Talkin’ Tainted Turkey

Did you see the news yesterday? For the second time in a month, Cargill is recalling turkey containing salmonella-resistant bacteria.

Oh, but I’m CERTAIN we can bet on the fact that the executives responsible for the overall conditions that lead to tainted turkey won’t have their personal homes and assets raided and confiscated.

Unlike, say, small farmers whose fresh milk HASN’T made anyone ill, but the FDA feels are criminals (most likely because of all their connections to Monsanto, who believe that your milk should only come from farms using their Posilac rBST product.Yeah, THOSE farmers have year-long undercover operations conducted against them in which FDA spies become customers and then the farm and their homes are eventually raided by federal agents clad in all black uniforms and masks and wielding semi-automatic weaponry.

Because farmers like us are the real criminals. Not the companies like Cargill who have come to dominate our meat and food industries and produce these foods in filthy factory conditions, knowing from experience that those conditions produce problems like this second antiobiotic resistant salmonella strain. No, they’re HEROES.

Why aren’t more people pissed off about this? If you are, tell President Obama you want him to dump Monsanto’s chief lobbyist and attorney from being an FDA official, who is leading the charge against small farmers.

It’s a start. And then, if you haven’t already, please become more aware of your food choices. Find local, sustainable sources. There are plenty of them out there, beyond the supermarket. Visit your farmer’s market and establish a relationship with local farmers. Learn more about the industrial, factory-food companies who are creating all of this processed food and why it’s bad for us.

Many readers of our blog have already done those things and continue to do so – we applaud and appreciate that. Please share what you’ve learned with others. Let’s spread the awareness about this – we all need to become more concerned with not only the food choices we make, but our right to make those choices for ourselves. The FDA doesn’t believe we have that right. In fact, let’s hear what they believe about our right to make our own choices as to what we will eat:

“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 similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.” [p.26]

Let me ask you this: do you think we really live in a free country if we are not allowed to make our own choices in such a personal, private matter as what we decide we are going to eat? It is outrageous to me that this is government policy and so many people are just going along with it, naively believing that the government has their best interests at heart. How can that be, when the officials charged with food safety are looking out for the interests of corporations like Monsanto?

As you may know, the FDA placed a ban on all interstate raw milk sales in 1987. The FDA, to this day, is strongly opposed to the sale and consumption of raw milk. The zeal with which they pursue the downfall of farms that are producing raw milk is astounding. The agency has been conducting long-term undercover sting operations against farms, with some of these lasting for over a year, and trying to bankrupt the farm and farmer by busting and prosecuting them. And this is without any real wrongdoing on the part of the farmers – and no health problems from the milk. More people have gotten sick from things like contaminated factory farm spinach, eggs and now turkey – why aren’t those farms being raided? Why aren’t the executives responsible for those outbreaks having their livelihoods destroyed by the FDA with the same zeal with which they have pursued raw dairy farmers?   The answer takes only a little bit of digging to find – the FDA’s Food Safety Czar, Michael Taylor, is a former Monsanto Corporation attorney and chief lobbyist. It’s the same old revolving door at the FDA – he’s worked there in between stints at Monsanto since the 1980’s.

So if the farmers aren’t doing anything wrong, and the milk hasn’t caused any health problems…how are they managing to bust anyone? Well, one effective method they have found is to use that ban on interstate raw milk sales. Dan Allgyer, an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, was busted by the FDA in a predawn raid on his farm in April 2010, and his case is still pending. The FDA wants to take away an Amish farmer’s means of living because he “dared” to provide milk to folks in Maryland and DC. Michael Taylor has a personal vendetta against raw milk – and he’s been given free reign by our government to pursue it. Why does he have this vendetta? Well, perhaps it has something to do with rBGH  – bovine growth hormone. Michael Taylor was on the FDA’s staff as a legal advisor and helped spearhead the approval of Posilac, Monsanto’s formulation of rBGH/rBST, and then in 1994, he wrote the guidelines which prevent milk producers from stating that their milk is hormone-free, and took it a step further by saying milk produced without added hormones must include on its label a statement that there is no difference between rBGH vs. non-rBGH milk. Upon his departure from the FDA, he went right back to lobbying and lawyering for Monsanto, until President Obama appointed him back to the FDA in 2008.

So whose interests do you think Michael Taylor is protecting? Ours, or Monsanto’s? It’s frustrating, even maddening, isn’t it? So what can we do?

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