Vaccines--why one mom is saying "no"

I have signed up for Google Alerts for my own name, "sonlight curriculum", and a couple of other terms.

Tuesday I received an alert for an overwhelmingly kind blog post about Sonlight Curriculum by a Sonlight customer from South Africa. To the right of the post, I noticed a whole series of comments about another post the blogger had written titled Why We Don’t Vaccinate.

Oh. my. goodness. She has done her homework, I think. And she has put together a well-stated summary case against a lot (most? all?) of the childhood vaccines currently being touted by mainline medical providers.

I've heard most of the arguments before in bits and pieces. But Taryn Hayes has done her homework and she provides all the references. The two graphs at the bottom of her post, "a comparison in decline between scarlet fever (unvaccinated disease) and measles (vaccinated disease) in Australia," are, perhaps, more striking than anything else on the page.

But check it out for yourself. It is worth being informed, I think!

And while you're there, you may want to read the counter-arguments of "Lloyd," someone Taryn identifies, in her response, as some kind of [medical] doctor. In essence, he asks, "If vaccines are so useless, then how and why was smallpox wiped out by vaccination? And what of polio? . . . Not to mention German measles/rubella, 'regular' measles, haemophilus and pneumococcal diseases. . . ."

Taryn asks Lloyd if he might be willing to review some of the articles that have her concerned. And following one of the links she provides, I eventually found myself at a copy of an article by Dr. Joseph Mercola where he notes,

A 1992 study published in The American Journal of Epidemiology shows that children die at a rate 8 times greater than normal within three days after getting a DPT vaccination.

A preliminary study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found children who received the HiB vaccine . . . were found to be 5 times more likely to contract the disease than children who had not received the vaccine.

In the New England Journal of Medicine July 1994 issue a study found that over 80% of children under 5 years of age who had contracted whooping cough had been fully vaccinated.

In 1977 Dr Jonas Salk (inventor of the Salk polio vaccine) testified with other scientists that 87% of the polio cases which occurred in the US since 1970 were the by-product of the polio vaccine.

The Sabin oral polio vaccine (OPV) is the only known cause of polio in the us today.

The February 1981 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of obstetricians and 66% of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine.

Hmmmm . . .

And then there are papers like this, by Roman Bystrianyk of HealthSentinel.com, that demonstrates that the lartest decline in death rates from virtually all communicable diseases for which vaccines are generally credited really came about long before--and to a much greater degree than could ever be ascribed to--the advent of their respective vaccines.

Consider, too, Dr. Raymond Obamsawin's Vaccination Tables, especially beginning at page 24, Immunization Dangers.

Tilting at windmills . . .

After my post Tuesday about Wickard v Filburn, when I began reading my tardy copy of this week's The Week magazine, I realized conservatives are almost assuredly mistaken who took comfort in Judge Henry Hudson's ruling last week about the so-called health-care reform measure.

The Week reported,

A federal judge in Virginia gave new momentum to Republican opposition to President Obama’s health-care reform by ruling this week that it’s unconstitutional to force individuals to buy health insurance. Judge Henry Hudson said the Constitution’s Commerce Clause does not authorize the federal government “to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.” . . .

This ruling properly frames “Obamacare” as having “historic consequences for American liberty,” said The Wall Street Journal. Obama’s scheme depends on the government punishing citizens who don’t buy health insurance—in effect, a tax on “doing nothing.” Can Big Government get any more intrusive than that? The only flaw in Hudson’s ruling is that it “didn’t go far enough” and kill this monstrosity in its crib, said Investor’s Business Daily. But at least the judge has given “a strong momentum boost” to a repeal movement that once seemed like “wishful thinking.”

Based on what I wrote about Wickard v Filburn, I'm afraid it is still wishful thinking. If the Supreme Court were to overturn this legislation, it would mark an astonishing "new day" in the dismantling of Big Government.

In the same article, The Week said,

The Obama administration compared this ruling to earlier conservative objections to Social Security, Medicare, and civil-rights legislation. “Those challenges ultimately failed,” said Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “and so will this one.”

It will be interesting--but, in my opinion, hardly likely to be surprising--whose hopes and/or predictions will come true.

Food Safety Bill Passes . . .

Not particularly unexpected.

This is from Judith McGeary of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. (I met Judith at the Acres USA conference two weeks ago. I appreciate her level-headed, thoughtful approach. She is less excitable than me or Mike Adams :-) ):

This afternoon, the House voted 215-144 to approve the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (now HR 2751), including the Tester-Hagan amendment.

The bill has taken many bizarre procedural twists. Throughout the process, Agribusiness repeatedly tried to prevent the Tester-Hagan amendment from being included. Even today, members of the House critiqued the bill's protections for small-scale direct marketing producers.

It's clear that, without your calls, the bill would have passed without any protection for small-scale producers. Thank you for all of your calls and letters over the last year!

As passed, the bill includes the same version of the Tester-Hagan amendment as S510: It exempts producers grossing under $500,000 (adjusted for inflation) and selling more than half of their products directly to “qualified end users” from the HACCP-type requirements and the produce safety standards. “Qualified end users” means individual consumers (with no geographic limitation), or restaurants and retail food establishments that are EITHER located in the same state OR within 275 miles of the producer. While complex, this amendment effectively carves out small-scale producers who are selling in-state or to local foodsheds from two of the most burdensome provisions of the bill. More details on the Tester-Hagan amendment are available on our website.

There is still cause for concern about how FDA will exercise the new powers granted to it in S510. The agency's track record is one of favoring Agribusiness at the expense of both family farmers and consumers. S510 does not address the underlying problems of consolidation of our food system or the industry capture of the agency, which result in the agency's flawed policies. But the inclusion of the Tester-Hagan amendment provides critical protections for producers who sell at farmers markets, through CSAs, and at local co-ops and groceries, helping us to continue to build our movement and fight for fundamental changes.

We owe a thank you to Senator Tester and Senator Hagan for standing up for local producers and consumers.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The bill will now go to the President, who is expected to sign it.

Passing the law is still only one step in this process. Next year, Congress will face the issue of how to fund all of the new regulations and new FDA bureaucrats. To actually implement the entire bill, Congress will have to approve $1.4 billion of new spending or cut other programs accordingly, based on the CBO estimates. This gives us a chance to affect the level of funding and seek limits how the money can be spent.

And, on the agency side, the FDA will have to go through the rulemaking process. We expect that the agency will focus on writing rules that benefit Agribusiness and disadvantage independent producers, as usual. We will have to take action to ensure that our concerns are on the record and to urge Congressional official to take steps to rein in the agency from overstepping its bounds.

Why S510/HR2751 is so dangerous: An historical perspecitve

Whew, boy! I've been well aware of most of what follows. I've just never seen it all put together quite so potently in one article:

In arguing for S.510, the "Food Safety Modernization Act," there are all sorts of attorneys, legislators and internet commentators who keep claiming, "The government won't try to control the food production of small farms." They say, "Your backyard garden is safe" and that the feds won't come knocking on your door to control your seeds or foods.

How sad that they are unaware of Wickard v. Filburn, the 1942 Supreme Court decision that pretty well destroyed any constitutional limitations on the power of the federal government . . . right down, literally--and most specifically--to your backyard garden.

How the tyrants came after a farmer named Roscoe Filburn

It all starts with a farmer named Roscoe Filburn, a modest farmer who grew wheat in his own back yard in order to feed his chickens.

One day, a U.S. government official showed up at his farm. Noting that Filburn was growing a lot of wheat, this government official determined that Filburn was growing too much wheat and ordered Filburn to destroy his wheat crops and pay a large fine to the federal government.

The year was 1940. . . . And . . . the federal government had decided to artificially drive up the prices of wheat by limiting the amount of wheat that could be grown on any given acre. . . .

But Roscoe Filburn wasn't selling his wheat to anyone. Thus, he was not engaged in interstate commerce.

Excursus on Interstate Commerce

In case you are unaware:

Before adoption of the Constitution, states, under the Articles of Confederation, had erected protectionist barriers that interfered with the free flow of trade in the new country. One of the main reasons for the Constitutional Convention was to remedy that problem. The framers' solution was the commerce clause, which was intended to make a free-trade zone out of the United States. (The clause also delegated to Congress the power to "regulate" trade with foreign nations and the Indian tribes. We will hold until later the question of whether this was a good way to solve the problem.)

At first, the clause was closely interpreted as referring to interference by the states with the flow of commerce. In 1824, Chief Justice John Marshall's Court, in the first big case involving the commerce clause, Gibbons v. Ogden, struck down a New York law creating a steamship monopoly for traffic between New York and New Jersey. Marshall laid down the principle that for the national government to have jurisdiction, the issue must involve interstate commerce; i.e., it must involve the trafficking of goods (not manufacture) between two or more states. He also recognized that the enumeration of the interstate commerce power implied powers unenumerated (concerning intrastate commerce) and thus undelegated.

Gibbons may have gotten things off to a good start, but it did not last. Marshall sprinkled just enough bad seeds that, taken out of context, would allow later justices, legal scholars, and political opportunists to cultivate the commerce clause into a general power to do anything that could conceivably affect interstate commerce.

For example, in 1870, the Court upheld federal inspection of steam passenger vessels that remained within a single state but carrying goods shipped from or destined for other states. The problems here were two: the inspection law was not intended to prevent state interference with free trade, and the subject of regulation was private enterprise. Thus, we can glimpse the beginning of the modern view that the commerce clause granted to Congress a plenary power to regulate anything that had the potential to affect interstate commerce.

It was a short step to creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887, which cartelized the railroads and regulated their rates.

One last barrier had to be hurdled. Taking the lead from Marshall, succeeding courts insisted on confining the commerce power to commerce, the movement of goods; production was regarded as prior to commerce and thus outside federal jurisdiction. In 1895, the Court would not let the central government use the Sherman antitrust law to stop the merger of sugar refiners. In 1903, the Court upheld a federal prohibition on the interstate trafficking in lottery tickets. In 1918, it struck down a prohibition on the interstate shipment of goods produced in plants using child labor.

But as Richard Epstein has written, the barrier between production and commerce was "not as well-defined" as the Court held. After all, a market economy is an integrated web of activities in which everything affects everything else, however remotely. Manufacturing arrangements can influence commercial activities. It was only a matter of time before the barrier would disappear and the national government would begin to regulate production directly.

Looking back, the progression from the early cases to the New Deal, when all inhibitions on federal regulation of the economy were dispelled, appears inexorable. Too much had been conceded along the way. The mooring of the commerce clause — the principle that state governments could not erect trade barriers — was too long lost, the distinction between government and private acts too long forgotten. (The Sherman Act outlawed private combinations in restraint of trade.)

In 1937, the Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act, which compelled employers to engage in collective bargaining, holding that the commerce clause subsumed those things "affecting commerce." In the particular case, the Court said that phrase meant "tending to lead to a labor dispute burdening or obstructing commerce."

After President Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court to dilute the influence of the uncooperative "nine old men," a majority of the justices took to the most expansive definition of the commerce clause like a drunk to drink. The Court blessed the secretary of agriculture's power to set minimum prices for milk sold intrastate. "The marketing of intrastate milk," wrote the Court in the 1942 Wrightwood Dairy case, "which competes with that shipped interstate would tend seriously to break down price regulation of the latter." Yes, so? What was the Court's point? Only that nothing — especially not liberty — should be permitted to get in the way of the national government's power to regulate the economy.

As hard as it may be to notice, Wrightwood Dairy still preserved something of a distinction: the intrastate sale of milk obviously entailed an act of commerce. Did that mean the commerce clause barred the national government from regulating noncommercial activities? Not for long.

Enter Roscoe Filburn . . .

--From The Future of Freedom Foundation, Freedom Daily, August 1995,
The Commerce Clause: Route to Omnipotent Government

[Filburn] wasn't growing wheat as something to use for commerce at all, in fact. He was simply growing wheat in his back yard and feeding it to his chickens. That's not commerce. That's just growing your own food.

But get this: The government insisted he pay a fine and destroy his wheat. So Filburn took the government to court, arguing that the federal government had no right to tell a man to destroy his food crops just because they wanted to protect some sort of artificially high prices in the wheat market.

This case eventually went to the US Supreme Court. It's now known as Wickard v. Filburn, and it is one of the most famous US Supreme Court decisions ever rendered. . . .

The US Supreme Court sided with government tyranny

. . . The federal government claimed authority under the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 8), even though the Commerce Clause was originally written primarily to prevent states from erecting tariffs, not to allow the federal government to control interstate trade. But thanks to the twisted interpretation of the government, . . . the feds claimed that Filburn's growing of his own wheat effectively reduced interstate commerce in wheat. Therefore, they reasoned, they could regulate his backyard wheat production (and order him to destroy his wheat).

Because of this US Supreme Court decision in 1942, it now means the federal government can order you to halt food production in your own back yard by arguing that when you grow your own food, the amount of food you purchase from other food providers is reduced, meaning that your food production impacts interstate trade and therefore can be fully controlled by the federal government.

In other words, the federal government claims the authority right now -- even without the Food Safety Modernization Act -- to knock on your door and order you at gunpoint to destroy all the food in your garden, your greenhouse or your farm. They can order you to destroy all seeds in your possession and all food harvested from your own garden. And they can do all this with the full protection of U.S. law by simply citing the precedent set in Wickard v. Filburn in 1942 as ruled by the US Supreme Court.

Mike Adams proposes a correlation between what we are seeing occur relatively slowly here in the United States to what occurred recently in Venezuela on a faster timeline:

[G]overnment is constantly trying to expand its power to the point of tyranny. As a current example of this, look at what just happened with [Hugo] Chavez in Venezuela. He has now been granted what are essentially dictatorial powers over the country (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...). Chavez is now the King of Venezuela, and whatever he says is now law. Venezuelan citizens are now slaves to his tyranny, and they must follow his orders or be executed.

The United States is moving in precisely the same direction. First, power gets stripped away from the People little by little. Then it gets concentrated in the hands of a few regulatory agencies who write their own laws and who stay in power year after year because none of their officials are elected. . . . And then, over time, a few powerful individuals concentrate power from those agencies into their own hands. Before long, the country is run by a handful of power-crazed tyrants who disregard all freedoms and rights of the People.

This is precisely what the FDA is doing with the Food Safety Modernization Act. Backed by yet more funding and a new army of agents, plus the Supreme Court ruling that says the federal government can order you to destroy the food you're growing in your own back yard, the FDA can now pillage the countryside, going from farm to farm and house to house, burning fields and ordering the citizenry to destroy their plants, seeds and crops. This is exactly what they've been doing to raw milk producers and food coops, by the way.

That is no exaggeration. It is a documented "legal" precedent established in Wickard vs Filburn, and it can be used at any moment to destroy the ability of people to grow their own food. . . .

What will you eat when the government destroys your local food supply?

. . . When the GMO crops suffer a mass catastrophic failure, and the monocultured wheat dies from a global viral infection called ug99 "rust", what will you eat? . . .

Those people who have the foresight to grow their own gardens and protect their food sources from the tyranny of the federal government may . . . have a chance at surviving. The rest . . . [?]

Big Government declares war on the local food movement

Make no mistake, folks: the government is attempting to destroy the local food movement. They are trying to wipe out small, organic farms that compete with corporate agribiz in the same way the FDA has long plotted to destroy natural health supplement companies who compete with Big Pharma.

It's all about wiping out the little guys and protecting the monopoly markets of the largest and most influential corporations that are poisoning the earth and destroying your health.

Side Note

In the original article from which I am quoting, here, Adams makes this sweeping statement but doesn't demonstrate the point until several paragraphs later. Let me place it in context here:

Keep the big picture in mind as you consider all this: When teens are poisoned by the aspartame in diet soda, the FDA does nothing. When children are given cancer by the sodium nitrite in hot dogs, the FDA does nothing. When countless thousands of Americans suffer heart attacks and cardiovascular disease each year from the partially-hydrogenated oils used throughout the food supply, the FDA does nothing. But when you grow fresh produce in your own back yard and carry it to your local farmer's market to sell it without government permission, you will be arrested by the FDA as a criminal.

--I think the FDA's behavior in these regards is well established. And with these kinds of well-established track records, do we have any grounds for questioning Adams' statement?

I don't think so. --JAH

As Wickard vs Filburn clearly demonstrated, the government does not believe you have any natural right or Constitutional right to grow your own food. In fact, the government believes it has the right to order you to destroy your food at the time of its choosing.

Don't think this could happen to you? Filburn didn't either. The idea that his own government would show up at his door and order him to burn his field of wheat was simply unimaginable. Similarly, the idea that the FDA would tear across the countryside wiping out small family farms is unimaginable to many Americans today. But that's only because they don't know their own history and they put far too much faith in the flimsy idea that the government somehow, in some way, respects the rights and freedoms of the People. . . .

Five years ago, I joked that people might one day be arrested for smuggling broccoli across state lines. Today, that joke [may become] a sad reality. The mere act of growing food and selling it to your neighbor without government permission is about to become a criminal act. And no, small farms are not "exempt" from HR2751. They must provide financial information and apply to the FDA to be granted exemption status. That sounds a lot like slaves begging for mercy from the king, doesn't it? . . .

Shame on all those who supported this bill. May history have mercy on their souls for the suffering and injustices they have unleashed upon us all.

Adams notes that S.510 passed the Senate and was sent back to the House by "the entire U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike." As far as he is concerned--and I'm afraid I would have to agree with him--their vote proves them "traitors to the freedoms upon which [the United States of] America was founded."

This article (save the excursus and side note) comes from--and with special thanks to--Mike Adams' NaturalNews.com

--In case you missed my previous posts on this subject that include practical suggestions for action (necessary even this morning), please see The House of Representatives will subvert your rights to quality food tomorrow (12/21) unless . . .

The House of Representatives will subvert your rights to quality food tomorrow (12/21) unless . . .

. . . Unless you and thousands of others scream your heads off.

To quote John F. Tate, president of Campaign for Liberty,

On Sunday evening, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell conjured up a backroom deal to revive the so-called “Food Safety Modernization Act” – passing it by unanimous consent after it was thought dead.

Even though dozens of Republican senators opposed the bill only a few weeks ago, not one member – not even Tom Coburn, who led the opposition to the regulatory boondoggle – dared speak up to oppose the FDA’s food takeover.

This is truly outrageous!

They shoved it into HR 2751, what used to be known as the "Cash for Clunkers" bill. They gutted HR 2751 as it was written, and "simply" substituted S510! So the "new" HR 2751 may (indeed, probably will) come up for a vote as early as tomorrow (Tuesday).

Tate commented,

Liberty is never more in danger than when legislators are looking to cut a quick deal, and last night was another harsh reminder of this fact.

It only required one senator to speak up and object to further empowering [the current Congress'] radical regulatory agenda to bury the bill.

But that was not to be.

Main problems with the bill: As noted in the past, it gives the FDA unbridled authority to shut down virtually any farm operation merely on the basis that some bureaucrat somewhere had "reason to believe" that something on the farm might be harmful. No judicial review. No appropriate due process. Just suspicion.

And look whose "beliefs" will control your food supply if the act passes tomorrow!

As the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund noted this morning:

[The] FDA does not respect individuals' rights to obtain healthy, quality foods of their choice. The agency has stated as a matter of public record, that . . . "There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food."

Indeed, when a group of citizens sued the FDA for the right to drink raw milk, the FDA replied,

"Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is . . . unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish."

More to the point of the bill itself, however, consider, please, that,

The Act does nothing to address [the worst] food safety problems in this country, such as those resulting from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and various contaminants (e.g., BPA, pesticides, herbicides, etc.).

The FDA has shown that it cares very little about these significant and proven sources of danger. It refused to go after the egg producer whose half-billion tainted eggs became the rallying cry for those who claim we need the bill. It has been well aware of this producer's problems for years. But it maintains a rather hands-off approach to them. After all, it's a big producer and it employs a lot of people.

Meanwhile, it makes sure to pursue every minor problem it hears about on small farms and among raw and unprocessed food advocates. (See my post with a whole series of sample videos.)

Notice that the agency

has used its existing power to benefit the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries at the expense of public health (e.g., allowing the overuse of antibiotics in confined animal feeding operations and refusing to require labeling for genetically-modified foods). This Act does not address the fundamental problems at this agency in order to truly protect public health.

Moroever,

[The] FDA has adequate powers under existing law to ensure food safety and effectively deal with foodborne illness outbreaks. FDA has power to inspect, power to detain product and can readily obtain court orders to seize adulterated or misbranded food products or enjoin them from being sold. The problem isn't that FDA needs more power; it's that FDA does not effectively use the power it currently has. The agency has power to inspect imported food yet inspects only 1% of food coming into this country from outside our borders.

From a constitutional perspective:

The Act will expand FDA's involvement in regulating food in intra-state commerce, further interfering with local communities. State and local governments are more than capable of handling any problems related to food in intrastate commerce. All the major outbreaks of foodborne illness involve either imported food or food in inter-state commerce.

And from a practical perspective:

The Act will hurt our ability as a nation to be self-sufficient in food production because it has more lenient inspection requirements for foreign than domestic producers creating an unfair advantage for food imports. Giving an advantage to foreign producers will only increase the amount of food imported into this country that does not meet our domestic standards. The Act does not address food security--the ability of a country to produce enough food to meet its own needs.

Please contact your Representative first thing Tuesday morning.

I just used the petition capacity of DemocracyInAction.org to send a modified version of their standard anti HR 2751 letter to my representative:

Sir:

While there is no question that food safety has been lacking at the large, multi-million-dollar corporate food producers, HR 2751, the so-called "Food Safety Modernization Act" creates unbelievably burdensome requirements for thousands of small family farmers who exceed $500,000 in mere food REVENUE, whether they make a profit in the end or not.

As a small business owner myself, and a fan of our local farmers' market, I am appalled at this notorious attempt by Big Ag to stifle their organic and whole foods competitors.

I urge you to OPPOSE the passage of HR 2751's so-called "Food Safety Modernization Act." Leave intRA-state commerce in the hands of the states, where it belongs . . . and create a bill that provides teeth to deal with the companies that are really doing damage to our health through their confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and BPA, pesticides, herbicides, and so forth.

Please.

Sincerely,

John Holzmann

A shorter note (more to the point) on another DemocracyInAction page:

No Food Control (S.510/HR.2751) this Year!

I oppose including the fake "food safety" (actually "food control") bill, S.510/HR.2751 or any of its language in any Bill before Congress, this year.

"No one's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." SO FINISH YOUR BUSINESS AND GO HOME!

I want the new Congress to find ways and means to protect our local and natural food production and distribution, as well as our natural health remedies, from Federal FDA control.

Divest the FDA of any authority over our food and supplements!

Health and Food Freedom for food safety is an important issue to me, and to many millions of Americans, and I will remember your votes!

Make your voice heard.

How quickly knowledge fades!

I attend a "Men's Prayer" meeting at our church every Friday morning when I'm in town. For the past year and a half or more the group has usually consisted of just three of us. Yesterday the three of us met and the other two guys asked how my time in Indianapolis had gone. Had I learned anything?

Eventually, I got around to talking about my foray into sauerkraut-making. After I finished describing how I had made my sauerkraut, one of the men--somewhere in his 70s--said, "That's exactly how my mother made sauerkraut!"

"Your mother made sauerkraut?"

"All the time!"

"My mother, too!" said the other guy--about 60 years old and a guy who grew up on the farm.

I thought: "How strange! Sauerkraut-making sounds as if it were relatively common knowledge not that long ago. But our generation grew up never knowing. And the next generation. And, now, a third generation. No knowledge. All I/we have ever known (until very recently) is the synthetically-produced/'dead' kind of food that lacks any of the beneficial microorganisms in it by the time we eat it."

Expensive urine

I thought this cartoon was another good response to the question I raised in my post a few days ago: Why do Americans eat junk food?

Mike Adams of www.NaturalNews.com comments that critics of proponents of organic foods, vitamin supplements, herbs and so forth often say that investments in such things only give people "expensive urine."

When it comes to really expensive urine, however, doctors fail to look at the cost of all those pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy drugs they're shoving down the throats of patients. Those drugs are excreted through the urine, too, and when you add up the cost of those (just the financial cost, not even counting the cost in devastating side effects), they far outweigh the cost of eating healthy foods and taking supporting supplements.

If you really want expensive urine, go see a doctor. Ten visits later, you might find yourself on ten prescription drugs. Your body will be a wreck, your mind will be half-lost, and you'll be peeing away twenty bucks in medications every time you visit the restroom.

And guess what? All those medications end up in the environment. Trace amounts of antidepressant drugs are already showing up in the public water supplies in cities around the world. Pharmaceuticals, it seems, not only lead to expensive urine, they also lead to devastating environmental consequences such as fish producing dual sex organs.

Adams' comment about finding yourself on ten prescription drugs reminds me of the doctor's letter to Dr. Jonathan Wright that I quoted about a month ago. If you don't remember, he began his letter by saying, "Last week, I saw a 55-year-old woman who is very, very sick due to insurance-covered treatment with patent medicines." --And he then lists the ailments that are close to killing her, one ailment after the other brought about by the symptom-only "fixes" prescribed by the woman's primary care physician.

Making live-culture foods . . .

About two months ago it suddenly hit me. The way I expressed it at that time was, "I like acidic foods." I'm not sure I got that right. Maybe I should have said "tart" foods or "piquant" foods--spicy tomato sauces in or for pizza or spaghetti; spicy (though not overly-hot) salsa and/or picante sauces; sauerkraut; pickles; SweeTarts^® candies; vinegary salads; kefir; yogurt; sourdough breads (the sourer the better!) . . . --If I'm eating spinach or broccoli: give me lemon juice on them. (Yum!) . . . Oh! And that makes me realize: Yes, I love almost all citrus fruits. I'll suck on a lemon with pleasure. Straight. Grapefruit. . . .

Ahh!

Probably two and a half years ago, now, Amy introduced us to Bubbies^® naturally fermented sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers. They were good, though I have continued to prefer more "modern" sauerkraut.

Early this past summer, while I was visiting Amy and Phil in Virginia, Amy offered me some homemade kombucha--a fermented sweet tea.

Oh, wow! Very refreshing!

I have never enjoyed the flavor of alcohol. As I have told many people, it always makes me think of cough syrup. Yucky! (It seems that at least a couple of my kids have inherited the alcohol-tastes-yucky gene from me.)

And kombucha, apparently, can ferment to alcohol. At least slightly. But if Amy's komucha contained alcohol, it was very slight, and I enjoyed the flavor.

Late this fall I decided I would begin brewing my own kombucha. I have now made and consumed two full batches and am brewing my third.

Sarita hasn't joined me. But I enjoy it.

A few weeks ago, as I was in our local Vitamin Cottage/Natural Grocers, Sarita asked me to find some kimchi--the Korean equivalent to sauerkraut but made with almost any vegetables rather than cabbage either necessarily or primarily. (Kimchi can be virtually the equivalent of sauerkraut, but usually not.)

Anyway. After trying kimchi, and realizing that the local fresh fruits and vegetables season is at an end, we got to talking about how we might preserve the remaining organic vegetables we have on hand, and especially cabbage.

"What if we make our own sauerkraut?"

So that's what I did beginning about two weeks ago.

I chopped a head of cabbage into relatively fine pieces, then dumped them into the crock from our crock pot along with some sea salt; mashed the mixture down as well as I could (and I mean mashed it!); placed a saucer on top of the mash; mashed that down; placed a half-gallon jar full of water on top of the saucer to apply continual pressure; covered the entire apparatus with a clean towel; used a rubber band to seal the edges; and let it sit in the kitchen for about a week and a half.

Then, two days ago: voìla! Finished sauerkraut!

We ate some last night.

Good!

I'm hoping to learn how to make more such fermented foods with the capable coaching of Sandor Katz.
*****
A postscript.

Last week, while I was at the Acres USA conference in Indianapolis, it hit me: several speakers commented on how animals know what foods to eat for their health. If they are in need of a particular nutrient, they will seek out--somehow, naturally, through some "sixth sense," as it were, exactly the kind of plant or animal or whatever-it-is (even dirt!) that they need to ingest in order properly to nutrify themselves.

Is it possible, I began to ask myself, that I desire fermented foods because I could really use the bacteria--the "probiotics"--that inhabit them? Have I been "starving" myself, as it were, of the very things that would provide great benefits to my body?

--The hypothesis would certainly fit with what a lot of naturopathically-oriented people say: that people (like me) with autoimmune difficulties often suffer from "leaky gut syndrome" which, itself, is often the result of a poor biotic atmosphere in the gut . . . a problem itself that often arises from too much use of antibiotics earlier in life.

Well, with my asthma difficulties as a child, I received quite a lot of antibiotics just to keep me alive. I am sure they did their work. But I don't remember anyone ever worrying about re-seeding my gut with appropriate bacteria once the bad bacteria had been eliminated.

I wonder. . . .

S510 back from the dead

Ay-yi-yi!
Looks like Monsanto, Cargill, and the other major industrial food suppliers may get their way and get “their own“ bought-and-paid-for food czar in charge of all food production in the U.S.

Speak of tyranny!
Please read S 510 Food Safety bill is still alive and may unleash a new army of FDA agents . . . and call your senators.
What‘s got me worked up?

• Even with the Tester Amendment (that permits farms with less than $500,000 annual revenue off the hook), this law encompasses virtually any and every viable “real“ farm in America. --$500,000 revenue will hardly permit enough profit to support a single family, much less an operation that requires a non-family employee or two.
  
• Constitutionally, according to the 5th Amendment, what is the U.S. Congress doing providing for the FDA to regulate local food growers/producers/distributors? If i grow fruits and vegetables (or meat or milk or any farm product) solely for sale to people in my own state, according to the 5th Amendment, the Congress ought not to be seeking to regulate my trade with my neighbors. (But, of course, the federal government has justified its infringements in these matters for decades. So I should probably simply acquiesce, right?)
  
• The issue that Mike Adams emphasizes in the article I have highlighted here: the plan to move full regulation of food production to the administrative whims of individual bureaucrats who can be bought off by special interests--bureaucrats who can always hide behind the justification that they had “reason to believe“ that something might be harmful. No judicial review. No appropriate due process. Simply the decision of a new “food czar.“

And we think we live in “the land of the free“?

Why do Americans eat junk food?

I had heard this before, but Food, Inc. developed the theme with a brief look at the eating habits of one lower income family. "I can't afford good food," says the mother. It would be far better for her family--and especially her diabetic husband--if they were to eat vegetables, but a small helping of vegetables would cost more than a hamburger at a fast food restaurant. So fast food it is . . . as the family suffers the consequences of obesity and diabetes.

Reader's Digest featured a brief "Best of the Blogs" article in its October issue called Why That Salad Costs More than a Big Mac.

Look where federal food subsidies go--and then compare them to government dietary guidelines (which have problems themselves, but . . .)

Meanwhile, the government is proposing to take over our healthcare system. Who can afford healthcare nowadays, right?

But the largest factor in medical costs today? --The result of lousy nutrition.

So the federal government subsidizes not just poor nutrition, but actually debilitating nutrition . . . so that . . . what? It can subsidize the resulting necessary medical expenses?

Does this make sense?

Life Extension Magazine, October 2010 said,

Similar to the deferred effects of cigarette smoking, medical costs associated with obesity-related diseases are mostly postponed. This means that society has only begun to pay the enormous healthcare expenses that will accrue as overweight individuals succumb to cancer, vascular occlusion, kidney failure, diabetes, arthritis, early senility, and other illnesses.

The federal government’s meager steps to combat this calamity have failed. The evidence can be seen by the fact that nearly three times more Americans are obese today compared to 1960. A more startling statistic is that six times more Americans are morbidly obese (body mass index 40 and above) than in 1960.

Obese individuals (body mass index 30 and above) now comprise over one-third of the American population. Another one-third is overweight (body mass index of 25-29). The majority of Americans are thus destined to suffer higher incidences of degenerative diseases than this nation’s healthcare system can afford.

There's more, but I'll stop here.

Maybe those of us who can afford to eat properly ought to eat properly, despite government incentives to eat poorly. After all, it wasn't that long ago the average American family spent 30 percent or more of its income simply to eat. Few of us would need to approach anything close to that number to eat only healthy foods and all organic all the time.

But let us not "even" go that far. What if we "simply" modulate our intake of the truly awful "foods" (y'know, like soda pop, white-flour-and-sugar based sweets, French fries, potato chips and other similar deep-fried snacks), and what if we determined to eat at least half a pound a day, per person, of the cruciferous and deep green leafy vegetables? Those few changes might create a revolution in our personal health statistics.

Bacteria, sickness and health

Mike Adams of Natural Health News often makes side quips about the modern scientific and commercial food establishment's anti-bacterial fixation. The general viewpoint promoted by our society seems to me to match what Adams complains about: that the only good bacteria is a dead one. As he put it in his last article about S510, Top ten lies about Senate Bill 510:

Lie #8 - The FDA just wants to make food "safer"
Actually, the FDA wants to make the food more DEAD. Both the FDA and the USDA are vocal opponents of live food. They think that the only safe food is sterilized food, which is why they've supported the fumigation, pasteurization and irradiation efforts that have been pushed over the last few years.

Sounds about right to me (as far as the mentality of the FDA and USDA). But, I was reminded recently, the mentality is totally wrong from the perspective of the latest scientific discoveries.

My reference to Bonnie Bassler in my Microbes and Soil post was picked up by Keith Johnson on the Permaculturelist blog. And that yielded a comment by Doug Weatherbee that focused on the central point of Bassler's TED talk--something I didn't mention in my post--the significance of what Bassler calls Quorum Sensing:

Over the past 15 years Dr. Bassler and her MIT team discovered that all bacteria species "speak" in 2 chemical languages: one language is a private language only understood within the specific bacteria species and the other language is the Esperanto common language understood by all bacteria species. Until Dr. Bassler's work, microbiologists couldn't understand how some bacterial mixtures which contained pathogens like E. Coli would not show E. Coli virulence and other bacterial mixtures which contained E. Coli the E. Coli would be very active and engaging in a virulent attack. Dr. Bassler figured out that the E. Coli were communicating to other E. Coli using the private E. Coli chemical language AND communicating to ALL of the other bacterial species using the common bacterial language. Only when the E. Coli number of individual bacterium RELATIVE to the total of all bacteria species numbers was high enough in E. Coli to give the E. Coli a fighting chance of winning would the E. Coli "switch" on and become virulent. From an evolutionary standpoint this makes sense. Why would a pathogenic organism species make an attempt to create dis-ease (which entails a use of valuable energy) when it is completely outnumbered by other microbial species who may be potential predators who function as a check and balance against the disease.

This has profound implications for farming and ranching.

--And, I might say, to how we should approach a lot of medicine.

Weatherbee maintains his focus on agriculture (since that's his specialty; he's a Certified Soil Foodweb Advisor):

Whether our biocides are synthetic "chemical" pesticides or "organic" home-made pesticides, the thinking behind their use is the same: if the pathogen is present (even in a neighbour's field) we lay down a biocide attacking the pathogen. Our biocides, whether a commercial Syngenta pesticide or a homemade permaculture recipe for powdery mildew sulphur containing "organic" biocide, kills BOTH the bad-guy pathogen microbes and the good-guys.

Problem here is that the bad-guys usually (not always but usually) reproduce more quickly and come back before the good-guy microbes. Quorum Sensing points to a fundamentally new way of thinking about this in our farms. We need to increase the ratio of good-guy microbes in the soil and on the plant surfaces in relation to the "bad-guy" pathogen microbes. Research on plant pathogen suppression with composts backs this up. It's the amount of a plant pathogen species #s in a compost relative to the total pile of microbes that determines whether the plants will develop the disease. (Emphasis mine--JAH)

Well, the same relation exists in our bodies as well. As Barbara Minton notes in an article published on Mike Adams' Natural News site: "[T]aking probiotics is probably one of the best interventions you can do to stay healthy or regain your health. That's because those four pounds of little critters in your gut are to a very large degree your immune system. They hold the keys to your very existence."

I'm afraid Minton may be using an "old" and inaccurate metaphor for what occurs in our guts. For her, the "good" bacteria go to war against the "bad" bacteria:

Probiotics are friendly bacteria similar to those found in people's guts, especially in the guts of breastfed infants who have been provided this natural protection against many diseases by their mothers. Most friendly bacteria come from the Lactobacillus or Bididobacterium groups. There are several different species of bacteria in each group. Some probiotics are also friendly yeasts.

Taking probiotics is a way to keep your friendly bacteria population up to full strength so it is always at the ready to defend you. It is a way to replenish the bacteria that are killed off by the pesticides and chlorine. If you have taken antibiotics, taking probiotics is even more important because you probably have unfriendly microorganisms living in your gut that your reduced levels of friendly bacteria are having difficulty handling.

But I wonder if Bassler's view may be more accurate.

Perhaps what's happening is not so martial as the "old" probiotic model implies. Maybe the "good" bacteria never have to go to war at all. Rather, it's their fearsome countenance (sorry; I know I'm engaging in some anthropomorphism, here, myself; . . . --Maybe it's their overwhelming numbers, a bacterial form of what human militaries call deterrence) that, as Bassler's model suggests, "simply" dilute the more destructive bacteria's numbers enough that they never produce the "quorum" necessary to decide, "Let's go! It's time to attack!"

Gardasil--the failed drug for girls--now being promoted for boys (??!!??)

I referenced a couple of articles yesterday that discussed the track record of Gardasil for girls--y'know, how it is killing approximately one young woman a month, not to mention the hundreds of young women who have been permanently disabled by the vaccine . . . all to achieve a minor, potential, low-single-digits percentage relief from two possible sources of cervical cancer.

Well, with that kind of track record, what can you expect from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but a plan to ensure boys, also, are injected with the drug! (???)

What?!? Why?

In Douglass' inimitable style:

Since boys obviously can’t get cervical cancer, the vaccine peddlers have had to scheme up other reasons to push this on them.

And some of them are real beauts.

Ever hear of a life-threatening case of genital warts? Of course you haven’t — but the feds think your boy should be inoculated… just in case.

Not good enough for you? Don’t worry — they’ve cooked up some more “benefits” for you and your boy: If he grows up to prefer men over women, the vaccine might protect him from anal cancer.

I don’t know anyone outside of California who makes health decisions for a child based on the assumption that he might turn out to be gay someday — but even if he did, bear in mind that the CDC says the anal cancer rate among gays is “as high as” 37 for every 100,000.

That’s 0.037 percent, folks. And the “as high as” means it’s probably much lower than that.

But the writing’s on the wall — Gardasil will make the list for boys sooner or later. All you can do is arm yourself now — with information — so when they come a-knocking for your son, you’ll have the power to tell them where they can shove that needle.

Once more I ask: Is our government truly interested in preserving our lives, liberties, and our ability to pursue our own happiness? Or is it in the back pocket of certain large industrial interests to help them maximize their profits?

Your federal taxes protecting scientifically-based medicine?

I was floored by Dr. Douglass' claim this morning:

Inside the mystery placebos

Why bother creating a good drug -- all you really need to do is come up with a bad placebo.

Statins, for example, would look positively fantastic if you could somehow spike the placebo with strychnine.

Far-fetched? Maybe not -- because the truth is, nobody knows what the heck is in most of the placebos used in drug trials.

Nobody, that is, except for the researchers and their Big Pharma backers.

In a new analysis, researchers looked at 176 studies published in four major medical journals between January 2008 and December 2009 to see what placebos were used.

They didn't get very far: Just 8.2 percent of all pill studies and 26.7 percent of all injection studies disclosed the contents of the placebo, according to the study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Think that's outrageous? That's nothing -- the real outrage here is that the feds have NO requirement at all that researchers disclose the contents of their placebos.

None.

And if you think researchers aren't taking full advantage of that little loophole, well, there's probably a job opening for you at the FDA.

But all you need to do is look at some of the placebos that we do have information on to realize there's plenty of room for funny business.

Take the Gardasil vaccine I've been warning you about. [For some of Douglass' warnings, see for example, his report on adverse reactions to the vaccine released by the FDA only after a FOIA demand by Judicial Watch, the non-partisan conservative anti-corruption watchdog organization; or this follow-up from last month--JAH]

In one trial, the researchers spiked the placebo with aluminum, a metal that can cause the same types of nerve damage that have been linked to Gardasil.

That's a placebo "effect" straight out of hell.

In a study mentioned in the new analysis, a med for anorexic cancer patients went up against a "placebo" made of lactose. Of course, cancer patients are often lactose intolerant, and a lactose pill will certainly cause side effects.

And if I know that, you can bet the researchers behind that study sure as heck did as well.

Think about that next time you read about a "placebo-controlled" trial -- because in reality, there's no control at all.

Douglass is often pooh-poohed as a quack. I figure I need to be extra-vigilant if I am going to quote him. So I decided to look up this un-referenced analytical study. Is it a hoax?

Apparently not.

It appeared just a little over a month ago in the Annals of Internal Medicine (October 19, 2010 153:532-535)--abstract available for free here. And though I have not read the full article, every reference elsewhere on the 'net indicates Dr. Douglass is accurately communicating the study's findings. The study authors themselves graciously conclude, "Because the nature of the placebo can influence trial outcomes, placebo formulation should be disclosed in reports of placebo-controlled trials."

Respondents to the study are a bit more outspoken:

It [is a big] ethical problem when the placebo in some cases now have been shown to actually have had adverse effects on these patients['] health, by not being acceptable zero point-standards for the actual medications on trial.

. . . It is also of ethical concern when the patients having the luck of being selected for the "proper" medical treatment, have actually been subjected to medication where its positive effect has been overestimated, non-exist[ant], or even of the negative kind; and all because the treatment effects ha[ve] been compared to a placebo which was not a non-active zero-point-substance, but rather a substance having negative health effects, and thereby, in the comparison, ended up documenting a false positive medical healing effect of the medication.

Conclusion: We now have no way of knowing which medicines are being beneficial to the patients being treated, and which are having no effects at all, or which are actually having negative effects on the patients['] health.

With this report, the whole of pharmaceutical research have lost its credibility. It may or may not be a cynical act by the individual researcher and/or by his/her research group or leader. It is, however, not easy to make excuses for the pharmaceutical companies, since the actual research as a common universal procedure, should have been submitted to meticulous quality control by independ[e]nt researchers h[a]ving no bonds to the company, before a final approval was being given, and the medication was being introduced to the medical community.

This report is weakening the whole foundation wall of all pharmaceutical research. It is from now on not possible to trust any existing information about the effects and side-effects of pharmaceutical medicine. Unfair as it may be, this will affect honest and dishonest researchers alike!

There's more, but I will encourage you to read the comments for yourself.

. . . This kind of report continues to undermine my faith in Big Pharma and the FDA as caretakers of my health. How about you?

Love to buy fresh fruit from the neighbors? Corn from a roadside stand? Pie from a skilled baker friend? Such pleasures may soon go bye-bye!

Sorry. I'm so "into" research, I'm afraid I forgot how to "market" ideas!

The title of this post tells the real story of my post last night.

Is the world going to come to an end if S510 passes . . . and especially without the Tester-Hagan amendment? No. The world won't end.

But plan to see the federal government, by means of its ever-vigilant-against-the-little-guys/ever-vigilant-in-behalf-of-the-big-guys FDA, cracking down hard on the family gardeners and small-town farmers who dare attempt to sell their fruit or vegetables or homemade pies without first paying $500/year in protection money (not to mention filing mounds of newly-required government reports)!

Yes, by everything I can see, that really is the import of this egregious attempted power-grab on the part of the major industrial agriculture vendors.

I know. It seems hard to believe. But, please: READ THE EVIDENCE. Follow the links.

It really is that bad.

S510--Industrial ag businesses show their true colors!

S510 is all about food safety. That's what the bill's sponsors want us to believe. That's its title: The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.

But when you get down to it, is it really about food safety? Or is it, as so many federal bills and rules and regulations seem to be today, window dressing on the problem ("lipstick on the pig"), a protection scheme for major agribusinesses, and a brilliant (hidden) means for those self-same agribusinesses to put their smaller competitors out of business or, at least, at a serious disadvantage?

The Weston A. Price Foundation sent out the following update on Monday evening:

Last week, the Senate voted 74-25 to move to consideration of S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act. After thirty hours of debate and behind-the-scenes negotiations, the Senators released a final Managers Amendment that includes a compromise version of the Tester-Hagan amendment.

The compromise Tester-Hagan amendment . . .

• Exempts producers whose revenue is less than $500,000 a year and who sell more than half of their products directly to consumers or "qualified end-users."
  
• Specifies that "retail food establishments" -- which are exempt from the existing requirements to register with FDA and from the other new federal requirements in this law -- includes businesses that sell directly to consumers through farmers' markets, roadside stands and other local outlets.
  
• Requires the FDA to conduct a study that looks at the incidence of foodborne illness in relation to the size and type of the facility, as well as the risks associated with commingling, processing, transporting, and storing food, "including differences in risk based on the scale and duration of such activities." In other words, for the first time, the FDA will have to collect and evaluate data on how different management practices affect the risk of foodborne illness.
  
• Requires the FDA to consider the data mentioned above as it defines "very small businesses," which will also be exempt from the new requirements.

(For the full text of the amendment, go here.)

On constitutional grounds,I don't see how the Senate has any right to make any such rule concerning businesses whose commerce is conducted wholly within one state or another. The federal government, according to the Constitution, has the right and responsibility only to oversee interstate commerce, not intrastate commerce.

But ignoring that not-so-fine point of constitutional law, and granting the federal government powers it has no right to have, still, considering the requirements of the unamended law--requirements that place a relatively minor burden on large ("industrial scale") food processors, but could put smaller, family-run operations out of business--it seems to me that the Tester-Hagan Amendment is the least the Senate should do in behalf of small-scale and local farm sand food distributors.

Anyway.

So the Tester-Hagan amendment is currently included in S510. Good news, yes?

Maybe not!

According to Weston A. Price Foundation:

[E]ven though an agreement was reached on the Tester-Hagan amendment last week, the issue is . . . not over. The final vote on the bill has been delayed until Monday, November 29. . . . And, in the meantime, Agribusiness has shown its true colors.

For over a year, the big Agribusiness trade organizations have supported passage of S.510. From Agribusinesses'' perspective, the bill was a win-win: they could absorb the costs of the regulations because of their size; they'd gain good PR for supposedly improving food safety practices; and the competition created by local food producers, which is rapidly growing, would be crushed by the regulatory burdens.

This was only speculation until now. But when the Senators agreed to include the Tester-Hagan amendment in the bill, . . . twenty Agribusiness trade organizations fired off a letter stating that they would now oppose the bill.

The letter from the Agribusiness groups states:

[B]y incorporating the Tester amendment in the bill, consumers will be left vulnerable to the gaping holes and uneven application of the law created by these exemptions. In addition, it sets an unfortunate precedent for future action on food safety policy by Congress that science and risk-based standards can be ignored.

What science and risk? No one has produced any data or evidence of any widespread problems caused by local producers and marketed directly to consumers. All of the major foodborne illness outbreaks have been caused by products that went through the long supply chains of Agribusiness.

Agribusinesses' real concern about the Tester-Hagan amendment isn't food safety, but the precedent set by having Congress recognize that small, direct-marketing producers are different, and should be regulated differently than large Agribusinesses.

Agribusiness is trying to convince the Senators to pull the Tester-Hagan amendment back out. While the amendment is currently part of the Managers Package, the amended version of the bill agreed to by six bipartisan sponsors, nothing is certain until the actual vote.

ACTION TO TAKE

This Thanksgiving week, please take a moment to call or email your Senators to tell them to hold firm on KEEPING the Tester-Hagan amendment part of the bill.

You can call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or go to www.senate.gov to find their website (if the phone lines are busy, the best way to reach them is through the Contact Page on their website)

Oh, come on! I can hear some of my readers say. What's the big deal? Indeed, if you have read the Snopes article on the subject of the Food Safety Acts, you may be tempted to say the entire concern is overblown and tantamount to a hoax. After all, their attempt at a level-headed evaluation says the grounds for concerns expressed about these bills possibly "eliminat[ing] home gardens and put[ting] organic farmers out of business" are "Mostly False." Most of the claims about "dire results citizens would face should the bill pass . . . [were/are] unwarranted by anything stated within the bill itself."

Whew! Relax! Take a deep breath!

. . . Interesting, then, to see the same Snopes article suggest that "Sources such as the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund are better starting points for grasping some of the issues regarding how [the bill] might affect small farmers."

So let's go to the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) website and find out what they have to say.

The Snopes article, written in early 2009, actually links to an article that has to do with a bill that is now out of date.

So let us take an article that deals with the situation we face today.

Sign the petition to Reject S.510, it begins. "More than ever S510 represents a major threat to the local food movement, states' autonomy to regulate food, and the country's ability to become self-sufficient in food production," it continues.

Whoa! What?!?

Because S510 is really a parallel to a House Bill (HR2749), and the arguments for and against one are generally good for and against the other, I am taking the best material from articles about both bills to help you understand the issues at stake.

In HR 2749’s Real Impacts: a Response to Consumers’ Union, FTCLDF writes,

The FTCLDF agrees that the industrial food safety system has serious flaws and needs to be fixed. The country has seen numerous outbreaks of foodborne illnesses caused by imported foods or domestic foods that were processed in huge facilities and shipped throughout the country. Unfortunately, [the bill] does not focus FDA’s efforts on these very real problems. Instead, it creates a regulatory framework that will heavily burden the small farms and local food processors, the very people who provide a safe, healthy alternative to the industrial food supply.

Food safety is a priority shared by everyone. The FTCLDF calls on [proponents of the bill] to explain exactly how the bill would address the industrial food supply problems without harming the local food movement. The fact that massive, industrial food companies, such as Peanut Corporation of America, have killed or sickened people is a strong argument for regulating such companies, and we applaud CU’s efforts to improve the industrial food supply. But the wrongs committed by these companies are not a valid basis for harming the hundreds of thousands of safe, healthy small farms and artisan producers who will be burdened, or even driven out of business, by [the bill].

FTCLDF then goes into detail about the problems:

• $500 Annual Registration Fee (not to mention paperwork required to report to the FDA) for any "facility" that holds, processes, or manufactures food.
  

  While the statute excludes “farms,” the FDA’s current regulations take a very narrow view of what qualifies. Under the existing regulations, a place that grows food and does any processing of that food for sale [is] not . . . a farm, and thus would be subject to [the bill]. . . . In other words, a farm that washes greens, cut vegetables, or dries fruit before selling it would be forced to register and pay the annual fee under the regulatory definition of “farm.”
  
  Currently, FDA has a guidance document that modifies the regulation and allows “farms” to process food so long as the ingredients are grown on the same farm. [However, e]ven under the guidance document, many small farms and artisanal producers could be required to register. FDA has not strictly enforced this requirement so far, but that is no guarantee about future actions by the agency. And if the agency were to revoke the guidance document and enforce the registration requirement in accordance with the definition of “farm” contained in the regulations, many farms would be required to register and, under the FSEA, pay an annual fee.
  
  Moreover, farms are not the only issue. There are thousands of individuals who are making artisan foods, such as making jams, breads, fermented vegetables, cheese, or other foods, which they sell to directly to customers at local farmers markets and similar venues. All of these individuals would be forced to pay an annual fee of $500 to the FDA and comply with extensive paperwork burdens. Notably, the fee is the same regardless of whether it applies to an individual selling a few hundred dollars worth of product or a multi-million dollar company shipping products all over the country.
  
  It is not equitable for a local grandmother making jam from farmers’ excess fruit to have to pay the same fee as a Heinz processing plant. Nor does the FTCLDF believe local artisan food processor should be subject to the same extensive paperwork requirements as the massive industrial processing plants.

• Regulation of how farms grow and harvest crops.
  
  FTCLDF agrees . . . that [the bill] does not call for the elimination of organic practices. However, the bill’s provision directing the [FDA] to set standards for how food is grown and harvested is very troubling. For example, after the E. coli outbreak linked to spinach that was grown in California and then processed and sent all over the country, the agency developed guidelines that were based entirely on the industrial agriculture model. . . . The guidelines were expensive, burdensome, and wholly unnecessary for small, diversified farms.
  
  After FTCLDF issued its first alert, [the Food Safety bill] was amended to direct FDA “to take into consideration, consistent with ensuring enforceable public health protection, the impact on small scale and diversified farms . . .”While this is an encouraging step, it does not provide sufficient protection.
  
  The FDA has yet to demonstrate that it has any understanding whatsoever of the needs of small scale and diversified farms. And the new language does not prevent FDA from developing standards that drive such farms out of business under the guise of developing “enforceable standards.”
  
  No one has demonstrated any need for FDA to regulate growing practices on small and diversified farms. No major outbreaks have been traced to such farms. There is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by granting FDA this authority.
  
• And the list continues . . .

How truly problematic is this legislation? And how necessary is it to begin with? What is it really meant to address?

I thought the following articles were enlightening.

The September 2010 Acres USA magazine includes a brief report that references an article in Food Safety News. How did E. coli O145 infect romaine lettuce that then sickened people around the country? The Acres USA author notes,

One of the largest cattle feedlots in the country is located about 20 miles from the heart of Arizona's leafy green production in the Gila and Dome Valleys. Conditions in the feedlot produce huge volumes of mud, as dirt mix manure and water. When dry, hot, windy weather hits, the mud dries, the cattle breakdown clumps into dust, and the dust blows, often for many miles.

The FDA is pushing ahead with the process of establishing new leafy green food safety regulations. The new requirements fail to target . . . sick or stressed cattle shedding E. coli . . . and other [pathogens] in their manure.

Then there's the article Risk, bacteria, and the tragedy of food-safety reform from Grist.org:

It is impossible, it seems, to come up with a policy that zeroes in on the real systematic risk of the food system: the exponential expansion of hazard that comes from concentrating huge amounts of production in relatively small spaces.

Clearly, highly profitable industries like Big Food wield tremendous power in our political system. Just as no health-care reform could pass that didn't respect the privileges of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, just as no climate policy could even be attempted without including massive giveaways to the very industries that cause climate change (see Ryan Lizza's tragicomic post-mortem in The New Yorker), food safety reform is evidently hostage to Big Food.

The Grocery Manufacturers of America, a potent trade group whose members range from Monsanto and Cargill to Kraft and McDonald's, supports S. 510. That alone tells me that the bill at best promotes marginal, techno-based solutions to the food-safety problem, ones that don't challenge the interests, or practices, of the food giants. As Food and Water Watch's Elanor Starmer recently pointed out on Grist, the bill's new inspection powers for the FDA are so weak that they would not even have prevented the notorious salmonella-tainted peanut butter scandal of 2009. And yet -- as David Gumpert argued forcefully in our forum -- those same powers may well prove too strong for the small-scale, vulnerable operations that are busily building up alternatives to Big Food. . . .

to tease out my point, let's consider the role of the federal government in regulating two kinds of dairy farms: industrial-scale ones in Wisconsin, and a small artisanal operation in Washington State.

In a fantastic investigative piece last year, The New York Times' Charles Duhigg looked at a spate of illnesses in a dairy-intensive Wisconsin county. He wrote:

There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.

After an early thaw last year, some of those quarter-billion gallons of cow shit found their way into people's drinking water. Reports Duhigg:

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

So here we have a case of vast concentration of production, and a situation wherein known microbial pathogens (including E. coli and fecal coliform) are destined to foul people's water and make them ill. This is systematic, predictable risk. The federal government's response?

[R]unoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources. The Clean Water Act of 1972 largely regulates only chemicals or contaminants that move through pipes or ditches, which means it does not typically apply to waste that is sprayed on a field and seeps into groundwater.

Now let's look at case No. 2: Estrella Family Creamery in Washington state, where Kelli Estrella and her family tend 36 cows and 40 goats and turn their milk into highly regarded unpasteurized cheeses. New York Times food-business reporter William Neuman reports that -- unlike those Wisconsin dairies -- the Estrella operation has made no one sick. Yet FDA inspectors have found listeria in some of her cheeses -- and moved to shut down her operation after she refused to submit to a "voluntary" recall. And they've banned Estrella from selling both her hard and soft cheeses, even though only her soft cheese tested positive for listeria.

Now, I don't want to make light of the threat of listeria, a truly nasty bacteria. But let's look as the risks here. Unlike the case of the Wisconsin dairies, the risks are incidental, not systematic. People made cheese for millenia before the advent of pasteurization in the 19th century -- and in much of Europe, nearly all cheese is still made with raw milk. Small children and pregnant mothers aren't regularly falling over from cheese-eating in France. Listeria can infect raw milk cheese, but by no means does it always infect raw milk cheese.

Moreover, listeria from Estrella Creamery cheese threatens only those people who knowingly buy the product, while runoff from Wisconsin's industrial-scale dairies infects everyone who lives nearby. And the threats from Estrella remain theoretical; unlike in that dairy-intensive Wisconsin county, no one has reported falling ill from eating Estrella cheese.

And yet federal officials take an our-hands-are-tied approach to the menace of tainted water in Wisconsin, and bring down an iron fist on the small dairy in Washington. It's hard not to conclude that the disparate responses stem from the fact that industrial-scale dairy farmers -- and the very few large processors that purchase their milk -- have bought influence in Washington, while artisanal cheese producers haven't. This is food safety as protection racket.

For Big Food, the answer to these microbial dilemmas might well end up being: sterilize it all. Most cheese consumed in the United States is made from pasteurized milk; make them pasteurize all of it. And if runoff from fields sprayed with waste from massive dairies is fouling drinking water, then make those big dairies "treat" the waste with antimicrobials before spreading it.

But Bilger's profile of Sandor Katz suggests a different approach. The real systematic risks in our food system don't come from bacteria itself; indeed, bacteria is fundamental to life. The problem comes from concentration of bacteria to the point where sicknesses become inevitable. So de-concentrate the food system, don't sterilize it.

And as for cases like Estrella Creamery, the push should be to identify the source of the listeria and address it, not to shut the dairy down.

Of course, in our political system, creating a food-safety regime that targets the real systematic risk in food production seems impossible. So, while we take small steps forward like S. 510, let's not lose sight of the need to rein in the giant corporations that generate most of the risk, and nurture the small producers who are doing the necessary work of de-concentrating our pathogen-concentrating food system.

Or, back to FTCLDF and the article FDA's Ace in the Hole:

Despite there being not even a single report of illness, there have been numerous instances over the past four years where licensed raw milk dairies in New York and Pennsylvania have had their sales suspended due to positive tests for Listeria monocytogenes (L-mono), a sometimes virulent foodborne pathogen. The farmers typically lost a week to two weeks in sales plus the price of any milk the farms received back after issuing a recall due to the discovery of L-mono in a milk sample. Some farmers were also fined for adulteration because the raw milk was deemed to contain a “harmful substance which may render the milk injurious to health.”

Sounds good, doesn't it? Why should the government play games with L-mono? If the bacterium is "sometimes virulent," doesn't it make sense to assume it is dangerous?

Well . . . If that's the standard, then the government had better shut down virtually all milk and meat producers, all farms, all water processing plants, all everything. Shouldn't it? Virtually all meats and milks and farm products and water we drink: they all contain pathogens. So why these particular milk producers? Could it, by any chance, have anything to do with the political power of the milk producers who prefer pasteurization over holding themselves to a higher standard of cleanliness throughout the production process (and not only after pasteurization)?

For the last thirty-eight years, and possibly further back, there have been no reports of illness caused by the consumption of raw milk that was attributed to L-mono. . . .

Part of the reason there have been no reports of illness may be because "[t]here are many subtypes of Listeria monocytogenes; many of these subtypes have not been implicated in human illness." And, "Even if the subtype of L-mono is virulent, it still needs to be determined whether the amount of bacteria in the food is enough to cause illness in humans. FDA has a “zero” tolerance policy for L-mono, a standard widely rejected by the scientific community throughout the world. The European Union (EU) allows up to 100 organisms per gram in food at the end of its shelf life."

So what is going on here? Politics?

Check this out:

L-mono is widespread in the environment. If environmental testing at a food plant is positive for L-mono, foods produced in the plant at that time could be found to be adulterated due their having “been prepared, packed, or held under unsanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health.” FDA didn’t find any L-mono in the environment at the Morningland plant but it was not for lack of trying; the agency took one hundred environmental swabs in the plant, all of which came up negative. The agency inspector collecting the swabs promised the dairy’s owners, Joe and Denise Dixon, that they would be getting a copy of the report but to this date no report has been received.

. . . FDA’s position is that if a food sample tests positive for L-mono or any other pathogen, any other food produced on the same equipment is adulterated. This position was also taken by the Missouri Milk Board in its handling of the Morningland case [even though, as indicated, they found no evidence that the equipment at Morningland had been contaminated!].

A Milk Board inspector told Joe that the embargoed cheese would still be suspect even if samples of it did test negative. When Joe asked the inspector, “Why do we even test?” There was no response.

Recently, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has pressured farmstead cheesemakers in Washington state and Missouri into recalling thousands of pounds of cheese due to samples testing positive for L-mono even though in neither case was there a single report of foodborne illness blamed on the farmstead operations.

Compared to the raw milk incidents mentioned above, the stakes are much higher here. Unlike the raw milk producers who can only sell in their own states due to the federal interstate ban, raw milk cheese aged at least sixty days can be sold anywhere in the U.S. and has a longer shelf life, meaning a great deal more money can be lost due to a recall.

The Missouri farmstead operation, Morningland Dairy, not only recalled over sixty thousand pounds of cheese but there is an additional fifty thousand pounds at the facility that is currently under embargo. The value of the embargoed cheese is around $250,000. In the thirty years it has been in business, there has never been a single case of foodborne [illness] attributed to the consumption of any of the dairy’s products.

The Missouri State Milk Board, pressured by FDA, has ordered that the cheese “be condemned as an adulterated, unlawful product” and has sought a court ruling that the product be destroyed. An inspector from the Milk Board has told the dairy that it must destroy all of the remaining cheese in order to get back into business; [at the time of writing, on October 13, 2010] cheese production at Morningland has been shut down since August 26, shortly after the Milk Board was notified by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) that samples of Morningland’s cheese products had tested positive for L-mono and Staphylococcus aureus. [Note in orginal article: Staph aureus, is present normally on everybody’s skin and is considered protective. Most subtypes of this organism do not produce the toxin which can occasionally cause vomiting. Gastrointestinal illness from Staph aureus is self limiting—meaning medical treatment is not necessary].

The article concludes:

The cheese cases are an indicator of what could happen if S510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, passes into law giving FDA mandatory recall power. The cases show how the recall power along with the food safety plan requirement [see HARPC] in the bill would be an effective way for the agency to cripple raw dairy producers who have harmed no one with their products. If S510 passes, state agencies and laboratories will be getting more funding from FDA and the influence of the agency on states in pushing its anti-raw milk agenda will increase. In working toward this end, “Listeria monocytogenes,” in Joe Dixon’s words, “can be FDA’s ace in the hole.”

For more on this subject, please see the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance . . . or look up tester-hagan amendment or food safety modernization act.

It is time to put an end to colossal businesses calling the shots in Washington for their own benefit!