horrendous working conditions at US meatpacking plants knows that incomplete kills before slaughter and worker injuries increase dramatically when line speeds increase.
As also noted at the Ethicurean, Taylor is the reason milk from rBGH/rBST cows doesn't have to be labeled. Bovine growth hormone is perfectly safe, after all. Except for cows, or humans who drink its breakdown products in milk.
So yes, Mike Taylor is the person we have to thank for putting pus from mastitis-infected cows into the milk supply, and exposing milk-drinking Americans by the millions to greater cancer risks.
This guy is heading up a food safety working group.
I'm just swimming in the changeiness.
Kids, if you care about your food, you know what to do:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Or click here.
Login or Register to post comments.
YET!
Kids will have to go back to drinking beer, like the did in the 15th Century.
re-wrote the bible?
x
but be prepared to pay extra to breath.
Reason number 8,000 to grow your own food.
www.onemilliongardens.com
I can not fuckin believe this shit!
Un-fucking-acceptable!!!
Monsanto owns Seminis, the largest seed company in the world. Before ownership, they worked on many joint ventures to create "Franken-Seeds".
Just because something is grown organically, doesn't mean it is safe. If you use Seminis seeds to grow tomatoes, for example, they are most likely Round-Up Ready proof, which means you can spray all of the Monsanto Round-Up you want and your tomatoes will be still standing. Weeds have not evolved into SuperWeeds which are immune to Round-Up, sort of like bacteria that are immune to anti-biotics.
Ask organic farmers where their seeds come from.
... and then Jan. 20. How wonderful everything seemed.
Then I think about where we're at now.
Ever get the feeling you've been had?
BID
This seems like a cruel joke. I cannot even work up a snarky comment about this. The word "genocide" pops into my head. This is the worst idea I have heard in a long time. Wait a minute--is this a distraction from the health care disaster?
"The Jungle," by Upton Sinclair.
....that the silver lining here is that now we are, possibly, finally being shown that it is all a dog and pony show. Assuming that we were right in that Obama is a good man (I know, I know: leap of faith), then we are now getting more proof that the system is hosed and the problem is bigger than any one person, no matter how many of us stand behind him or her.
I mean, one thing so many people say here, in one form or another, is that we have to fix the SYSTEM, not just try to find a new pilot every so and so years.
This president resembles his predecessor in way too many ways! This better just be a BAD rumor!
It is.
!!
Oh yea. Bring. It. On.
someone will be calling Susie a PUMA in 3...2...1..
Either Obama is one big phony, or he is as dumb as a post.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/arti...
we the people
Thanks for the link.
After looking at all those corporate lobbyists and the money they're shipping to Washington to control the agenda -I would have to say that Obama is one big phony.
How dumb he is will be revealed over time.
But I personally believe that betraying ones' principles makes people stupid.
...if you have them. Pragmatists are exempt.
but somewhere inside- people know when they're taking a course that is contrary to their inner core. They have to work on numbing themselves. They learn to accept. To compromise. It is a dumbing down process.
You may argue that there are those with inner cores that are already jaded. They may be born that way. Naturally evil. Or naturally dumb.
You may be right.
For this anyway. The story is wrong.
but somewhere inside- people know when they're taking a course that is contrary to their inner core. They have to work on numbing themselves. They learn to accept. To compromise. It is a dumbing down process.
You may argue that there are those with inner cores that are already jaded. They may be born that way. Naturally evil. Or naturally dumb.
You may be right.
How is the story wrong?
How do you know?
that peanut paste factory owner was head of the peanut products "safety working group"? That worked out well.
Monsanto's everywhere lately. Check out this Monsanto ad masquerading as a story in defense of family farmers that aired on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday last week.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?...
Same as the old boss.
Weed killer kills human cells. Study intensifies debate over 'inert' ingredients.
By Crystal Gammon Environmental Health News 23 June 2009
Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
Oh, and prayer also.
of RoundUp® in my work place, to determine if we wanted to continue allowing our employees to use the substance. The data shows that glyphosate and wetting agents exercise synergistic effects. Long term data from chronic exposure to roundup is coming in, and it is causing problems in all categories (carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, etc) that are studied. It distributes itself through out all tissues of plants that are treated including seeds and fruits and is ingested when eaten.
...inspecting meat processing plants. Leaves them less time to ban or classify nutrients as dangerous toxins or prescription drugs.
A new position paper from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) had said that GM foods ‘pose a serious health risk’ and called for a moratorium on them.
The paper also said doctors must educate their patients and the public to avoid GM foods and that doctors should consider the role of GM foods in their “patients’ disease processes”.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article...
Nice, huh?
There was that ancient study done by feeding a GM potato diet to rats, killed them all. Something about transgenic transfer in the stomach (cancer).
I don't know how the next 3.5 years will unfold, but if Obama keeps this shit up, I will definitelt not vote for him again.
This has got to be a joke.
. . . I really don't think I want to know what an "incomplete kill" is. Is that like a cow or pig riding down the guttin' and skinnin' line, still alive because of a poorly aimed head shot?
Jesus.
I had my first planned meatless Monday yesterday. The other six meat days, I'd like to keep, thank you very much.
It's getting harder every day to love meat and have a conscience, isn't it...
It happens quite often to chickens (who are hung alive and flapping by their feet on conveyors) when they don't get stunned by the electric bath, they stay awake and move their heads about, then they get partially sliced by the spinning neck cutting disks...
It was on HBO. Probably available on DVD by now.
A must for understanding Monsanto. http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Future_of_Fo...
For example, Monsanto forces a small Canadian farmer to burn is Silo full of seed (a lifetime in the smoke), because they found some of their GM crop on his land. The wind blows seed from area to area; this farmer did not infringe upon Monsanto's pateneted GM seed. They are bullies and monsters. They want no OP seed to exist; only their hybrids and GM seed.
We've come to the end of the line with these 2 old parties. We just don't want to admit it. That would mean the onus is on the American people. And every American knows that Americans aren't very good at cooperating with each other in order to do anything about anything. So nothing gets done and the 2 old parties continue their exploitation of the American people. This country has been ravaged by greed. Members in both parties opened the gates.
....at the end of my couple sentences I just said:
Seriously, Mr. President, are you kidding us, or killing us?
The Jungle? That's what we'll have to look forward to if this dolt gets the job.
This story is WAY off.
The Food Safety Working Group is headed by Kathleen Sebalius and Tom Vilsack and does not even include Michael Taylor.
That original post is very old (March - right after Obama announced the group's creation) and was apparently a false rumor.
Coincidentally, the Food Safety Working Group released key findings today:
http://www.foodsafetyworkinggroup.gov/FSWG_Ke...
Don't fall victim to cynicism.
Taylor was appointed recently to a different position at the FDA (Senior Advisor to the Commissioner):
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressA...
But not everyone thinks its a bad idea:
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2009/07/michael-t...
http://www.enewspf.com/index.php?option=com_c...
Years ago, in Wisconsin, they started adding BGH to their milk. Independent dairy farmers went to court to require them to label their milk at such. Monsanto won the suit. The independent farmers then decided instead to label their milk as "BGH Free." Monsanto didn't want to label because they maintained BGH wasn't harmful, therefore it wasn't necessary for consumers to know their product was treated with BGH.
Monsanto's lawyers tried to take the independent non BGH milk producers to court to stop the labeling, at the very least I bet they tried.
Obama ain't the guy you thought you were voting for.
Anytime I hear the name Monsanto I know nothing good will come from it. There arent' words to describe the complete atrocity it would be if this Taylor fucker becomes the authority overseeing food safety for this country. Why not ask Dr. Mengele to be Surgeon General? Sheezus Keerist!
Doctor Mengele was unavailable unfortunately, he send his regards and recommended Taylor.
And so is Obama if he does this. :(
Is not true. See above.
they sponsored the best makeout ride ever in the history of disneyland
copped my first feel on that ride
monsanto made me a man
Why am I seeing the Enzite guy right now.
Just smilin and wavin.:)
Hope it wasn't the monorail.
and our contaminated drinking tap water will reverse that. It works for fish and other animals that drink/live in water contaminated with runoff from various sources.
Google for fish and transgender change.
Gee, and we're not in a Republican Administration anymore either!
For a while there, he was doing two or three "Bushish" things per week.
How come we're just now noticing this?
Are you out of your fucking skull?!?
You really, really want to be a one term president, don't you. That wasn't a question.
I've got Agent Orange poisoning. Monsanto was a manufacturer. You think this piece of shit president is worth keeping? I've fucking had it with his glib tongue and bullshit.
Biden might get the message if we impeach Obama. 5 months of war crimes is 5 months too many.
Monsanto=Death
Am I to start developing the impression that Bush wasn't a totally evil nincompoop with every move he made, including his own, farcical "Fox Guards Henhouse" appointments? Is this just the way the world is: The evil fucks who don't give a shit about any of us are the ones who really give our politicians, all the way up to the POTUS, their real marching orders?
Or is this is just an election debt payoff?
Is it too much to ask that our politicians actually represent the people who voted for them or at the very least act like decent human beings?
Or am I just being godamned redundant, here?
Excuse me while I go simultaneously piss and scream into a hurricane.
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Future_of_Fo... "Before compiling your next grocery list, you might want to watch this eye-opening documentary, which sheds light on a shadowy relationship between agriculture, big business and government. By examining the effects of biotechnology on the nation's smallest farmers, director Deborah Koons Garcia reveals the unappetizing truth about genetically modified foods: You could unknowingly be serving them for dinner."
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/6/monsanto...
"Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination." http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2...
By introducing a VIRUS that will penetrate the cell wall. A virus like, say, Ecoli????
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2...
"For centuries—millennia—farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head. . .
. . . Farmers who buy Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto."
Just...ew.
Why do we allow such absurdity? And what kind of people dream this shit up?
Monsanto has prosecuted some farmers who violated the terms of agreement using copyright violations.
This is what unchecked savage capitalism leads to.
Now, if that it ain't scary enough. Do some reading on big pharma, and look up on some corporations literally trying to patent genes. Which may mean that in the future, part of your very own DNA will not be yours... you will be "licensing" it from a corporation.
"For many years Monsanto produced two of the most toxic substances ever known— polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, and dioxin."
Is it true though? What was the outcome as the story implied "may be named" well, was the Monsanto feller named or not?
...had been trying to dispel some (or all) of this as a rumor, so you may have something there.
The Food Safety Working Group is headed by Kathleen Sebalius and Tom Vilsack and does not even include Michael Taylor.
www.foodsafetyworkinggroup.gov
educate yourselves before you listen to Susie's tripe. Here is a real expert on food policy with their opinion, not some silly activists who don't have the education to match their convictions...
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2009/07/michael-t...
This is why the left gets ignored and people seek the center. All this reflexive anger is silly and counterproductive.
Details matter Suzy.
I know you relish any opportunity to prove that Obama is evil, but get your research right first. This is the type of bullshit we expect from the corporate MSM.
There is a really great counter-point to Mr. Taylor being put into this position. Marion Nestle's web site has a really good discussion on why he may not be such a bad person for the job. I write about it on my blog as well (http://mindofamediajunkie.blogspot.com.) The truth is no matter who is put into these positions, that food safety, food production is a concern for everyone and its up to everyone to make sure that its done correctly. You can make sure that the companies here that by one simple thing, your dollars. What you spend at the grocery store should go to locally grown, locally supported markets, growers and suppliers. Visit a farmers market, grow your own but take back the food from the giants and make it local.
Login or Register to post comments.