Archive for GMOs – Page 4
Natural Solutions Foundation
Your Voice of Global Health & Food Freedom™
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.GlobalFoodFreedom.org
Ban GMOs – A Dangerous, Untested, Unnecessary, Globalist Technology
Before All DNA on the Planet is Contaminated — Forever! Action Item Here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2049
More information here:
http://drrimatruthreports.com/?p=6955
May Be Causing Animal Miscarriages and Infertility
http://farmandranchfreedom.org/gmo-miscarriages
One of the nation’s senior scientists alerted the federal government to a newly discovered organism that may have the potential to cause infertility and spontaneous abortion in farm animals, raising significant concerns about human health. Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, believes the appearance and prevalence of the unnamed organism may be related to the nation’s over reliance on the weed killer known as Roundup and/or to something about the genetically engineered Roundup-Ready crops. In a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the professor called on the federal government to immediately stop deregulation of roundup ready crops, particularly roundup ready alfalfa.
Below is the full text of the letter. FARFA received an electronic copy of the letter from Dr. Huber and we have spoken with him directly to confirm its authenticity.
The letter was intended as to alert the government about preliminary research results that indicate serious problems. As Dr. Huber himself clearly states, more research is needed.
January 16, 2011
Dear Secretary Vilsack:
A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn—suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!
This is highly sensitive information that could result in a collapse of US soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies. On the other hand, this new organism may already be responsible for significant harm (see below). My colleagues and I are therefore moving our investigation forward with speed and discretion, and seek assistance from the USDA and other entities to identify the pathogen’s source, prevalence, implications, and remedies.
We are informing the USDA of our findings at this early stage, specifically due to your pending decision regarding approval of RR alfalfa. Naturally, if either the RR gene or Roundup itself is a promoter or co-factor of this pathogen, then such approval could be a calamity. Based on the current evidence, the only reasonable action at this time would be to delay deregulation at least until sufficient data has exonerated the RR system, if it does.
For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks. Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.
A diverse set of researchers working on this problem have contributed various pieces of the puzzle, which together presents the following disturbing scenario:
Unique Physical Properties
This previously unknown organism is only visible under an electron microscope (36,000X), with an approximate size range equal to a medium size virus. It is able to reproduce and appears to be a micro-fungal-like organism. If so, it would be the first such micro-fungus ever identified. There is strong evidence that this infectious agent promotes diseases of both plants and mammals, which is very rare.
Pathogen Location and Concentration
It is found in high concentrations in Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, distillers meal, fermentation feed products, pig stomach contents, and pig and cattle placentas.
Linked with Outbreaks of Plant Disease
The organism is prolific in plants infected with two pervasive diseases that are driving down yields and farmer income—sudden death syndrome (SDS) in soy, and Goss’ wilt in corn. The pathogen is also found in the fungal causative agent of SDS (Fusarium solani fsp glycines).
Implicated in Animal Reproductive Failure
Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of this organism in a wide variety of livestock that have experienced spontaneous abortions and infertility. Preliminary results from ongoing research have also been able to reproduce abortions in a clinical setting.
The pathogen may explain the escalating frequency of infertility and spontaneous abortions over the past few years in US cattle, dairy, swine, and horse operations. These include recent reports of infertility rates in dairy heifers of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45%.
For example, 450 of 1,000 pregnant heifers fed wheatlege experienced spontaneous abortions. Over the same period, another 1,000 heifers from the same herd that were raised on hay had no abortions. High concentrations of the pathogen were confirmed on the wheatlege, which likely had been under weed management using glyphosate.
Recommendations
In summary, because of the high titer of this new animal pathogen in Roundup Ready crops, and its association with plant and animal diseases that are reaching epidemic proportions, we request USDA’s participation in a multi-agency investigation, and an immediate moratorium on the deregulation of RR crops until the causal/predisposing relationship with glyphosate and/or RR plants can be ruled out as a threat to crop and animal production and human health.
It is urgent to examine whether the side-effects of glyphosate use may have facilitated the growth of this pathogen, or allowed it to cause greater harm to weakened plant and animal hosts. It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders. To properly evaluate these factors, we request access to the relevant USDA data.
I have studied plant pathogens for more than 50 years. We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure.
Sincerely,
COL (Ret.) Don M. Huber
Emeritus Professor, Purdue University
APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS)
Natural Solutions Foundation
Your Voice of Global Health & Food Freedom™
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.GlobalFoodFreedom.org
Waiter: “Shhh! Be Quiet! Or Every One Else Will Be Wanting One, Too!
How Will Sibelius Use Her $16 Billion Slush Fund?
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rajjpuuts-folly-105464-billion
“In section 402 Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sibelius was given a $16 Billion slush fund to use as she sees fit…”
Will this slush fund provide the cash needed to hire the 4,000 new FDA agents authorized by the lame-duck 2010 Congress when it passed S.510, the Food Control Law? Tell Congress, “No!” – Action Item here: http://tinyurl.com/ nofoodcontrol
Hey, Kathleen! Just how did you get a $16 Billion slush fund and can I have one, too?
I need to help farmers all over the world reclaim their food production to stop the failure of their farms and the resulting famins around the world. I need to fund natural health research which has not been funded because there is no way to patent natural products (unless, of course, one is a Biotech company like Monsanto, given permission by a scientifically illiterate court system and a massivly corrupt regulatory agency to do just that – and hide it from the American people).
I need resources to hire staff to share real, scientific information with people who need to know that information about the cure, treatment and prevention of the huge cash cows of the illness management organization in the US, often known by the incorrect name “Health Care”. I need a modest amount, say, $100Million, to create urban sustainable, chemical-free food growing programs around the United States, giving the newly homeless, the newly poor and their long-time counterparts the seeds, soil and skills to grow their own clean food to feed themselves and share with others while the dollar is collapsed around their ears.
I need some funds to hire a team of researchers and international lawyers and communications folks to visit governments of the poorest.most nutritionally vulnerable people in the world and share with them the solution to the globalists’ genocidal agenda – Oh, but I have a question to ask you before I tell you what I would like you to make available some of your slush fund, perhaps 1/12 of it. That would be a billion dollars. Given that you already have a Health and Human Services Department budget of hundreds of billions, you probably have a bit more than even you need.
The question:”Ms. Sebelius, have you been, as they say in all the spy and national security novels, ‘read into the program’? Do you know about the genocidal agenda of the World Health Organization, with which your agency works so closely or are you an ignorant dupe, too besotted with the power you are allowed to wield and totally disconnected from common sense or honest analysis by the career trajectory you have followed to see what is really happening and protect the people of the country as you have taken an oath to do?”
Our vocal analysis of your inner realities shows that you really want to do the right thing but that you are, quite literally, besotted by misinformation and the deceit you have been handed. But, unlike many at various helms, it does not show you to be an evil, malignant or cruel person.
Given that, Secretary Sebelius, I would like to ask no only for a small portion of your slush fund (slightly more than twice the combined national budgets for the Pitcairn Islands, Zimbabwe, Wallis and Fortuna and Todelau combined). Now it is true that they are small countries, but how about if you do the following things, Secretary Sebelius:
1. Donate 1/12 of your discretionary slush funds to the Natural Solutions Foundation to promote healthy food, healthy choices and health promoting information in the US and abroad. After all, such health promotion is part of your Agency’s charter, which states “FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.” on your official website, http://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/whatwedo/default.htm.
You are also concerned with food and medicine as a counter-terrorism strategy but seem to have neglected the connection between weakening the nation’s collective immune system through dangerous drugs, contaminated foods and irresponsible vaccinations, but everyone has those lapses!
INTERRUPTION OF PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION
[While writing this letter to Kathleen Sibelius, Dr. Rima, the Queen of Multi-Taskers, was also in a meeting with a Panamanian cattle farmer. You can see where the discussion went and then return to her letter to Secretary Sebelius, below.]
Alonso is here to talk about stuff and we need to get to the formulator we discussed to make a product sample for the udders of drying cows. We are talking about a masters project in which Alonso is involved. The project is that they want to study the influence of the levels of energy and protein from the feed we give to the cows and all the influences from food on reproduction.
They want to study how long it takes the cow to be breeder based on food inputs.
There are different things that influence this: most important is the precalving period.
They want to study how we do it and how long it takes the calf to become estrous
This is from National University: They want to measure the body condition, weight, blood samples, rectal palpation.I think the food is important, but also the presence or absence of drugs, vaccines and similar.
Now, 20 days previous to calving, Alonso analyzes for worms, I put some vitamin E and selenium and magnesium injected into the cow. Then we feed it with a formula with minerals which makes the cows take calcium from their bones (anionic minerals) so that the cows have enough calcium to give birth. Then you get a lot of diseases like placental previa, if there is a calcium failure, they get “downed cow syndrome” and they will not be able to let down their milk. In t he 9 months previous they accumulate the calcium in the bones. The signal in the brain is from selenium to help her take Ca from the bones.
That is standard practice.
We feed with a ration that is similar to the milking cow but different becuase of the minerals and a lower energy level than milking cows. Milking cows get more energy because they are producing milk. IF there is too much energym they get too fat.
After calving we check the cow for placenta and if not expelled in 24 hours, give Ca and Vit B12, 3 different types of calcium. IF that does not work, then we use antibiotics intravaginally. Right now if the cow is doing fine, they only get feed and observation. If the cow has a problem, sometimes they expel the placenta but still get milk fever. In the 15 days after calving they can get detosis, then we use dextrose and calcium 5%, then 50% dextrose. Ketosis from previous programs. Previous partum problmes because they do not eat enough feed in the right way.
Maybe sometimes when a cow has a higher condition score, that is the best. 5 is the best. If you get 4, you have ketosis and retained placenta and if it gets worse, then you get torsion and death.
We will have the opportunity to put our methods into practice and the student will study two types of rearing and feeding. He wants to know about our working and our minerals and about his shot. Minerals by mouth are fine, these are from Brazil. I want to make sure that the injection minerals are working in the organic way.
Most common worms in mature cows. They can have pulmonary worms.
Right now Alphonso is no longer treating with ivermectin because there were some complaints in the food industry about it; some cows get virus earlier, they get ivermictin, if later, we use something to which people do not have allergies.
Used to give ivermictin when they got dry because the time before milking is longer, now using f-albendisol which works against mature and eggs; both mature and immature forms. Only check the eggs in feces. The people who see the eggs in the lab tell us whether they are pulmonary or intestinal. We give the selenium as prevention because we know if they do not get it, some cows do not do well.
This is not a disease that effects humans now. It only effects the cows. The thing is that it lowers the defense of the cow so they lose the ability to fight pathogens.
END OF INTERRUPTION – The above is an example of what we mean when we say we are seeking to “discover, develop, document, demonstrate and disseminate natural solutions…
Anyway, Madam Secretary, the point is that as far as I can tell, health and health freedom are more like four letter words to your agency than concepts to be supported and developed.
Take vaccines, for example. Your agency appears to pretty much never have met a vaccine it did not like. Why, without a disease of note, you purchased half a billion dollars worth of an adjuvant, squalene, also known as Freund’s Adjuvant, to mix into 6 billion dollars worth of unapproved vaccines to make them go further and do more damage. We are talking about the biggest non event of the 21st century here, Swine Flu.
And then there is Rotovac, which causes pneumonia AND meningitis in babies who didn’t need the vaccine in the first place. And there’s the mrecury whiich is used in pediatric vaccines to “wash” the vials leaving dangerous “trace” levels, and is full strength in flu vaccines, which is allowed because of shameless corporate shenanigans back in the early 20th century when your agency was just a baby.
Rima Laibow, MD: And there is the pesky fact that the flu vaccines are associated with increased levels of dangerous diseases like asthma and neurological and learning problems in the young, the old, the middle aged, in us all, with an increased all-cause mortality in people who get them compared with people who do not. And the autism white wash.
Then there are the scientifically and physiologically disastrous GMOs and other poisoned “PHUDES” [“They look a bit like food; they may even smell and taste a bit like food, but they aren’t!”] with which your agency is literally killing us and spreading your contagion of false information and deadly profits around the world.
Your war on the wellness industry is simply breathtaking. You have teamed your agency, already a pit bull guarding Big Pharma and Big Agribiz, Big Biotech and Big Chema, all in the service of Big Medica, of course, up with the FTC to make sure that small and medium sized manufacturers of vitamins and supplements, healthy foods and other dangerous commodities would be driven out of business. After all, if they manged to survive your draconian and rather batty “Good Manufacturing Practices” regulations (against an industry without health problems in its products, instead of against the pharmaceutical industry that kills hundreds of thousands of people each year), they will go under in your 2 agency united front against them.
So I am proposing, in the interests of the First Amendment, fairness, common sense, common decency and the basic human right of self determination granted by the UN Charter on Human Rights (oops! scratch that one: the US is not a signatory to that document or to the Nuremberg Convention prohibiting experimentation on people without informed consent, which is what your sub agency, the CDC, now admits they and you have been doing with fluoride and other goodies) that you share the wealth provided to your agency by the Obamacare legislation and, since you have $16 Billion to play with in your slush fund, that you share the wealth and give the other side, the loyal opposition that wants to have the research and the tools to make their case to the people – and to you, if you will listen, for natural health and clean food and natural health care options (like cancer treatment that works, for example) even though, gasp, the money might must take profits out of the hands of the gigantic industrial forces that are killing us all.
One final note, Madam Secretary, your body, and that of your family and loved ones, will need natural treatments or already do. What will you do when the antibiotics you permit in the vicious factory farm industy and the out-of-control medical industry no longer work for the newly resistant organisms that are eating your flesh, or destroying your organs? Will you have made nano silver illegal as your counterpart in Europe has done?
What will you do when anti depressants do not work? Will you seek in vain for the nervine tonics an herbalist might have made for you had you not made the herbs needed illegal?
What will your daughters and sons do when they are injected with Gardasil or Cevarix and develop a brand new disease, never before seen on the planet: juvenile ALS?
Or when your mother develops Alzheimer’s Disease because of the ful shots she dutifully took – or you do – and you have driven the chelating doctors out of business by criminalizing their knowledge and communication about what they do and what they know?
Seems like a good bet to me, Kathleen. You have so much money. Give us a $1Billion crumb and let us see what we can do to help you pick up the pieces when your disastrous, short sighted, unscientific and anti-physiological methods fail, as they already are doing.
Action Item here: http://tinyurl.com/ nofoodcontrol
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima Laibow, MD: Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
Protecting Your Health and Food Freedom!
NATURAL SOLUTIONS FOUNDATION
RIMA E. LAIBOW, MD – THE DR. RIMA INSTITUTE
THE NATURAL SOLUTIONS CENTER
VOLCAN, CHIRIQUÍ, PANAMA
Index: Action Item – Open Letter – Dr. Rima Video
Open letter to Michelle Obama from Dr. Rima
I am writing to you because you are a mother, a champion of childhood health and the wife of the current President of the United States. One of your first acts upon assuming the third of those roles, as First Lady, was to install an organic garden on the White House grounds. We applaud that demonstration of intent.
Although there were problems — (the EPA said that the ground in which the garden was planted was too toxic for human agricultural use because of the chemicals used on it previously, in order to manicure the lawn) — and opposition (the pesticide industry felt – correctly – that your decision to grow an organic garden indicated that chemical-free food was healthier than food produced using those chemicals). Thus, your decision to plant an organic garden was an act of wise, even courageous, leadership.
We note your background interest in wholesome food and decry the much-weakened, but still unacceptable mis-named “Food Safety” bill, passed [after being passed back and forth between House and Senate, like the hot-potato is was].
This new law industrializes food production in the United States. The weak local farm distribution exemptions are, in fact, nearly meaningless and the playing field is sharply tilted against the only source of clean food in the United States: the small grower who might, until the implementation of this bill, have chosen to grow clean, unadulterated food, but now will find ever more expensive barriers against continuing in business.
To be truly clean food it must be free of chemicals, genetic modification and odious secret regulations by the Department of Homeland Security. That locally produced and distributed clean food is, in fact, a food source which has NEVER produced a single major outbreak of food borne illness, while commercial, industrialized, GMO and chemically gown “phactory phud” [“It taste something like real food, but it ain’t.”] is responsible for every single episode of such illness.
Not counted in the statistics on food borne illness, however, is what the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization list in their joint 2003 publication (http://www.who.int/hpr/NPH/docs/who_fao_expert_report.pdf) as PREVENTABLE, NON COMMUNICABLE DISEASES OF UNDER-NUTRITION: cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke, diabetes and obesity.
These are also food borne diseases, Mrs. Obama, and they are killing us, and our children, at increasing rates because the oversight of the FDA, now newly empowered by this new legislation with 4000 new agents intruding on small farmers to bring their practices into “compliance” with those of the same agribiz operations which are killing us by damaging our food. This will not improve food safety!
Secret regulations (permitted in section 104) promulgated by the most inefficient and non-transparent organ of the US Government will not improve food safety. Relying on local inspectors with local interests, and on local producer organizations would continue the best food safety record in the world, from which our localities already benefit. If this bill is signed into law, the regulations issued under the new law will determine whether local production and distribution can continue to meet consumer needs. These regulations need to protect important interests, including:
a. Implementing the exemption for local production and distribution in the least burdensome way.
b. Assuring that Section 104’s “in the interest of national security” clause is not used to create secret regulations favoring Big AgBiz and,
c. No “back-door” HARMonization of our food freedoms with international Codex Alimentarius restrictions.
What will improve food safety is for the President of the United States, who, like you, is a parent, and who eats food which either makes him sick or promotes his health, to veto this bill. That would be the best outcome for the People, but not for Big AgBiz.
The industrialization of the food supply, which this bill accelerates, has brought the US epidemic degenerative, preventable, tragic and costly disease. The acceleration of this process through this unnecessary and profoundly unwise bill will aid the pharmaceutical companies and their agricultural/biotech arms, but will hasten and intensify the incidence and prevalence of the preventable illness and death, including the epidemics of diabetes, obesity, cancer and cardiovascular diseases killing us at younger and younger ages.
Mrs. Obama, I urge you in your capacities as wife, mother and First Lady, to bend every effort to urge President Obama to veto this legislation and bend his every effort to create true food safety in the United States by supporting clean agriculture, banning the use of GMO foods in the United States and restoring health to the American people by preserving their Food Freedom — restoring clean food on their tables.
Sincerely,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
www.DrRima.net
LATE BREAKING NEWS: OMNIBUS WITH FOOD CONTROL DONE FOR!
If We continue to Push Back!
Natural Solutions Foundation
Your Voice of Global Health & Food Freedom™
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org –
The various attempts by Big AgraBiz and DC Politicians to force the fake “food safety” bill, actually the food control bill, through the Congress is failing because hundreds of thousands of messges are flooding the “lame-duck” Congress from citizens demanding: Don’t Adopt Any Bill that Includes S.510!
The counterpoint rumor is that Sen. Harry Reid is desperate to add S.510 into one of several more bills that may reach the floor of the Senate before adjourning for the Holidays…
New Action Item: Support Simple C.R.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5395
Lame Duck Congress
From the Senate Calendar: “Thursday, Dec 16, 2010 – The Senate convened at 9:30 a.m. and adjourned at 8:36 p.m. No record votes were taken.”
From Breitbart: “Democrats controlling the Senate have abandoned a 1,924-page catchall spending measure that’s laced with homestate pet projects known as earmarks and that would have provided another $158 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9K5BA5O0&show_article=1
“Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) touts his one-page continuing resolution that would “simply continue the government through February 18th.”
From RealClearPolitics: “I would hope that it would make sense on a bipartisan basis, this one-page continuing resolution on Feb 18th as an alternative to this 2,000-page monstrosity that spends a half a billion dollars a page,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/12/16/mcconnell_dems_using_christmas_break_as_an_inducement_to_pass_omnibus.htm
Congratulations Mouse Warriors!
This message from Health Freedom USA’s President, Gen. Stubblebine: “The smell of victory is in the air… we must encourage the faint-of-heart Senators to persevere. And get ready to blast ‘em if they turn-tail to run! By the end of any battle, both sides are exhausted, but the side that perseveres just a little longer… wins! That is where we are now, and that is why massive Push Back is more important now than before! We are flooding the Congress with a clear message: No New Programs in the Continuing Resolution; Strip S.510 out of any funding bill! Keep at it! Victory is within our reach. Keep pressing forward while you recruit your contacts to act with you now!”
Health Freedom USA
www.HealthFreedomPortal.org
Dr. Rima Reports: Sunday 9 to Noon, Central
NATURAL SOLUTIONS FOUNDATION
Your Global Voice of Health & Food Freedom™
www.HealthFreedomPortal.org
Why S.510 Does NOT Protect Local, Natural Food… or Freedom!
S. 510 Hits A Snag
by: Doreen Hannes Dec. 4, 2010
Reprinted with permission from www.naisstinks.com
Senate Bill S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, passed the Senate on November 30th, 74-23. Not a single Democrat crossed party lines. This bill is the coup on food in the US. Even though the Tester Amendment was included to dupe those who think it will stop small farmers and processors from being put right out of business, it will only slow down the demise of some small farms.
Then it came to light that a Constitutional issue that had been staring all of us in the face was present. The Senate did not pick up HR2749, which passed the House in July of 2009; instead they took up their own monster in S 510. They also began revenue generation in the Senate (Section 107 of the bill), which is expressly forbidden by the Constitution.
Faced with a patently un-Constitutional bill, that violates Constitutional process, we have to remain vigilant until BOTH houses have adjourned for the winter recess prior to the next session of Congress. Talk about roller coasters.
If the Constitution means anything at all, the House should blue slip S. 510, which would preclude them from taking the bill up and very likely run out the clock for passage in this session.
However, there are four choices available for the legislation to move forward before they adjourn on December 24th. The first is for the Senate to bring it back and get unanimous consent to remove the offending section. Since Senator Coburn of Oklahoma will not consent, that avenue is cut off.
Second is for the Senate to bust S. 510 down to the original a compromise amendment, remove the funding section and the Tester amendment and try to ram it through the entire senate process again before the 24th. This seems unlikely, but do not trust them as far as you can throw a semi trailer loaded with lead.
Third, the Senate could take HR2749, which has already passed the House, and rush it through the Senate, and it would go straight to the Presidents desk with no process with the House necessary. This also seems rather unlikely. The bills are very similar and would have the same detrimental effects for everyone, but the Senators are not familiar with the bill, so it could be really tough.
Fourth, the House Ways and Means committee could pass the bill through and forgive the Constitutional infraction and refuse to blue slip the bill, then vote on it before the 24th and we would have the bill albeit there would be legal issues brought forth that could possibly ensnare the regulations they want to write under this bill. This appears to be the most likely potential for S. 510.
Make no mistake about this, SB 510, or HR 2749 are worse than the Patriot Act, the Health Care bill, and the Federal Reserve Act combined. We can all live without little pieces of paper, and many of us can live without doctors, and we have been living with the increasing police state since 911, but none of us can live without food and water. If we lose food and water, we will not be able to fight anything else.
The Tester-Hagan Amendment Lipstick on a Pig
The largest deception played on the public in S. 510 is the inclusion of the Tester Amendment. This amendment was sold as the complete exemption for all small farms grossing less than $500,000 per year. But if one reads the actual amendment, it is evident that it will not do what it is purported to do for the vast majority of small producers.
The Tester Amendment has strident restrictions on those who may be exempted from HACCP (Hazard and Critical Control Point) implementations. HACCP is 50 pages of instructions that require a certifier to sign off on the plan, and a team to be trained in ensuring the plan is followed on the farm. The requirement of this plan put about 40% of small meat processors out of business several years ago. If you fall under the protection of the Tester amendment, you will not have to do it….but let us see how protective the Tester Amendment really is.
First, the Tester Amendment purports to exempt farms with less than $500,000 in sales from the requirements of S.510. However, to be exempt one must sell more than 50% of their products directly to consumers or restaurants within a 275-mile radius from production, and keep records substantiating those sales. The records are open for inspection and verification of the exemption. In other words, you have to prove you are playing by their rules through record keeping and approval of those records, or meet the more onerous requirements of S.510.
You must apply to be included in the protections of the Tester amendment. You must substantiate through your records for three years that you fit the category of selling more than 50% of average annual monetary value within this 275-mile radius. So, if you sell on the roadside or at a farmers market, you must have a map handy and ask for ID from everyone who purchases from you or lose your exemption. Nice, huh?
Proof of Residence for Food? Really?
I can see it now….A lovely early June day, with the birds singing and the smell of freshly mown hay hanging in the air like the best memory from childhood. A young mother pulls into the Farmers Market and readies herself for a wonderful shopping experience.
She approaches the first stand with her mouth nearly watering at the bright display of fresh produce. I would like 3 cucumbers, please, says the lady with her 3 kids and cloth grocery bag.
Great! Can I see your ID? replies the guy in bibs.
Oh, I am paying with cash she replies with a smile.
No matter, says the farmer, We have to make sure you are within a 275 mile radius of our farm in order to sell to you.
She looks perplexed and says, Well, we are not. We are on our way to visit my parents and I wanted to make a special dinner for all of us, using their locally produced foods so they could remember how good home grown veggies are….So I can not buy from you without an ID?
The farmer scratches his head and says, Now see, I have to be very careful. I belong to a CSA that sells to a Chipotle that is 276 miles from us, so all of my sales at market have to be local or I lose my exemption and will have to hire 5 people to take care of the paper work and then I just go out of business. So no, I can not sell to you. What is more, all the vendors here are part of the CSA, so no one here can sell to you. You have a nice day now!
No Surprises-It is Locally — Global
What we have in Tester is local Agenda 21 Sustainable Development. In sum, control over all human impact on the environment. Everything will need to be within the food shed, and if you are outside of the food shed, too bad for you. It is a great way to surveille and monitor food production and distribution. And you still fall under the broad based reason to believe of the Secretary with the Tester amendment. If the Secretary, meaning the head of the FDA or HHS thinks you may have a problem, or deems what you produce to be high risk, you will be shut down until they say you can begin again. All of your product is subject to mandatory recall; that is why you have to keep records of everyone you sell to. And you will have to register as a facility under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, referred to as Sec 415 throughout the bill. (Knock knock—this is premises identification as in NAIS)
So please, do not tell me how great the Tester Amendment is, and that the expansive powers being granted to the DoD, DHS, HHS, FDA and USDA in this bill will be helpful to small farmers and local food production and make my food safe. Wake up and smell the coffee!!! Oh, wait. The only state that could produce coffee within 275 miles of itself, is Hawaii. Never mind. Wake up, and smell the tyranny, please.
(The best thing to do right now is to call the members of the House Ways and Means Committee as well as your own Representative and tell them they MUST blue slip S. 510. While I know it gets frustrating to call the Congress critters, the more they know that we know, the better the chance at slowing down the destruction they have planned for us. The switchboard number for Congress is 202-224-3121.)
[Note from REL: you can also use our automated email system to message all your representatives in both houses of Congress; in fact, please to both! Click Here for Action Item: http://tinyurl.com/3xdz3lp.