S.510 Passed (NOT Good)! URGENT ACTION Needed to Help Stop HR 2751 Food Safety bill (now in the House)

***Bill S.510 is now known as HR 2751***

Stop HR 2751 Food Safety Act

Your help is urgently needed! This petition seeks to halt the passage of HR 2751 which contains the Food Safety bill that would harm small, local farmers by granting the FDA new powers to put small farmers out of business if they don't comply with the burden of new government regulations. Your access to locally grown fresh produce is at risk!

OC

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Email from Mike Adams:

In the dark of night, the US Senate passed S.510 last night with a unanimous consent voice vote (not a single US Senator opposed it).

It's now headed back to the House for a possible vote on Tuesday.

We need your help to oppose this dangerous bill that could destroy small, local organic farmers and reduce the availability of local fresh produce.

If you enjoy farmers' markets or buy food from a CSA, your food supply is now in danger due to HR 2751 in the House of Representatives! (See more talking points below...)

Take Action Now to Protect Small Local Farms

Action item #1) Sign our petition at:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/7025/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5020

(This will automatically email your appropriate representatives in Washington.)

Action item #2) Read our article (and forward it to others) at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030789_Food_Safety_small_farmers.html

Action item #3) Read the Natural Solutions Foundation article and petition at:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=7824eri

Action item #4) Read the urgent action alert from the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund at:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa-20dec2010-s510-in-hr2751-house.htm

Here are the talking points from FTCLDF on why this fake food safety bill is so dangerous to our future:

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act is fundamentally flawed and is not in the best interest of small farmers, especially those who produce raw milk. The Act is a major threat to the local food movement.

1. FDA does not respect individuals' rights to obtain healthy, quality foods of their choice. The agency has stated, as a matter of public record that:

"There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food."

"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."

FDA has even participated in armed raids on small-scale co-ops and membership organizations. This agency should not be given any additional power.

2. FDA has adequate powers under existing law to ensure food safety and effectively deal with foodborne illness outbreaks. FDA has power to inspect, power to detain product and can readily obtain court orders to seize adulterated or misbranded food products or enjoin them from being sold. The problem isn't that FDA needs more power; it's that FDA does not effectively use the power it currently has. The agency has power to inspect imported food yet inspects only 1% of food coming into this country from outside our borders.

3. S.510 does nothing to address many significant food safety problems in this country, such as those resulting from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and various contaminants (e.g., BPA, pesticides, herbicides, etc.).

4. FDA has used its existing power to benefit the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries at the expense of public health (e.g., allowing the overuse of antibiotics in confined animal feeding operations and refusing to require labeling for genetically-modified foods). This bill does not address the fundamental problems at this agency in order to truly protect public health.

5. S.510 will expand FDA's involvement in regulating food in intra-state commerce, further interfering with local communities. State and local governments are more than capable of handling any problems related to food in intrastate commerce. All the major outbreaks of foodborne illness involve either imported food or food in inter-state commerce.

6. S.510 will hurt our ability as a nation to be self-sufficient in food production because it has more lenient inspection requirements for foreign than domestic producers creating an unfair advantage for food imports. Giving an advantage to foreign producers will only increase the amount of food imported into this country that does not meet our domestic standards. S.510 does not address food security -- the ability of a country to produce enough food to meet its own needs.

Thank you for your action in this urgent item. We will keep you posted on this news at www.NaturalNews.com

- Mike Adams