FDA HISTORY: WHY IT'S IN YOUR FOOD

[Guest guest]

>Thu, 27 Jun 2002 08:26:31 -0600

>Neil Carman <neil_carman

>FDA HISTORY: WHY IT'S IN YOUR FOOD

>

>FDA HISTORY:

>

>WHY IT'S IN YOUR FOOD

>by Candace Boheme

>Smithville Times, November 9, 2000

>

>The regulatory era may have started with

>industries manipulating the government in their

>own best interest but regulatory

>legislation has also been initiated through

>public pressure for the government to curtail

>harmful industrial practices, set safety

>guidelines and protect natural resources. When

>WE THE PEOPLE demand it, surely, those

>regulatory agencies serve the public's

>best interest. Don't count on it.

>

>In 1907, after 25 years of public agitation over

>harmful food adulteration and misbranding, the

>Bureau of Chemistry, precursor of

>the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was

>officially put in charge of policing the food

>supply. Bureau Chief Harvey W. Wiley,

>the Ralph Nader of his day, took on the food

>processing industry with a vengeance.

>

>The Coca-Cola corporation was at the top of his

>hit list. But any hopes that enforcement could

>become reality were quickly put to

>rest. Political influence worked its magic and

>Coca-Cola flourished with impunity. His efforts

>to restrict use of the sweetener,

>saccharin, met with similar misfortune through

>savvy industry maneuvering that played on

>President Teddy Roosevelt's personal

>use of the substance. Gradually the Bureau's

>activities were restricted into impotence and

>those substances that Dr. Wiley fought

>so hard to remove from the food supply were

>instead removed from the Bureau's consideration.

>

>Dr. Wiley's 1929 book, The History of a Crime

>Against the Food Law detailed and exposed the

>dealings that had scuttled the

>Bureau's effectiveness. Copies flew off

>bookstore shelves and mysteriously disappeared

>into oblivion. Even those donated to

>libraries intending to preserve the sordid

>history vanished. Hardly a one can be found

>today. You follow the dots. So much for

>freedom of the press in corporate America.

>

>The Bureau of Chemistry was replaced by the

>Food and Drug and Insecticide Administration

>which eventually evolved into the

>Food and Drug Administration. Along the way,

>the watchdogs of food safety were transformed

>into cheerleaders for the

>processed food industry turning priorities

>upside down. Industry no longer had to prove

>additives safe BEFORE entering the food

>supply. Instead Generally Regarded as Safe

>(GRAS) substances were allowed UNTIL evidence

>proved them harmful. Sixty years

>after Dr. Wiley's crusade, saccharin was finally

>removed from the GRAS list. But the loophole

>allowing its use in diet food left the

>victory hollow.

>

>The corporate/FDA partnership continues to this

>day. In recent years, their enthusiastic support

>of food irradiation, despite public

>opposition, has been blatant evidence of their

>lovefest. Irradiation, they say, is the solution

>to an increasingly contaminated food

>supply. Instead of addressing the economic and

>labor practices responsible for creating a

>filthy, industrialized food processing

>industry, they have cooked up a 'bandaid'

>solution that will only compound risks to

>consumers and endanger hundreds of

>irradiation facility sites with the possibility

>of nuclear contamination. Produce, grains,

>spices, pork, poultry and beef have already

>been approved for irradiation.

>

>By the way, another player, the Department of

>Energy's (DOE) Byproduct Utilization Program

>(BUP), is in on this one. They have

>decided that a cost effective solution to their

>radioactive waste disposal problem is to

>privatize it for corporate profit and let the

>public bear the health, environmental and negative financial consequences.

>

>At one time, prominent labeling with the radura

>symbol, a visible deterrent to wary consumers,

>and the words 'treated by irradiation'

> was required. Now, thanks to their

>congressional buddies, labeling will only be

>required in the fine print on the back of a

>package.

>Irradiation may not even be mentioned by name.

>Be on the lookout for euphemisms like 'cold

>pasteurization'. Have you lost your

>appetite yet?

>

> # 8 of WHOSE DEMOCRACY?

> © 2000 by Candace Boheme