are we all citizens of the Han kingdom, now?

[Guest guest]

this from < www.thebovine.wordpress.com >

once one grasps that human institutions wind up doing the opposite of what they set out to do, the outlawing of REAL MILK ... especially micro-dairies run by yeoman farmers ... starts to make sense

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FDA not pulling Chinese milk products because China has U.S. by the financial balls — suggests attorney Bill Marler

Here are some telling excerpts from a recent post on the Haphazard Gourment blog. The Mr. Marler quoted below is a lawyer who specializes in food poisoning litigation.

"….So what is the massive disconnect with FDA's position on China? Mr. Marler's response is haunting:

"Why did the FDA not recall any Chinese product suspected with melamine? One reason, China owns one trillion dollars of our debt. China is our banker and you do not mess with your banker. Think about how quickly the FDA threw the spinach and tomato industries under the bus when contamination was suspected."…."

Earlier in the same post they say:

"….FDA has lagged behind every other country in the world in putting a stop to melamine contaminated products flooding into America; the agency has refused to both totally ban Chinese products or to make any kind of aggressive product recalls. Our new satellite FDA office in China isn't there to stop contaminated Chinese products from getting in to the US, it's there to make it seem as if something is being done. We still inspect less than 1 percent of foreign imports, and the US is the largest importer of food made in China.

Even worse, an FDA recall, even a Class 1 recall (which lists death as a probability of consumption), does little to actually get contaminated products off store shelves and out of consumers' hands. FDA has virtually no legal power to enforce and oversee recalls, no manpower to enforce and oversee recalls, and has no punitive powers, either. When FDA announces a recall, no manufacturer or shop owner is getting punished in any way for continuing to sell contaminated products (go here and here to read about our experience with finding contaminated Chinese products in LA, after these were recalled by FDA).

"When FDA claims there isn't any reason to worry, that's exactly what the consumer should do," said Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group. "The once-revered public health agency has morphed into a taxpayer-funded public relations arm for the very industries it was created to oversee."

And beyond just being a public relations firm for Big Ag and Big Pharma, FDA is now also protecting the interests of the US economy at the expense of citizen health….."

Read the whole Haphazard Girls post

Here's a link to Mr. Marler's blog.

Here's a post from Bill Marler's blog about Chinese food products and the law.

Here are two previous posts from the Bovine exploring this theme:

Nestle Baby Formula recall in South Africa

FDA recommends parents continue using tainted baby formula in U.S.

And instead of doing something about the Chinese melamine problem, the FDA is instead prosecuting raw milk farmer Mark McAfee for shipping raw milk across state lines for pet food. One wonders about their priorities. See these previous posts on The Bovine:

Out of state pets out of luck

Scopes Monkey Trial for raw milk