"Smaller government!" "Government is the enemy!" "Get government out of our lives!"

Ever wonder who funds those ideas? Corporations.

This is what you get when you put people in power who think the government is the problem. Anyone who's read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" will understand why we put these food regulations in place to start with. Now if we could just find a way to enforce them despite all the corporate money and influence....

Used to be the USDA had some integrity but during the Reagan years many government agencies were gutted including the USDA. This story reminds me of an incident that occured at a turkey processing plant I worked at. At the end of the day shift a tank of over 50 forty pound bags of meat were brought out to be dressed. Some of the gals came to my office and told me they couldn't trim the meat because it smelled and was turning green. I was a quality control inspector and upon inspection tagged the tank as unusuable. Within minutes the plant production manager came out and removed the tag and told the gals to trim the meat. I went to the USDA inspector who also checked it out and put his USDA tag on the tank. The vice president of the company was infuriated and made a call to one of the major USDA officials. With in minutes the meat was being processed with the blessings of the USDA. This was rotten meat that had sat in the cooler room for a week where the usual time limit was three days. These days you really don't know what your eating.

Yes, and the government is the people not those private corporations. Americans have long forgotten and are made to be dumb. I can just go on and on but it is pointless. There appears to be too many Americans who don't know why they suffer and they go on with blinders blaming the government and so on. Why are we not blaming ourselves for not standing up against those few who have commandeered "our" government? We are a nation so lost and so enslaved that most of us cannot see it, even the whole world knows.

Mary and DJ,

Another thing to remember is that most "conservatives" are only interested in "conserving" their own personal wealth without regard to their fellow citizen. As shown in maddog's story, the preservation of personal wealth is paramount and takes precedence over safety, health and lives of other citizens.

They talk a good talk about wages etc. but when push comes to shove it is "HOORAY FOR ME AND TO HELL WITH YOU"

Maddog: These days you really don't know what your eating.

Vegetarians live longer and have happier lives. So do the animals.

Typical...5 will get you 10 those USDA bums were either lazy mouth breathing hill scroggins, bribed or both. Oh and for you dip stick vegans...your claims for longer life are a LIE and it's not true.

Vegetarians live longer and have happier lives.

Not true. Not everyone can be a vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, etc. What may be healthy to you can probably kill the person next to you.

One of my vegetarian friends said that a found for vegetarianism died in his early 80's and stated that if you eat meat, you'll die in your 60's. Well, I know quite a few omnivores that are over 60 and one guy who is 92, so that it complete bs.

Believe it or not, the US has one of the safest food supplies in the world. The only way to make it safer is if you grow and process your own. I grew up in a self sufficient household where we had a garden, grew and butchered our own meat, milked a cow, baked bread, etc.

I still support my local farming friends by buying at the farmer's market, making individual deals for my meat and poultry, buying eggs from an Old Order family, etc. If you are concerned by the safety of your food from factory farms, then buy from small farmers or your local backyard gardener. It's a bit more expensive, but if the Government puts in more inspectors, then expect your food prices to increase anyway.

Believe it or not, the US has one of the safest food supplies in the world.

I don't know. The UK and Canada banned that growth hormone for cows, showing a link to cancer. Despite this, the US still injects the hormones into cows (it's not a requirement, but still. . .)

Checkmate.... CORRECT. And they still allow toxic chemicals to be added to food... ie BHA, BHQ, TBHQ, Propylene Glycol and the list goes on and on . These are all PROVEN carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins, immunotoxins. But, Hey... it's ok if they're in everything. I mean come on... the gov't says it's OK for you to NON-LABELED genetically modified frankenfood too. Take a look at ANY box or package in your grocery store and you will see any one or more of the following GMO ingredients ( unbeknown to most ppl) Over 90% ANYTHING made of CORN, SOY or CANOLA is GMO unless it specifically states it's not. How about some toxic High Fructose Corn Syrup w/your cold cuts and almost EVERY product on the shelves. HFCS is made from GMO corn that is deemed NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION on its own, yet it's fine to eat it after it's been processed ( and tests have conclusively shown that HFCS contains MERCURY ). The gov't after all thinks it's ok for factory farms to pump your meat full of antibiotics and growth hormones. Ever wonder why boys/men are developing MOOBS, little girls are reaching puberty at 7 & 8 yrs old ? There's a huge increase in prostate, breast and colon cancer ? THANK your local USDA/FDA approved factory farm... aka CAFO.

The US food system is FAR from being "safe" and is in NO stretch of the imagination "healthy". Almost all of the toxic food additives the USDA says is ok to poison our foods has been BANNED in Canada, the EU, Australia and other countries.... countries that are actually concerned about the health and welfare of their citizens. This gov't gives a rat's ass about you, me or our children, grandchildren, the environment, etc. Why ? Because it's run by greedy corporate fascists who've been put in office to protect the interests and profits of the companies who manufacture these toxins and the foods they're added to.

Check out how many gov't officials are former MONSANTO and pharmaceutical company EMPLOYEES... including even JUDGES like Clarence Thomas and the likes of Donald Rumsfeld ( who pushed the gov't to approve ASPARTAME .. aka Splenda, Nutrasweet, Equal and other names... which was PROVEN in an official gov't study to be HIGHLY TOXIC !!!! Yet he worked for Searle.. the company who developed it... and pushed it through so that it's now in almost every food product on the shelf. Even NON-DIET foods !!

ASPARTAME is PROVEN to be the cause of BRAIN TUMORS, Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia, Lupus and other auto-immune diseases, heart attacks, paralysis and other diseases some of which have actually DISAPPEARED in patients who stopped using products which contain it. So all you DIET food/drink consumers out there.. BEWARE... and watch this 10 pt short documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB-SXOYnXeY&feature=related

The problem, as in the Armed Forces is leadership.

If you have leadership that won't support you or give you proper tools and clear directives, you'll get Vietnam. Or tainted food and water. Thank God the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has both the tools and the directives to safe guard the public when the other systems fail.

Are you dumb or ignorant?

Reagan first tried to remove regulations for industry and when that failed the GOP took to gutting the agencies in charge of enforcement. So you are left with regulations, but almost no method of encofrcement. Before you talk (or type), learn a little. Do you know how many employees the FDA has to do inspections for ALL food processing plants/industries in the USA?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17349427/

(from the A.P. in 2007)

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

FDA ‘just can't manage the job’
That’s not all that’s dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

• There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.
• Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency’s own statistics.

***this was all under a GOP controlled government and legislature who were pro business and could give a rats-ass about individuals and food safety.

Yes the Armed forces do over perform...Remember Tillman? They do get a little trigger happy at times.

Armed forces can't do Nationl Building (and not very good at peace keeping)....hence why we will be in A-stan for a looong time.

Regulatory agencies work for us - the American people. They're not doing their jobs because we've had too many presidents who believed that they were getting in the way of the corporations and set out to neuter them. (Regulatory agencies are under the Executive branch, not the Legislative - so all it takes is one corporation-bought President to gut the system.) The corporations got what they wanted - deregulation and only toadies left in the few remaining positions.

The sort of problems we're seeing now (BP, contaminated meat, toxic eggs, etc.) are the logical end result. Yet the corporations are still spending millions of $$ for lobbying and "message management" to buy people who put out the message that it's all a problem of of too much government. Why do we fall for that crap? Sheesh.

They're not doing their jobs because we've had too many presidents who believed that they were getting in the way of the corporations and set out to neuter them.

Really? .....

it's kinda amazing that where I live you can't even trim your bushes or trees within the 100 foot area next to the wetlands without a permit and inspection by the government body, because of the harm it might do to the environment, yet a neighbor who stalks you with a weapon, is untouchable!

Government has lost touch with reality and the purpose that we have given "Police Powers" to the sovereign! ..

Government is only reactionary, rarely proactive. Most government agencies are run by puppets of someone ... either in congress or the industry they are there to control. Any employee that has the balls to do the right thing is going to end up without a job, or in a closet, with a light bulb & a phone that never rings!

How many people do you think are going to risk their livelihoods to correct a problem ..

The Game Is ..... "DON'T MAKE WAVES!" or you will sink ...

Health progress in this country is mainly because of technological advancement, nothing the government has done ...

Just think .... how many contaminations of foodstuffs are avoided as a direct result of the proliferation and use of plastic film (Saran wrap) at home & in the food industry?

I am willing to gambol that the wrap is more responsible for safe foods than the totality of all government inspections, nationwide!

If the statement of the ex worker are accurate, how safe do you think our foodstuffs really are?

"Ever Think You Would like To Join A Revolution?"

this is because WE have allowed this to happen....wave an ipod in your face with one hand and pick your pocket with the other. quit being blind consumer statistics and perhaps this wont happen.

NEWSFLASH... just WHO do you think are running these "regulatory agencies" ? Do a little research and you will find out that the EPA, FDA, USDA and almost EVERY agency that regulates food or drugs is actually run by former food company, big agri and big pharma CEOs, Scientists, Lawyers etc. If you think that these people are looking out for US... you're completely NAIVE. They are there for ONE PURPOSE ONLY... to make sure legislation passes that protects the CORPORATIONS and their PROFITS. .... NOT YOU.

There is a website you can go to and find local farms in your area that sell to the public. It's wonderful !

http://www.localharvest.org

What? No it doesn't. It clearly shows the ineptitude of your Federal Government stepping all over itself to do NOTHING. Spend billions of dollars to make the FDA more efficient, when the USDA is already present, full-time in these facilities? Feds protecting their measly jobs is all it is. Why not get rid of one of these agencies all together?

Regardless, the corporate farm and processors in the US have no one to blame but themselves. I hope they all go out of business because of the way they do things so wrong. The inhumane slaughtering of cattle, the putrid conditions of our chicken farms.

Since more of our beef and pork is coming from Mexico and poultry from China, shouldn't they be held to some higher standard than what US corporations are held to? Oh, I forgot, the FDA doesn't inspect OUR farms, so how can they inspect foreign farms? I love my T-bone steak, but being more vegitaian seems like the best answer. Our meat is not safe anymore.

So, DenverCyko, when you get rid of all those regulatory agencies, who do ya think is going to police the safety of your food? The corporations whose bottom line gets dinged every time they put in a safety mechanism their competitor isn't buying? Are you gonna do it yourself? Inspect every lettuce field that might be in your salad? Walk through every egg house that might be in your omelet? Watch every slaughterhouse that ends up in your hamburger? Hmm?

Face it, folks. The ONLY way we can protect ourselves from the almighty profit motive is by banding together and funding federal agencies to be the policemen. If they're not doing their job, it's because we're putting bosses in power who stand in the way and don't make them do it. The solution is NOT to get rid of the agencies, it's to make them work for us. The opposite will not work - it would be getting like rid of your local police because they're not enforcing the speeding laws.

your bush tax cuts at work!

Denverckyo... you are completely uninformed. Big Agri, Big Pharma and Big Food are all in bed together.... it's one big ORGY. Do some research will you ? EVERY 'regulatory' agency is headed by a former Big Agri, Big Pharma, Big Food employee ( CEOs, scientists, lawyers, etc ) and there are there for benefit of the CORPORATION... NOT YOU. They are there to specifically make certain that no legislation passes that protects the consumer and harms the corporations, their profits and their shareholders. How can you be so utterly naive ?

What you have here is basically the industry regulating itself. Just how effective do you actually think that is ? You've got the fox guarding the hen house.

Who the hell would buy meat at WalMart except for a completely uneducated consumer ?

"Who the hell would buy meat at WalMart except for a completely uneducated consumer ?"

Those that don't have the money to buy the better meats elsewhere. People like me. And before you point out getting it from farmers, I checked and I still can't afford it. Distance and price are the reasons why I go to Walmart. You don't even want to know how much certain mom and pop stores are charging just for butter near me, even if it was on sale.

LOL...No Democratic Big Government Do Nothing Civil Service. Yea, let's spend billions more and get the same results (see job creation - Obama 2009). The States should be inspecting. The Federal people should get the hell out of the way.

Right or Left, we all eat the same crap. Blaming this on the GOP makes one look like a fool.

Denvercyko....uh.....Deregulation. Yes. I blame Republicans (To be fair; Clinton to some degree).

States inspect huh? so Iowa state tax payers have to foot the inspection bill for all of america who get their eggs....actually that is a good idea. that may spur a return to local farmers...or a complete crash of Iowa's Economy.

You could afford organic eggs too if you stopped wasting your money on processed crap and ate REAL FOOD.

Great generation of people back then. Hard workers, honest businessmen...no cutting corners, no "gaming" to save that allmighty dollar (mass production creates new problems). It is very rare these days.

If we didn't have problems with our food, we wouldn't need inspecters. If we didn't have business that treated their employees like crap (laying them off 3 months before they are eligable for retirement), we wouldn't need unions. I am all for saving money and gettting rid of these things...but that can't happen anymore because we have lost our way....and i don't mean Glenn Beck's way. Talk about a spin doctor..

They wouldn't be called "organic" since the term "organic" denotes a specific controlled regulatory stamp of approval. Anything "organic" has to be held to a very highly controlled criteria and undergo 3rd party certification. There are absolutely no pesticides, fertilizers or chemicals involved and any feed also has to be "certfied" as well.... that includes pasture. You could call them "free range, pastured" eggs. They'd be the 2nd best thing.

What people fail to realize here when talking about the price of food.. is that organic food is NOT expensive. Conventional food is ARTIFICIALLY low-priced because of farming in mass quantities and the use of illegal labor. Organic food is labor intensive, higher quality, more nutritious, more flavorful and the biggest thing of all... SAFE TO CONSUME !!! If you look around there are plenty of organic foods now that are the same price or even CHEAPER than the toxic food out there. Sure.. some things are more expensive but I won't complain about paying $4 for a half gallon of fresh organic milk when I see people out there not blinking an eye to buy a $4 bag of POTATO CHIPS ( which have been cooked in GMO corn/palm/soy oil ) !!!!

ORGANIC... IT's WORTH it !

Oh.. and I forgot to mention the GOV'T SUBSIDIES for conventional farming... money Organic farmers don't see a penny of. In fact, the Gov't is even thinking about doing away with helping Organic farmers finance their certification each year ( a fee of THOUSANDS of dollars and highly stringent inspections ).

Did you know that you cannot even disparage a food company in public. You can be sued. There is a thing called FOOD LIBEL LAWS. Do you not remember the huge lawsuit Oprah Winfrey went through w/the US Cattlemen's Association ?

Last April 16, with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)-a/k/a mad cow disease-sparking panic worldwide, Winfrey invited Howard Lyman to tell Oprah's 15 million viewers about ''Dangerous Foods.'' At the time, Lyman must have seemed like the perfect guest-having disavowed his first 40 years as a cattle rancher, he now works as the director of the Humane Society's Eating With Conscience Campaign, where he spreads the gospel of organic foods and a meat-free diet.

Lyman described a nightmare scenario: ''One hundred thousand cows per year in the United States are fine at night, dead in the morning. The majority of those cows are rounded up, ground up, fed back to other cows. If only one of them has mad cow disease, [it] has the potential to infect thousands.''

Lyman's warning landed him and his celebrated host in court. Calling upon a new state law that bars the ''false disparagement of perishable food products,'' two Texas cattle ranchers have initiated a class-action suit against Lyman and Winfrey for ''lambasting the American cattle industry'' and placing ''unfounded and unwarranted fear in the beef consumer's mind.''

Winfrey and Lyman are the first defendants to face so-called food disparagement laws, which make it illegal to question the safety of any food product without verifiable scientific proof. Known as ''veggie libel'' or ''banana bills,'' the laws have been enacted in a dozen states since 1991, despite serious concerns about their constitutionality. In them, American agribusiness has its mightiest tool yet against food-safety activists and environmentalists, whose campaigns can cost industry millions if they affect consumers' buying habits. As one food industry lobbyist says, ''all agricultural eyes will be watching this one.''

http://www.organicconsumers.org/disparg.html

Here is plenty more info:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=What+is+the+law+against+disparaging+a+food+company+called+%3F&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=CbIt1S7mDTP-jMqe-zgSht9GLBQAAAKoEBU_QBImJ&fp=6e1d324e62cc6cd8

The GOV'T PROTECTS these corporations and prevents consumers and consumer advocates from WARNING the public to protect them.

There's been a lot of corporate ag money involved to make sure the USDA is in their pocket and unable to venture outside of their narrow little sphere of authority (which has been narrowed further by deregulation.) That's why they can only grade eggs but have no say-so over the hen houses or production facilities. You can blame the USDA inspectors for not stepping in when there were complaints about sanitation and safety, but the truth is that anybody in that job who would have stuck their neck out and done something is long gone.

The Bush administration purged thousands of regulators from DOJ, USDA, FDA and the other regulatory agencies, and in a lot of cases they were gotten rid of for doing just what you're faulting these inspectors for failing to do - enforcing the safety regs at the expense of corporate profits. If all their co-workers who were brave enough to speak out were fired, what do you expect them to do? All that are left are the spineless place-holders. To do what you're asking of them would mean they have to overstep their agency's authority. And you know the howls that are raised if a company believes a government worker overstepped his authority.

Does that mean we should get rid of the agency? Or should we instead give it the tools to do what is required? Gut check time, America.