This is a good thing! The alternative would be that all producers – big and small – would have to meet compliance in the same manner. This would drive many small operators out of business. The vagueness is deliberate – it allows different operations to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, rather than taking a “one size fits all” approach.

This just goes to show how ridiculous our legislation is. A hundred different ways to interpret it, so it can fuck us a hundred different ways.

Does anyone know if any outbreaks or anything spawned the writing of this bill? Normally legislation like this is a response to some crisis or emergency. Nothing comes to mind (at least in the U.S.) in the past couple months. Seems kind of out of the blue.

Just to prove it, here you go.
Our economy is in the shitter, unemployment keeps rising, yet American corporations just had their best quarter IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR RECORDKEEPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2.../24econ.html?_r=2&hp

Obviously, I'm missing something, if they're out for our best interests.

That's a good question. If it isn't broke don't fix it. I forget where I read it, but someone online made the case that local growers have a reputation to uphold. Their business is driven by a demand for non-corporatized produce. These businesses must then meet the expectations of their customers. Otherwise, why not buy it from a corporation for less? It regulates itself.

I think the concern people in this topic express to have about the FDA food safety bill is that they fear these "regulations" are really limitations of civil liverties.
I share those concerns. It may very well be that these "regulations" are really fascist incursions into civil liberties; Making life impossible for small, self-sustaining farmers.

Sure the FDA sais it's all for the common good and for safety concerns..... I for one don't believe a word of what they say. Do you gibran2?
Any government institution is suspicious if you ask me. All they(Governments and their Insitutions) seem to do is spread fear like a pandemic of a threat they imagine or even create themselves,
then proceed to use it as an excuse to limit civil liberties. Endlessly. For Millenia.
I have as much faith in the good-intentions & honousty of Political systems & Institutions as there is water in a salt-plain desert.

If my memory serves me correct was it not that same FDA that deemed marvelous substances like DMT, LSD and Psilocybin Mushrooms of "too little medicinal value" and "too risky" to be legal?
FDA. Fear Dominates All? In short they are NOT on my list of trustworthy organisations.

Civil liberties? How is making sure that food producers don’t adulterate your food limiting anybody’s civil liberties?

How would you go about ensuring food safety?

Bill S. 510 has NOTHING to do with "food safety" (whatever that euphemism means).

To protect your food?? Not a chance in hell. It's more like your corporate masters controlling what goes into your body as they deem to be "acceptable" according to their perverse agendas. You see, they know what is good for you so you won't have to think about what to eat (sarcasm intended).


Answer: Abolish the FDA, a.k.a. Federal Death Administration

For those who havn't realised yet, Bill S. 510 ties in with another incredible abomination called Codex Alimentarius. Check it out here: http://www.activistpost.com/201...ex-alimenarius-link.html

OK – let’s imagine a world where there is no FDA. No food regulations. No food regulators. No epidemiologists, no field investigators. No chemists or microbiologists.

Let’s say a large multi-national food producer decides it’s profitable to cut their powdered infant formula with melamine. They sell this adulterated product worldwide, and tens of thousands of infants become ill. Many of them die. Of course, it takes a very long time to make the association between the tainted formula and the deaths, because there is no organization investigating the incident. When the association is finally made, there is no way to prove wrongdoing, because the food producer won’t allow entry.

How would you prevent something like this from happening again?

You criticize the current system, yet offer no ideas whatsoever concerning how you would ensure food safety at a national (or even international) level. Let’s hear some ideas!

What you describe, gibran2, is the opposite extreme of food regulations. It's extreme.
Just as extreme as the FDA's plan to control food.

What I and other nexus members are concerned for is that this foodbill is intended to further
limit the distribution and availability of psychoactive herbs as well as smothering small-time farmers.

Obviously I am just as concerned for large food corporations dumping harmfull crap in our foods; I am really pro food-regulations.
However I do NOT believe the FDA gives a DAMN about public health & wellbeing. Oviously I do not believe a WORD of what they say.
There's NOTHING wrong with food regulation. There's, however, a HECK OF ALOT Wrong with the FDA.

I wonder why you, gibran2, would trust the FDA for their word.
They've been spreading lies about precious entheogens leading to them being made illegal.
If you are a member of a DMT-based forum discussing the values and extraction of entheogenic substances, how can you NOT distrust the FDA?

First of all, the FDA is an organization of many parts. I’m more familiar with the “F” part – the food part, and most of your complaints seem to be focused on the “D” – the drug part.

I’m not sure if you’ve read all of my previous posts, but I mentioned that I’ve worked as a food safety regulator for over 8 years, and during that time I occasionally I worked with FDA personnel.

The professional interests of my colleagues and myself (and FDA personnel I’ve worked with) revolved around food safety – keeping people from getting sick. There was no vast conspiracy to control people through food regulations. There was no plan to take away the civil liberties of citizens.

Just because our government has an irrational drug policy (as do most if not all governments) doesn’t mean that everything government does is bad. Believe it or not, there are actually plenty of people who work hard every day to ensure that our food is safe. You don’t notice them because they’re doing a fairly good job.

You are conflating our government’s irrational drug policies with just about everything else that government does. Things are not that simple. You say you’re pro-regulation with respect to food, yet you have nothing but criticism for the food regulatory authority at the national level. We don’t have a perfect system, but trust me – things would not be better if we had no system at all.

To my experience the food safety business is a mixture of ideals and corruption. Easily abused for a double agenda. If a company wants to cheat (cut corners on food safety) then it can often find a way to do so anyway. As if this bill is going to change about that. I suspect (see stars) there are many interests involved as usual. Not only about food safety.

Maybe it would be better to somehow fix corruption, optimalise the system (perhaps learn from europe), and implement some more idealism lol. Instead of doing more of this sort of paperwork... Indeed i have seen many producers of foodstuffs very enthousiastic about combining food safety and quality of food in general. This is where food safety should be improved: at the producer. Not at the desk.

Btw the food safety standards as i have seen them (applied) are often too tight, instead of optimal. So they cant really be lived up to. Companies will still 'comply' (on paper) to the standard anyway because of reputation and pressure from competition. So hows that for a sincere start? It is all about intentions you know.. Then what if the inspection arrives? The inspection puts itself out of business? i dont think so..

So you support the current system. That's a shame.

In case you didn't know, There is a such thing as healthy criticism.

Then you attempt to criticize me for it.

With all due respect, You know nothing of the true nature of the FDA, one of the most corrupt criminal organizations on the planet. Keep in mind, they are the ones (along with Searle Pharmaceutical and Donald Rumsfeld) who gave the OK to put the deadly neurotoxin Aspartame on the market. It is an excitotoxin which kills brain cells and is a causal agent for Alzheimer's disease. There are plenty of net resources to back up what I am writing. Look at what they are doing to the supplement/herbal market. I have spoken to pro nutritionists who confirm it and there are real scientific studies to prove it. All you have to do is READ.

gibran, You need to go back and do your homework.

Virola perfectly voiced my concerns.
I'm sure, gibran2, that there are plenty of good people that work at the FDA with the best of intentions doing great work.
But I'm concerned about this idealism being polluted with curropt motives.

Indeed it isn't as simple as stating an oprganisation to be either good or bad-natured. But I do believe the corrupt interrests dominate the FDA like a cancer dominates a body. It doesn't at all take many corrupt people to run a shadow operation and take over an official government organisation.

The CIA has suffered the same fate. Have you read about CIA doing secret and unlawfull experiments( all sorts of truth-serum drug-testing on prison inmates and all sorts of methods of mind control. This makes me seriously suspect the CIA of cruel, power-hungry intentions. Allthough this doesn't mean I think only scumbags must work in the CIA. I'm sure there are plenty of good people working for the CIA, except I'm affraid that the corruption runs so deep in the CIA that these good people, sincerely concerned with international public safety, are like small gold lumps in a huge barrel full of shit.

I'm really affraid the same can be said for the FDA.
Good people working there must have their hands tied by their corrupted superiors in that organisation.
I assume alot of good, honoust people with a common sense working at the FDA were quite opposed to the FDA's judgement on LSD, DMT, Mushrooms and the like?
If they are really concerned for public health then they should have clearly seen how banning all these low-risk psychedelic substances would only have an adverse effect on public health. If good people working at the FDA researched Psychedelics and did risk assasments they must have reached the conclusion they have marvelous psycho-therapuitical/medicinal value and that the risk of their use was relatively low.
I cannot imagine no one at the FDA being opposed to these substances being banned and repressed.

Were their protests not heard? Or were their protests perhaps ignored by corrupted superiors?

I don't think they had much to say because these suubstances WERE indeed banned and remain violently repressed to the day of today.
If it wasn't for the FDA's epic fail risk-assessment we wouldn't be so paranoid and constantly using words like SWIM and SWIY on these forums.

It’s not either-or: Either you reject the system completely or embrace it wholeheartedly. The world is a complex place. And I didn’t criticize you. You made the bold statement that the FDA should be abolished, and I pointed out that there would be consequences if such action were taken. You have yet to explain/describe how food safety would be managed at a national level without a governmental agency such as the FDA.

Let’s look at some of the statements you’ve made:


The FDA is a large governmental agency employing thousands of people. Although I never worked for the FDA, as a food safety regulator I occasionally worked with FDA personnel. If my direct experiences are somehow less valid than your knowledge gained via reading what others have to say about the FDA, then so be it.


Please provide documentation/sources.


Please provide links to scientific journal articles that support this.


Please provide links to the real scientific studies that prove it. (What is “it” that they’re doing, by the way?)


If eight years as a food safety regulator doesn’t qualify me to express my informed opinion regarding food safety regulations, then I doubt additional “homework” will be of much help.

You obviously don’t have anything good to say about the FDA, and that’s OK. But you still haven’t answered what I think is a very reasonable, understandable question that I restated earlier in this post:

How would food safety be managed at a national level without a governmental agency such as the FDA?

HA! HA!, Nice try gibran...

Anyone who's compelled to pick apart a post like THAT has to reevaluate thier disposition, IMHO.

Lighten up man, it's only a message board.



BTW, You're going to have to look up the documentation yourselves, I'm not Google.

You make unsubstantiated claims and expect me to verify them for you?

I don’t think so.

(So I guess you don’t have any suggestions on how to manage food safety on a national level without a governmental agency such as the FDA. It’s easy to complain and criticize about the way things are. As you’re no doubt learning, it’s much harder to offer constructive ideas to make the world a better place.)

I can see the federal government regulating corporations that distribute food to multiple states; that's why we have the commerce clause. Why is a national standard of regulation neccessary for local farms and businesses that sell within state borders?

You don't come out as the sharpest knife in the drawer by this type of talk.

Gibran gave you a very thorough answer addressing your points, and he also gave you a nice platform for you to put your counter-arguments. I also need to ask you what do you mean it's only a message board? You mean if you wrote in a message board or forum you do not have to drive a rational discourse? Well, you wrong-guessed here, a message board is a totally legit form of human communication and serious discussions can (and often are!) being carried this way. Of course it is not the case in all the forums around the internet, but it is the case in this forum. So please I would appreciate a change in attitude and an attempt to make a decent dialogue if you wish to participate in this discussion.

The legislation seems to open a lot of doors for corporate smothering of peoples rights. While it might not be their intent, the fact is the possibilities are now there. We have to trust it won't be used to our disadvantage.

Though kudos to Gibran, the FDA has been doing a damn good job. Which is one reason I question the bill.

I've heard of violent SWAT raids of people who grew their own vedgetables and used filtered rainwater in the USA.(Can't remember if I heard this in the documentairy "The end of Liberty" or somewhere else)
Could this have anything to with this foodbill? Or is it unrelated? Why is that happening?

I'm affraid such foodregulations might be abused to create more such situations, where innocent civilians who are trying to bring down their living costs by living more independant. sustainable and natural might get raided and arrested by SWAT teams.

I'm pretty sure the rainwater thing is part of separate legislation that's passed by individual states. For example, I know Utah has strict laws on their rainwater (many people who own their own land are legally prevented from catching fresh rainwater, as it is owned by the state).

Here's a quick report on the case in Utah,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jjxg8f3Gq0