More Food Adulteration For Profit
Here we go again business at any cost..... Bills C-27 and C-28 are related
See what Dr. Shiv Chopra has to say about these so called "Smart Regulations". Apparently the "smart" aspect of these regulations is to give the illusion of better protection for our foods but in reality they are designed to remove protections from the current regulations that the industry feels is hampering their profits. This is much like the "Risk Benefit" bull that Health Canada is currently promoting under the same pretense of improving current health protections which if followed are already quite adequate, but are considered too restrictive by their industry cronies... These Smart and Risk Benefit regulations are more about protecting profits and certainly not our health!
See: More on Risk First, Safety Last!
"This government's 'Smart Regulation' legislative renewal project, which includes Bill C-27, is what I describe as the 'Corporatization of Knowledge' -- instituting private interests ahead of the public good," says Dr. Shiv Chopra, who along with colleagues Dr. Margaret Haydon and Dr. Gerard Lambert, blew the whistle on conflicts of interests in Health Canada's drug approval process. "We will request the postponement of the entire legislative renewal process until after a full public inquiry into what we, as scientists, have been suffering on account of the pressure exerted on us to pass drugs and other products and methods of questionable safety."
Chris Gupta
Wednesday April 12, 2005
Bill C-27 by: Sandy Mowat - CBC Ontario Today
It's called Bill C-27...the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act. It's going to change the way the C-F-I-A regulates the foods that we eat. And it's drawing criticism from people such as Dr. Shiv Chopra. Dr. Chopra is a former Microbiologist and Drug Evaluator in the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs of the Health Protection Branch of Health Canada. He spoke out against Bill C-27 this morning at a news conference in Ottawa.
[Listen to Dr. Chopra here - Runs 7:35]
Comment by Inge Hanle and my sentiments exactly - Croft Woodruff
"The Canadian Government is integrating Canada into the USA, and is presently harmonizing all of our food inspection, food safety and environmental laws to conform with American law. (Called integrating the American Continent!) As you probably already know, the Bush Administration has ordered their EPA to rescind most of the "environmental protection and pollution laws that had been instituted over the past 50 years. They are going back to a system where corporations can pollute with impunity- Where "safety means "don't hinder corporate profits and expansion potential in any way! American agricultural policy for the past 50 years has been one of systematically annihilating the independent family farms, and re-organizing food production as " industrial agriculture - with the emphasis on "big, chemicalized, centralized, genetically engineered....". Thus the predominance of the "factory farm and "feed lots where thousands of animals are crammed into very restricted space, and both disease and pollution become a major, unsolvable problem. Therefore, they pass laws that allow a "see no problem policy. And the Monsantos laugh all the way to the bank.
At the same time - even though citizens are demanding environmentally sounder and poison-free, more nutritious food the USA government is passing laws that severely restrict organic farming and the local marketing of their produce, passing "disabling legislation at every turn. Meanwhile the multinational Monsantos can operate with impunity, producing inferior quality food and operating under almost non-existent safety regulations.
Bill C-27 would HARMonize our food safety and agricultural practice regulations with these American laws and standards in the push to further integrate Canada into their global EMPIRE - where all directives will come from outside our borders. Indeed, this is just one more step to eventually "dissolve the border". Bill C-27 is one more step in making us just one more obedient, toothless "Banana Republic", in which our elected government has surrendered its ability to establish any independent internal standards and/or controls. As a Canadian, this is not the kind of Canada I want to live in."
Inge Hanle
---------------------------
PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2005
Keep Canadian food inspection system independent, say scientists
Canada risks losing its ability to adopt independent testing and the inspection capacity it needs to protect the health and safety of Canadians if Bill C-27, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, is passed, say prominent Canadian and U.S. scientists who will be addressing the House Standing Committee on Agriculture this afternoon.
Dr. Lester Friedlander, former USDA veterinarian and meat inspector, says "rules and regulations are broken every day in the United States because the government is not enforcing them, allowing, for example, animal protein to be fed back to cattle." He has seen this occur in the U.S. and believes it is a growing problem in Canada. Warning Canadians against adopting U.S.
inspection rules and practices, Dr. Friedlander says, "The public must insist that the food safety regulatory function be separated from the governmental agency promoting corporate agribusiness. We need a genuine, separate department of consumer protection."
Dr. Gerard Lambert warns against relying on other countries' testing. "If food is not tested properly it will contaminate our food chain very rapidly. Testing after the fact is too late." He added, "Bill C-27 is about harmonizing with US regulations. It is not about protecting the health of Canadians."
Bill C-27 would allow the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to accept testing and certification results from other countries. The government has said this legislation will make Canada's food and agriculture regulatory system more similar to the American system.
However, the U.S. system currently permits irradiation of meat, which is not allowed in Canada, has failed to meet World Health Organization guidelines for preventing BSE, and relies on voluntary compliance when companies are found in violation of its regulations.
Furthermore, U.S. whistle-blower scientists who act in the public interest are not protected.
"This government's 'Smart Regulation' legislative renewal project, which includes Bill C-27, is what I describe as the 'Corporatization of Knowledge' -- instituting private interests ahead of the public good," says Dr. Shiv Chopra, who along with colleagues Dr. Margaret Haydon and Dr. Gerard Lambert, blew the whistle on conflicts of interests in Health Canada's drug approval process. "We will request the postponement of the entire legislative renewal process until after a full public inquiry into what we, as scientists, have been suffering on account of the pressure exerted on us to pass drugs and other products and methods of questionable safety."
The scientists will appear as witnesses at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, Room 253-D Centre Block at 3:30 PM, April 12.
Canadians opposed to Bill C-27 can fax a letter of concern to their MP from the Beyond Factory Farming Coalition web site, www.beyondfactoryfarming.org.
The BFF Coalition is a network of local, provincial and national groups including the Council of Canadians. It promotes livestock production that supports food sovereignty, ecological, human and animal health, as well as sustainability and community viability and informed citizen/consumer choice.
For more information:
Cathy Holtslander, Beyond Factory Farming Project Organizer, (306) 955-6454 or cellular (306) 229-4075 Jan Malek, Council of Canadians (613) 233-4487 ext. 231
www.healthcoalition.ca/c28e.pdf
The Hill Times (April 25, 2005)Food Adulteration Bill, a very nasty piece of legislation
Bill C-28 will accelerate adulteration of Canada's food supply with cancer-causing chemicals
GUEST COLUMN By MICHAEL MCBANE
PHOTO CAPTION: It's his file: Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh is the minister responsible. [Photograph by Jake Wright, The Hill Times]
With all eyes on the Gomery Inquiry,the Government of Canada is sneaking a very nasty piece of legislation through Parliament. Bill C-28, an Act to Amend the Food and Drugs Act, will accelerate the adulteration of Canada's food supply with cancer-causing chemicals, pesticides, food additives and veterinary drugs like growth hormones and antibiotics. During second reading debate the
Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health, Robert Thibault, told the House not to worry, the bill is "not related to food safety,but is a "technicalmatter.Mr.Thibault added that C-28 is "in line with the ongoing intent of the Government of Canada's smart regulation initiative.He added that the bill: "will support ongoing work under the North American Free Trade Agreement Technical Working Group on pesticides.
In article 4 of the Food & Drugs Act, the Minister's duty is to prohibit the sale of food that has been adulterated. Under Bill C-28, the minister will exempt from this adulteration provision: a) an agricultural chemical; b) and its components or c) derivatives, d) singly or e) in any combination; f) a veterinary drug and g) its metabolites, h) singly or i) in any combination; j) a pest control product or k) its components or l) derivatives ; or m) a food additive.
Food would not be adulterated if the food is named in "an interim marketing authorization or IMA.The IMA could also be used to allow higher residues of these toxins in a food.Hocus-pocus, adulteration is not adulteration if the Minister of Health says so! The effect of Bill C-28 is to eviscerate the Minister of Health's statutory duty to protect the public from health hazards and fraud.The Minister of Health's new statutory duty in Bill C-28 is to expose Canadians to chemicals, food additives, pesticides and veterinary drugssome of which are believed to be carcinogens like estradiol, a growth hormone widely used in industrial beef production.
This transformation of the Minister of Health's statutory duty from protecting our food from chemical adulteration to facilitating chemical adulteration is described as Smart Regulation. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, smart can mean: 1. severe enough to cause pain, and 2. selfishly clever verging on dishonesty; and unscrupulously clever. Bill C-28 is very smart.
The Precautionary Principle states that: Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent adverse health impact.Why is Health Canada's Health Products and Food Branch not applying the Precautionary Principle in the regulation of pesticide, chemical, and veterinary drug residues in the diet of children, infants, pregnant women and other human beings?
Health Canada approved the use of six hormones used in beef production that are banned in the EU: estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, trenbolone, zeranol, and melengestrol acetate. According to the EU's Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures Relating to Public Health: "no threshold levels can be defined for any of the six substances.
Estradiol is linked to DNA damage, early puberty among girls, and breast cancer in women.The human epidemiological studies point to estradiol as a carcinogen adding approximately three per cent breast cancer risk per year of estrogen exposure.
The EU asked the WTO for Canada to supply the risk assessment data upon which Health Canada determined that these six hormones banned in Europe are in fact safe for human consumption. The Government of Canada responded that the risk assessment data (as well as the Health Canada reviewers'assessment) are secret. If a process is secret it is not scientific.How can we trust their claim that residues in our food have no harmful health effects?
2,4-D is being approved by Health Canada, in spite of the fact that toxic equivalent intakes exceed WHO guidelines for all children under five.This is shocking, that even when there is scientific evidence of harm, we're being told that safety has been established. There appears to be no limit beyond which senior managers in Health Canada's Health Products and Food Branch are prepared to go on behalf of their industrial clients.It would be imprudent and unwise to trust Health Canada to "determinein secretthat toxic residues in our food "would not pose an unacceptable health risk to the public.How can anyone establish a "safe level for residues in food of which one single molecule can cause a mutation leading to cancer? How many Canadians have to die from diet related cancer before Health Canada stops the adulteration of the food supply with known carcinogens?
Canadians are being misled about Bill C-28 and Smart Regulation.We'd have to be very naive to think that harmonizing with U.S. regulations would have no negative impact on public safety.The Bush White House is implementing a sweeping deregulatory strategy to dismantle public health and environmental safeguards.
Canadians don't want their health protection weakenedeven if it is done in a smart' (and unscrupulous) manner. They don't want their safety rights gutted piecemeal with Bill C-28. Nor do they want their health protection in the Food & Drug Act gutted wholesale by means of the Minister's proposed new Canada Health Protection Act. Canadians want health regulation based on the Precautionary Principle, where one always errs on the side of safety and not on the side of the risk.
The Gomery Inquiry and the corruption in the sponsorship program will pale in comparison to what a public inquiry into Health Canada's regulatory programs would bring to light.
Michael McBane is the national coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition (www.medicare.ca) and author of Ill-Health Canada: Putting food and drug company profits ahead of safety, Ottawa: CCPA, 2005.
posted by Chris Gupta on Wednesday April 27 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2005/04/27/more_food_adulteration_for_profit.htm
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