S. 1310 the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011

Senator Durbin, the number 2 man in the Senate, (the Democratic Whip), has for many years attempted to undermine the hard won victories of Proxmire, NLEA, and the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). He has launched a new battled against the dietary supplement industry with the introduction of S. 1310 the Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011. This can only spell trouble for the industry and the consumers who rely on supplements.

One company selling single serving products (Lazy Cakes) Melatonin ‘Brownies’ along with energy drinks that the FDA is looking to target, have given Senator Durbin a ‘Consumer Protection’ platform from which to launch legislation that would have much broader implications. This is a strategy that cannot be ignored or underestimated.

Senator Durbin Wants to Give the FDA Even More Power: In typical Durbin fashion, he issued press statements and introduced the legislation just as Congress was headed home for the July 4th holiday week. Also true to form, the press statements and the actual text of the legislation tell different stories. According to press accounts, Senator Durbin is seeking to have the FDA draw a strong line between dietary supplements and food additives, the Durbin/ Blumenthal “legislation would require FDA to establish a clear definition of which products are foods and should be regulated as such and which products are meant to be health aids and should be regulated as dietary supplements. “ If that was not bad enough (there is no indication that the drafts of DSHEA intended for a hard line to be drawn between foods and supplements), his legislation goes much further. Durbin’s proposed legislation chips away at the founding principles of food law as they relate to dietary supplements, pushing both closer to the drug regulatory framework, which even Pharma says is too lengthy and too costly. (Currently it is estimated that a drug company will spend around $1 billion and a dozen years to get a product approved.)

S. 1310:

• Adds Additional and Burdensome Registration Requirements for Manufacturers;

• Seeks to Supersede US Law with the Implementation of a European Union Style List of food ingredients and products which can be sold as supplements; and

• Will Be the Death Knell for Proprietary Blended Products.

Dietary Supplements and other Food are Already Heavily Regulated: All foods including dietary supplements are already heavily regulated. In the last few years Congress has passed major legislation including the Food Safety Bill that the FDA is working to implement.

Further, DSHEA, which was passed into law in 1994, has components that are not yet fully implemented. The laws on the books are sufficient to address the melatonin brownie issue as well as any questions about energy drinks; a concerted grassroots effort is needed to educate those involved and stop this bill from progressing. So far only Senators Durbin and Blumenthal are cosponsors. A concerted effort is needed to keep it that way.

Even if the Bill does not move through regular order in the Senate, Durbin is very powerful, may try to insert the Bill language into another Bill that is moving, so we will need to maintain vigilance and insure other Senators do not go along.

Health Freedom and the Food Supply

The desire for Americans and our global neighbors to maintain liberty has never been stronger than it is as we enter the Spring of 2011.  The focus on healthfreedom is a cornerstone of that liberty.  What happens in the agricultural community directly affects consumers’ access to quality dietary supplements as dietary supplements are foods.

Budget Battle: Washington is embroiled in budget battles that will go on for months.  The hard truth that we as a nation are grappling with is that for every dollar being spent by the United States Government, 45 cents of it is borrowed.  This is called deficit spending. There are only two ways to solve deficit spending – to decrease spending or to increase income.  Increasing the income of the United States means raising taxes, and the 50% of Americans who pay taxes in this country are not okay with that.  We’ve seen the size of government grow dramatically, with more than 100,000 federal jobs created and massive government programs like health care reform be enacted into law.  All of the economic experts and most Americans understand this is not sustainable.

Families around the world are feeling the crushing weight of increased food and fuel prices.  In the United States, food prices have gone up about 8 %. In North Africa and Middle East, countries such as Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Jordan, and Libya have seen food prices skyrocket, more than 25% in under a year. It is a contributing factor to the instability of these countries.  Food shortages are not uncommon.  Just a few years ago, the Codex Alimentarius instructed its member countries to pass food control legislation (which in the US called food safety) and something.  Increased regulations contribute to increase pricing as companies always pass the additional costs on to the consumer.

Health Freedom Cannot Fall by the Wayside: Health freedom is not just a battle to protect access to dietary supplements.  The right to maintain control of your own decision making in health including in the foods you purchase is as key to liberty as freedom of speech.  The founders of this great nation wrote of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Nutritional liberty including informed consent through proper labeling and maintaining an active free market with expanded choices are essential.

Food Safety Battle Continues: During the last few years as the federal government has sought to expand its regulatory powers for the food supply, the USDA has announced it will in essence deregulate certain GM products.  The announcement in January that the USDA will allow the unrestricted commercial cultivation of GM alfalfa sees has many in Congress and the public outraged.  The environmental impact statement recently released is inadequate. Alfalfa is the 4^th largest crop planted in the United States and the hay it produces is used to feed cattle and horses.

American consumers and farmers like our global neighbors have rejected the industrial push for genetically modified (GM or GMO) seeds and continue to fight tough battles to keep these seeds away from agricultural communities, especially organic farms. Everyone desires clear and accurate labeling on foods, including GM foods including meats from animals fed GM grains. The public has also rejected the concept of mandatory irradiation of their foods, including organic foods (even herbs). There is a broad consensus among the public that if GM foods are going to enter the market place, and if foods are irradiated, that they ought to be truthfully labeled.  The consumer should be accurately informed and be given the liberty to make their own choices.

Attempts at one size fits all regulation in agriculture, puts many small, local, and specialty farms at risk for elimination.  Americans want raw foods including herbs to truly be raw.  In addition to the irradiation battle farmers have been challenged with, now forced pasteurization is being forced upon more industries than just the dairy industry.  Most consumers do not realize that when they pay extra for eggs that are organic, when there is an ink stamp on the egg, it means the eggs were heated up.

Keep in mind, if an organic herb farmer is forced to compromise their techniques through onerous government regulations, then the dietary supplements that are made from those herbs are compromised as well.   At every turn, government gives the appearance of ignoring the desires of the public as it relates to protecting organic and promoting techniques and products the public opposes.

Organic Foods and Farms

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) recently published statements regarding the growth of the industry.

Organic food industry continues to see growth.  Gary Lucier, economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research, said that recent estimates of the fresh produce industry by Roberta Cook, economist at the University of California-Davis, puts consumer value of fresh fruits and vegetables at close to $113 billion. Lucier said the OTA’s $9.79 billion estimate of the consumer value of organic fresh produce doesn’t seem too out of line compared to Cook’s estimate, representing about 8% of the total fresh produce consumer value. “It is not inconceivable to me that you would have 8% to 10% of the total sales value as organic,” he said.

An OTA survey found:

· 78% of organic farms plan to maintain or increase organic production levels in the next five years.

· Roughly 40% of organic operations added jobs in 2010

· 96% of operations plan to maintain or increase employment opportunities in 2011.

The 2010 growth range of organic fresh produce of better than 10% was still less than half what it was in the two or three years before the recession.  Rising gas prices will affect the price of foods, but consumers remain interested.

Genetically Modified Foods

Genetically modified (GM) or engineered foods affect the entire food supply including dietary supplements. The risks are not fully understood.  Consumers and farmers alike oppose their broad adoption. During the last few years as the federal government has sought to expand its regulatory powers for the food supply, the USDA has announced it will in essence deregulate certain GM products.  The announcement in January that the USDA will allow the unrestricted commercial cultivation of GM alfalfa sees has many in Congress and the public outraged.  The environmental impact statement recently released is inadequate. Alfalfa is the 4^th largest crop planted in the United States and alfalfa hay is used to feed dairy cattle and horses.

GM Alfalfa – the battle rages on:   One of the most pressing issues that the USDA has not resolved for GM foods is product drift.  Organic farmers say their crops and their livelihoods can be damaged by pollen drifting from neighboring fields. Crops cannot qualify as organic, and the premiums often accompany the designation, if they contain GM material.  The National Organic Coalition says all GM crops should be regulated and there should be a ban on GM corn, sugar beets, alfalfa and canola and other GM crops “too promiscuous to prevent GM contamination.”

In March farmers and a number of consumer groups filed a lawsuit against the USDA stating the approval of the unrestricted planting of GM alfalfa seeds is unlawful because it will, according to their own data lead to a dramatic increase in the use of toxic herbicides.  “USDA data show that 93% of all the alfalfa planted by farmers in the U.S. is grown without the use of any herbicides. With the full deregulation of GE alfalfa, USDA estimates that up to 23 million more pounds of toxic herbicides will be released into the environment each year.”

Genetically Engineered Salmon:  A genetically engineered salmon is likely to be sold in the United States in the near future.  This salmon has higher hormone rates in than wild salmon and the risk to humans is not fully understood.  Unless the FDA changes its current policies, the industry would be allowed to market these salmon without any notification on the label that it is GE salmon.  This labeling issue is at the core of consumers’ concerns.

Legislation:

H.R. 521 and S. 2230 introduced by Congressman Don Young of Alaska and Senator Mark Begich to prevent the FDA from approving genetically engineered fish.

These same legislators introduced H.R. 520 and S. 229 to “deem a food to be misbranded if it contains genetically-engineered fish unless the food bears a label stating that it contains genetically-engineered fish.”

There are only a few sponsors of these bills to date.  These bills deserve a grass roots push for support, otherwise they will languish.

This is our new effort to a Change the Health and Wealth of the World – you can become involved very easily - it will benefit your personal health through a product greatly while you contribute to the POP Campaign Efforts – contributing to something bigger than ourselves.  Here is the link to the article -read about MOMS4POP near the end – and contact us to participate.  Contact us –  Rudi_Leonardi-4

LAST CHANCE on FOOD FREEDOM and CHOICE – 24 hours to go – call your Congressional Representatives the last vote was 212 to 206 with 17 not voting – educate them – NO on the Food Safety Bill – see numbers of your representatives -http://clerk.house.gov/member_

The Food Safety Modernization Act looks like it’s headed to become law. It’s being hailed as a “breakthrough” achievement in food safety, and it would hand vast new powers and funding to the FDA so that it can clean up the food supply and protect all Americans from food-borne pathogens. The Food Safety Modernization Act looks like it’s headed to become law. It’s being hailed as a “breakthrough” achievement in food safety, and it would hand vast new powers and funding to the FDA so that it can clean up the food supply and protect all Americans from food-borne pathogens.

There’s just one problem with all this: It’s all a big lie.

Here are the ten biggest lies that have been promoted about S.510 by the U.S. Congress, the food industry giants and the mainstream media:

Lie #1 – Most deaths from food poisoning are caused by fresh produce

Here’s a whopper the mainstream media won’t dare report: Out of the 1,809 people who die in America every year from food-borne pathogens (CDC estimate), only a fraction die from the manufacturer’s contamination of fresh produce.By far the majority of food poisoning is caused by the consumption of spoiled processed foods, dead foods and animal-human transmission of pathogens.

For example, one of the largest food-borne killers according to the CDCisToxoplasma gondii, adiseasethat people acquire from cat feces coming into contact with their food, which can happen right in their own homes  (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/Vol5n…). Salmonella poisoning accounts for553 deaths a year. As a reference for relative risk, over 42,000 people die each year from road accidents in the USA, meaning driving acarhas a roughly7600% higher chanceof killing you than eating fresh produce. (http://www.driveandstayalive.com/in…)

In terms of food-borne illness, many of the deaths come from things like spoiled tomato sauce, spoiled canned foods and spoiled pasteurized milk. S 510, of course, does absolutely nothing to address these food contamination deaths, since those foods are considered “sterilized” at the time of sale.

Lie #2 – Under S.510, the FDA would only recall products it knows to be contaminated

Not true. S.510 merely requires the FDA to have “reason to believe” a food is contaminated. So right there, that meansall raw milk will be targeted by the FDAbecause even without conducting any scientific tests at all, the FDA can say it has “reason to believe” the milk is contaminatedmerely because it is raw.

In other words, the FDA no longer needs science to outlaw a food product. It merely needsan opinion.

Is this “reason to believe” section really true? Yep, and here’s how it was amended:

SEC. 208. ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION OF FOOD.
23 (a) IN GENERAL. – Section 304(h)(1)(A) (21 U.S.C.24 334(h)(1)(A)) is amended by
(1) striking ”credible evidence or information indicating” and inserting ”reason to believe”;
(http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi…)

In other words, in negotiating this bill, the U.S. Senate removed the requirement that the FDA needed “credible evidence” in order torecalla product and, instead, replaced that with the FDA only needing “reason to believe.”

It is utterly amazing that the U.S. Congress would give the FDA to conduct large-scale product recalls and evenimprison peoplebased entirely on what the agency “has reason to believe.”

Last time I checked, the FDA held some pretty bizarre (if not downright moronic) beliefs, including this jaw-dropping whopper: The FDA literally believes that there is no food, no herb, no vitamin or supplement thathas any ability to prevent disease of any kind. They don’t even believe limes can prevent scurvy, and you’d have to nutritionally illiterate to believe that.

The FDA believes foods are inert and that all the amazing phytonutrients in those foods (carotenoids, antioxidants, therapeutic fats like omega-3 and so on) are utterly useless for human biology.

This belief, held by the FDA that has now been put in charge of the food supply, isthe belief system of an insane government agencythat has completely lost touch with reality while abandoning nutritional science.

Lie #3 – They didn’t tell you that nearly 70% of grocery store chickens are contaminated with salmonella every day

Yep, it’s true: Amid all the fear-mongering over salmonella, everybody forgot to notice that the vast majority of fresh chickens sold at grocery stores every single day are widely contaminated with salmonella. Yet S 510 does absolutely nothing to address this. It’s not even mentioned in the bill.

In fact, it is these contaminated chickens that end up cross-contaminating the fresh produce in many kitchens across America. So the so-called “food poisoning” that’s often blamed on spinach or onions often originates with the contaminated chicken meat people bring home and slice on their kitchen cutting boards.

Lie #4 – S.510 will exclude and protect small farmers

TheTester Amendment, which was finally included in S.510, excludes farmers who sell less than $500,000 worth of food each year from the more onerous paperwork and compliance burdens described in the bill. But this dollar amountis not indexed to inflation, meaning that as the U.S. dollar continues to lose value due to the Federal Reserve counterfeiting machine running at full speed (more “quantitative easing,” anyone?), food prices will continue to skyrocket — and this will shift even small family farms into the $500,000 sales range within just a few years.

In fact, a single-family farm with just four people could easily sell $500,000 worth of fresh produce a year right now, even before inflation. Remember, $500,000 is not their profit, but rather the gross sales amount. The profits on that might be only $50,000 or even less.

Furthermore, this $500,000 threshold means that small, successful farms that are doing well and would like to expand willrefuse to hire more peopleor expand their operations. To avoid the tyranny of S 510, small farms will try to stay small, and that means avoiding the kind of business expansion that would create new jobs.

Lie #5 – The FDA needs more power to enforce food safety

The FDA already has thepowerto effectively recall foods by publicly announcing a product has been found to be contaminated. The FDA already has the power to confiscate “misbranded” products, too, and it could easily use this power to halt the sale of contaminated food items.

But the FDA simply refuses to enforce the laws already on the books and, instead, has sought to expand its power by hyping up the e.coli food scares. The ploy apparently worked: Now in areactionto the food scare-mongering, the FDA is being handed not just new powers, but more funding, too! And you can bet it will find creative new ways to put this power to work suppressing the health freedoms and food freedoms of the American people.

Lie #6 – Fresh produce is contaminated because of a lack of paperwork

There is no evidence that requiring farms to fill out more paperwork will make their food safer. The real cause of producecontaminationis the existence of factory animal farms whose effluent output (huge rivers of cow feces, basically), end up in the water supply, soils and equipment that comes into contact with fresh produce.

The food contamination problem is an UPSTREAM problem where you’ve got to reform the factory animal operations that now dominate the American meat industry. S.510, however, does absolutely nothing to address this. Factory animal farms aren’t even addressed in the bill!

Lie #7 – The American people are dying in droves from unsafe fresh food

The truth is that Americans are dying fromprocessed foodlaced with toxic chemical additives, not from fresh, raw produce. Partially-hydrogenated oils, white sugar, aspartame, MSG and artificial food colors almost certainly kill far more people than bacterial contaminations.

The American public is also dying from pharmaceuticals — anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 people a year are killed by FDA-approved drugs, most of which have been approved under the guise of blatantly fraudulent science and drug company trickery. The FDA doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, it has been a willful co-conspirator in the scientific fraud carried out by Big Pharmain the name of “medicine.”

To think that the FDA — the very same agency responsible for the Big Pharma death machine — is now going to “save us” by controlling food safety is highly irrational.

Lie #8 – The FDA just wants to make food “safer”

Actually, the FDA wants to make the food more DEAD. Both the FDA and the USDA are vocal opponents of live food. They think thatthe only safe food is sterilized food, which is why they’ve supported the fumigation, pasteurization and irradiation efforts that have been pushed over the last few years.

California almond growers, for example, must now either chemically fumigate or pasteurize theiralmondsbefore selling them. This has destroyed the incomes of U.S. almond farmers and forced U.S. food companies to buy raw almonds from Spain and other countries.

Lie #9 – Food smuggling is a huge problem in America

One of the main sections of S.510 addresses “food smuggling.” Yep — people smuggling food across the country. If you’ve never heard of this problem that’s because it’s not actually a problem.

Not yet anyway.

But there’s a reason why they put this into the bill: Because they’re probably planning oncriminalizing fresh produceand then arresting people for transporting broccoli with the “intent to distribute.”

Yep, farmers bringing fresh produce to sell at the weekend farmer’s market could soon be arrested and imprisoned as if they were drug smugglers. Hence the need for the “food smuggling” provisions of S.510.

Soon, we will all have to meet in secret locations just to trade carrots for cash.

Lie #10 – S.510 will make America’s food supply the safest in the world

Actually, even with S.510 in place, America’s food supply is among the most chemically contaminated in the world, second only to China. You can find mercury in the seafood, BPA in the canned soup, yeast extract (MSG) in the “natural” potato chips, and artificial petrochemical coloring agents in children’s foods.

Eating the “Standard American Diet” is probably the single most harmful thing a person can do for their health. It’s the fastest way to get cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Every nation in the world that begins to consume the American diet starts to showrecord rates of degenerative disease within one generation. This is the “safe food” that the U.S. Senate is now pushing on everyone.

Remember, with S.510, SAFE = DEAD. And the FDA says it wants to keep everybody safe.

Thanks to Mike Adams, Health Ranger – editor of Natural News

The House attached the Food Safety Bill on to the Continuing Resolution allowing the government to be funded. The Senate is expected to vote quickly on Thursday or Friday – let’s give this one more push – most Senators who voted before probably will not change their mind but this is worth a call -please see the numbers below.

December 6, 2010: While the Senate voted to pass the newer version of S. 510, the Bill may not actually make it to the President’s desk for signing into law this year after all. We are now learning that Senate staff were informed from the outset that the ‘reinspection fees’ provision of S. 510 violated the Constitutional provision that states that all tax provisions (any provision in legislation that levy’s fees) must begin in the House of Representatives.

Typically there would be a Conference process where members of the House and Senate of both parties would sit down and work through the differences in the two Bills. However, because the Congress is running out of time, (the 111th session of Congress ends at the end of 2010), the leadership determined they would side step this process and simply send S. 510 to the President. This is not a new or unusual sidestepping, but typically only happens when there is no controversy attached to legislation. The rules that govern the parliamentary procedures allow for such an action, but with the Constitutional violation, this is not possible.

Keep in mind, the conference process would have been arduous and filled with opportunities to make the Bill unpassable in either the House or the Senate because the House food safety bill passed earlier this year is completely different than the Senate version. As one staffer said, “they are similar in name only”.

The issue is not dead however; there is much negotiating going on between the House and Senate Leadership. One discussion is to introduce S-510 with a House number and to pass it quickly. There is not, as yet, an agreement to do this because with the fee provision, both the Energy and Commerce and the Ways and Means Committees have to vote it out of Committee. So far, the Ways and Means Committee is rejecting the Senate created language. Keep in mind that this Committee sees more than just this Bill being affected. Such a move would, in the minds of some, undermine their Constitutional authorities and lessen their power.

Congress will remain in session probably right up until Christmas and is entrenched in other matters related to the Bush era tax cuts that expire at the end of the year, the unemployment benefits extension issue, and the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy.

While the Bill that passed was much better than what we started with in 2009, the core issues of expanding FDA’s authorities remains problematic at the core. We cannot assume that S. 510 is dead. We will keep you posted.

After the Senate vote on the Food Safety Bill, the House was expected to vote quickly – pro-forma.

It appears that Section 107 of the Senate bill contains a revenue-raising (i.e., taxing) provision which appears unconstitutional according to Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”  Because of the Senate violation, the House has implemented a procedure known as “blue slipping” to keep the bill out of consideration and send it back to the Senate to clean it up.

The only possible “quick fix” would be a unanimous consent agreement in the Senate to strike that revenue-raising provision from the bill—and, after speaking with staff in  Sen. Tom Coburn’s office, there are efforts to oppose this so that a unanimous consent will be impossible.

Stay tuned – what will be done with the Bill – spend more time in a a Lame Duck Congress, opening everything up for controversy again, or do nothing and allow the bill to die.

If this happens and the bill dies, a new bill would be introduced next year with a much better opportunity to craft something that really works for all of us in the health and wellness industry. This stall is what is needed. Stay Tuned.

Thanks for ALL of your support on the push back and throughout the year – our community is what we are about.

The Food Safety Bill has passed in Senate 73-25 and now goes to House for reconciliation which we’ve been told will be quick with no changes. Our engagement in this process with all of you has made this bill much less onerous than what we started with.

What did we achieved as the POP Campaign? Last December we got Senators Harken and Hatch going on the record that the FDA could not harmonize Codex regs for dietary supplements without Congress. Over the year, we got small business exemption language in the bill, furthered by the Tester Amendment, we got clarification that farmers markets and road side stands are not adversely affected, we got an arms length protection over our personal gardens through many discussions (only in an emergency), and a significant report-back of the FDA to Congress on its implementation of Codex. There has been much traction and credible visibility all along the way with our presence in DC with Beth Clay and participation in discussions at so many levels.

This is just the beginning of our work to engage with the FDA in its regulatory process and hearings. We will as a community need to watch-dog and educate the decision makers who will write the new regulations to protect our organic community and choices. We promise you, if the FDA goes too far, the POP Campaign will reengage in the 112th congress to take appropriate action.

Thanks for all of your support – keep it coming and we will keep your voice alive.

In the January Hippocrates magazine – Healing Our World, there will be a new article presenting future POP Campaign strategies – we hope to work with you towards healthy food freedom and choices.