Consumers Union is an expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers and to empower consumers to protect themselves.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey joined by Michael Hansen, CU Senior Scientist (left) and CU President Jim Guest (right
Victims of tainted food aren’t the only ones pointing at the recent recall of over a half billion eggs as the latest reason why the Senate needs to pass the food safety bill – so are members of Congress.
Earlier today, U.S. Congresswoman Nita Lowey stopped by Consumers Union’s headquarters in Yonkers, NY. Rep. Lowey represents Yonkers in the U.S. House. She met with CU food safety experts and spoke with reporters to press the U.S. Senate to pass a long-pending bill that would overhaul the ability of the Food and Drug Administration to protect our food supply (the House passed their version of the food safety bill over a year ago).
By now, just about everyone’s heard about the massive egg recall due to Salmonella enteritidis contamination. As the FDA began to investigate the farms in Iowa that were the source of the tainted eggs, the details they reported were truly disgusting: FDA inspectors found chickens laying eggs in the midst of maggots, rodents, and eight-foot piles of manure at one of the facilities, Wright County Eggs. Conditions at the second location in question, Hillandale Farms, didn’t prove much better. Neither facility had ever been inspected before.
What this egg recall has done – like the peanut butter, cookie dough, lettuce, and countless other recalls before it – is focus attention on the urgent need for better authorities and funding for the FDA to prevent these kinds of dangerous foods from getting on the marketplace before anyone gets sick. The bill the House passed last year would give the FDA precisely these powers, but stalling in the Senate has prevented this bill from moving forward and becoming law – which is exactly what prompted Congresswoman Lowey’s visit today.
Consumers Union joined the Congresswoman in urging the Senate to pass the bipartisan FDA Food Safety Modernization Act as soon as they return in mid-September, and we’ll continue to fight until it’s signed into law. Like Congresswoman Lowey, and certainly the almost 1500 people that have been sickened by Salmonella-contaminated eggs, we believe that consumers have a right to expect safe food from clean facilities that won’t make them sick – or worse.
DO NOT support S. 510. It will harm organic farming. This problem was caused by industrial farming practices. S. 510 does not differentiate between small organic farmers and huge agri-business. It’s a FAKE safety bill:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=6470
I most definitely have to agree with this comment. This bill will put more red tape on small farms – and it’s hard enough as it is. This bill is actually very good – but small farms should be exempt from it.
I cannot believe the Consumer’s Union has been taken in by this bad bill! How about reading the bill and judging how it will affect small local farming? Do a little journalism instead of just believing the title of the bill.
This bill will mandate production and soil treatment standards – so the FDA will tell organic farmers how to farm. Do you trust them? It will require paperwork and reporting to trace food even in direct farm to consumer transactions – what a waste of time and resources. It will require machinery and inspections if one component of what a small farmer does on their farm involves product they don’t grow on the farm – there goes my supplemental income from helping my neighbors hull their walnuts using my machine (I don’t sell their walnuts – they take them back – but hulling them on my farm turns my farm into a “processing” facility for ALL my farm products). This bill will eliminate sustainable farming by madating that animals and crops be raised entirely separate – how wasteful to not let sheep graze an orchard or field and instead mandate that a diesel polluting tractor mow the grass!
Consumers Union – PLEASE READ THE BILL before you endorse it.