WESTON A. PRICE FOUNDATION
ACTION ALERT
February 24, 2006
Protect State Food Safety Laws!
Stop Deregulation of Food Safety
A bill is pending in the U. S. House of Representatives that would eliminate dozens of food safety laws. The bill, H.R. 4167, does this by stripping away the power of states to regulate food safety.
Here is how the bill works. Under the guise of promoting “uniformity” of food safety laws in the U.S., the bill requires all state food safety laws to be identical to the requirements of the Federal Food and Drug Administration. If the FDA has not passed a regulation on a food threat, then all state regulations on that threat would immediately be voided. And, since the states regulate many food safety issues not covered by the FDA, many food safety laws will be voided and replaced with no law at all. For example, the bill would preempt California’s Proposition 65, a very effective law that requires labeling of food products that contain cancer causing substances. IT WOULD ALSO HAVE A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE AVAILABILITY OF RAW MILK PRODUCTS.
The “uniformity” to be achieved by the bill is in many instances the uniform absence of food safety regulation that the food industry seeks.
This bill is a threat to the safety of the U.S. population and to the rights of states to regulate food within the state. It is opposed by dozens of environmental health groups, by California’s State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, the Association of Food and Drug Officials, the National Conference of State Legislators and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture.
There are currently 226 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives to pass the bill in the House, so every letter is needed to ensure that these Representatives understand what a bad bill this is.
CONTACT YOUR U.S. REPRESENTATIVE NOW AND URGE THEM TO VOTE NO!
To send a letter by e-mail to your Representative, please go to
http://ga3.org/campaign/fooduniformity_national.
Time is of essence. The House plans to vote on this bill next week!
Leave a Reply