Iowa's own "Salmonella" Jack DeCoster is mentioned here, as well as the
Des Moines Register and their investigative reporter Clark Kauffman.--Tom
_What's more dangerous: Factory Farms or Raw Milk? Tell Obama that
Michael Taylor has got to go!
_ (http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=1)
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=2)
_It's time for Real CHANGE in Washington - click here to automatically add
your name to kick Monsanto's minion out of the FDA! _
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=3)
Petition text:
I urge President Obama to dump FDA Food Safety Czar Michael Taylor for
failing to protect America's food supply.
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=4)
==============================================
_Sorry folks, but Monsanto Michael Taylor has got to go!
_ (http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=5)
Dear Thomas,
If you thought the Obama administration was going to keep you and your
family safe from food safety outbreaks and hold the worst abusers accountable,
think again. Under President Obama, factory farm operators are getting away
with serious food safety violations while raw milk dairy farmers and
distributors across the country have been subjected to armed raids and hauled
away in handcuffs.
When Barack Obama ran for President he promised to end the “revolving door”
between agribusiness lobbyists and government and to “regulate” factory
farms. Unfortunately his decision to break both these campaign promises has
left America’s food supply more vulnerable to food safety outbreaks and
let the highly consolidated industrial meat and factory farm industry off the
hook despite growing problems.
Michael Taylor Poster Child for the Revolving Door
One of the key players in the Obama administration most responsible for
these problems is former Monsanto attorney and chief super lobbyist Michael
Taylor, who rejoined the FDA in July 2009 and was later named the Deputy
Commissioner of Food.
The decision to name Taylor was one of the most controversial appointments
of the Obama administration, one which Food Democracy Now! opposed at the
time and still does because of the fact that Michael Taylor is the ultimate “
revolving door” candidate and has a long and sordid track record of making
bad decisions that consistently put corporate profits over people’s
health.
In his previous governmental incarnations, Monsanto’s Michael Taylor was
responsible for:
* Implementing the pseudo-scientific theory of “substantial
equivalence” that allowed the rapid approval of GMOs without proper safety testing
for humans and the environment and keeps them from being labeled.
* Helping Monsanto devise the legal constructs to get the synthetic
GMO hormone rBGH approved by the FDA and then guiding its approval during
his tenure at the FDA in the 1990s.
* Drafting the agency’s draconian rBGH labeling laws that made it
illegal for farmers and dairy companies to properly label their milk rBGH
free.
Today Michael Taylor is back at the Food and Drug Administration at the
Number 2 spot, as an “advisor” to Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. In this role
as the Food Safety Czar, Taylor is responsible for implementing the
day-to-day policies that govern the food safety laws for the U.S. and u
nfortunately he has kept his big agribusiness ways intact.
If you care about family farms or your family’s health, having this man in
charge of your food’s safety should greatly concern you.
_Click here to automatically sign the petition to ask President Obama to
fire Michael Taylor from his job as Food Czar at the FDA. America can't
afford another bad decision and your own and your child's health may just depend
on it._
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=6)
Besides implementing the rules for the recently passed Food Safety
Modernization Act, which was signed into law last year after a great deal of
controversy, Michael Taylor seems focused on entirely the wrong aspects of food
safety enforcement.
Rather than making sure that food safety inspections are done properly at
our nation’s largest factory farms, where antibiotic resistance has run
amuck, Michael Taylor has been leading a departmental jihad against small raw
milk dairy producers. So far several dairy farmers have been subject to a
year-long undercover sting operation from the East Coast to California.
In a speech in front of a DC PR firm, Taylor described the agency’s actions
again raw milk producers as part of the FDA’s “public health duty” and
justified them as a “statutory directive”.
Incredibly, Michael Taylor and FDA inspectors have not arrested or fined
Jack DeCoster for his recent infractions, but raw milk producers have been
targeted with a vengeance. While Food Democracy Now! recognizes the inherent
risks that are involved in food production, it’s time that the U.S.
government start responsibly looking into the real origins of our nation’s largest
food safety recalls and stop harassing family farmers trying to survive in
the excessively consolidated food and agricultural sectors.
These recent arrests and the abject failure of the Obama administration to
hold factory farm operators and the true food safety culprits accountable
signals that the time has come to clean house of useless bureaucratic relics
of a bygone age, which Obama promised to end. Sadly, it looks like
agribusiness still controls our government agencies, even in an era that was
supposed to usher in hope and change.
Here at Food Democracy Now! we believe it’s time for Change. And a
housecleaning at the FDA is a good place to start!
_Click here to automatically tell President Obama it’s time to fire
Michael Taylor and make America safe again for true family farmers and stop
serving the agribusiness’s corporate masters._
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=7)
While the increasing food safety outbreaks have been a problem for some
time, a recent Des Moines Register investigation on the year anniversary of
the DeCoster egg recall, brings the urgency of this matter to the forefront
once again.
Now, barely two weeks after President Obama returned to the Heartland to
tout his commitment to improving rural and agricultural policies, Register’s
scathing investigation that lays bare this administration’s continued
failure to correct severe breakdowns in the oversight of our nation’s food
supply.
While last year’s recall was at the hands of legendary food safety, human
rights and environmental “habitual violator” Jack Decoster, the Register’s
investigation, found many of the state’s major producer’s are not even
meeting minimum federal standards designed to protect consumers from disease.
_Click here to automatically tell President Obama it’s time to fire
Michael Taylor and make America safe again for true family farmers and stop
serving the agribusiness’s corporate masters._
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/419?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=8)
Thanks for participating in food democracy,
Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team
Sources:
1. “Obama Food Safety Czar Defends Armed Raids on Amish Farmers, Raw Milk
Producers”, Reason, 6/10/2011.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/411?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=10_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/411?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=9)
2. "DeCoster Gets Warning, Hillandale Sales OK'd", Food Safety News,
10/19/2010.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/412?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=12_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/412?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=11)
3. "Obama Unveils 'Real Leadership for Rural America Agenda', Vote Smart,
10/16/2007.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/413?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=14_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/413?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=13)
4. "Monsanto's man Taylor returns to FDA in food-czar role", Grist,
7/8/2009.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/414?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=16_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/414?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=15)
5. “You’re Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It’s Not So!”, Huffington
Post, 7/23/2009
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/271?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=18_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/271?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=17)
6. "Noted Food Safety Expert Michael R. Taylor Named Advisor to FDA
Commissioner", Food and Drug Administration press release, 7/8/2009.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/415?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=20_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/415?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=19)
7."Meet Michael R. Taylor, J.D., Deputy Commissioner for Foods", Food and
Drug Administration website.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/418?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=22_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/418?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=21)
8. "Food safety chief defends raw milk raids", San Francisco Chronicle,
6/7/2011.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/416?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=24_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/416?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=23)
9. “Register investigation: Egg farms rack up violations: FDA finds
unsanitary conditions, keeps key data secret”, Des Moines Register, 8/27/2011.
_http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/417?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=26_
(http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/417?akid=369.51895._0oNV1&t=25)
--
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