Tag: FDA

Trump Is Bad For Your Dog, Too

Like most Republicans and fools who don’t think ahead, Donald Trump is opposed to regulations, including regulations that keep your best friend from being poisoned. Trump wants to stop the FDA from regulating what is in our food, calling the FDA the “food police,” even complaining about the regulation of dog food: Donald Trump often …

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How Big Pharma Markets to Doctors

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

John Oliver opened the second season of HBO’s “This Week Tonight” with a humorous but sobering segment on how big pharmaceutical companies market their drugs to doctors, spending an estimated $24 billion per year in direct marketing.  In his witty but serious way, he explains that 70% of Americans take at least one prescription drug, and spent $329 billion, $1000 per person, on those medications in 2013. John quipped, “Walter White could have made more money cooking up rheumatoid arthritis medication.”

Big Pharma tactics include everything from lunch, to sexy sales reps to expensive dinners with other doctors who pitch the sale as “thought leaders.” The drugs are often pushed for “off label” use, that is, use that the FDA has not approved and most of the reps know very little, if anything, about the drugs that they’re pushing.

Drug companies are like high school boyfriends, they’re more interested in getting inside you than in being effective once they are there.

One a the good things that the Affordable Care Act did is it created a web site, OpenPaymentsData.CMS.gov that which enables average citizens a chance to search for perks given to doctors by pharmaceutical companies.

“Farmageddon”

Note: There is a Washington Post review on this movie that opens today in major cities. The positive review points out the government’s treatment of small farms and begins with a question “Why is it so easy to buy cigarettes but so difficult to purchase raw, unpasteurized milk?

Yesterday on the The Leonard Lopate Show there was a very disturbing interview. It was another story of government being in bed with big business, this time making our food unsafe in the process. Three people try to explain why the government is turning a blind eye to the large corporations that are making us sick while raiding small farms and food co-ops to address problems that don’t even exist.

The outbreaks of foodborne illnesses in recent years, the salmonella in peanut butter and E. coli in bagged spinach have led to concerns about the way the FDA has been enforcing its food safety regulations. Each of those outbreaks has been traced to a factory farm or large processing plants but small farmers who have had little connection to them are bearing the brunt of government raids, searches and product confiscation. A new documentary called Farmageddon investigates the increasingly tenuous standing of small farms in our food system. It opens this Friday at Cinema Village and joining us today are Kristin Canty, the director and co-producer, Linda Failace, the co-owner of Three Shephard’s Cheese in Vermont and Gary Cox, the General Counsel for the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Welcome to our show….

You can listen here. You should be outraged by those three stories, everyone should.  I have a few details below.  

Gha!



Heinz ‘surprised’ by consumer group’s pasta sauce deception claims

Pique the Geek 20101205: The Food Safety Modernization Act

After the food contamination incidents over the past couple of years, the Congress has put forth a revamp of food safety law in the United States.  This bill bass the House back in 2009 and was tied up in the Senate until last week.  The Senate passed its version (with amendments) and so it has gone back to the House for either passage of the Senate version or to head for a conference committee for resolution.

This act (S. 510) has created an outcry from both the extreme right and some “back to nature” types on the left.  Herein we shall examine some of the key provisions of the proposed law and make some judgments.  My personal feeling is that it will die before the Congress completes action on other, critical legislation like the tax issue, unemployment benefits, the federal debt ceiling, and funding the government, but who knows?

could affect tourism … but finding the truth is more important

Gulf Coast Communities Investigate Oily Sea Mist

by Debbie Elliott, NPR — September 3, 2010

Orange Beach city hall has been inundated with calls from residents with complaints – foam that they think is dispersant, a gray-metallic slick in back bays or seaweed that looks oiled. There’s a heightened sense of environmental awareness, and local officials are looking for a way to determine what’s going on.

Mayor Tony Kennon says that’s why the town hired independent scientists to test the air, water and soil.

[…]

Orange Beach is using grant money from BP for the testing, and posting the data on the town’s website. Mayor Kennon says negative results could affect tourism in the short term, but finding the truth is more important.

Kudos to Mayor Kennon for taking a stand, for what’s right!

The Major is a man of his word.

Monitoring, he is.

McCain and DSHEA

Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act Sounds nice don’t it, but like everything else these people propose it is really Codex Alimentarius, that pile of horsemanure under yet another name.  In Canada it was bill C6.

http://vitaminlawyerhealthfree…

I do so love it when people speak truth.

The terms of this bill further the Globalist Eugenicide Agenda in that it seeks to treat dietary supplements, which are foods and therefore ought to be deemed safe if used as directed, as though they were toxins (while, of course, the agency treats the real dangers – GMOs, food additives, dangerous drugs, vaccines and industrial toxins as though they were perfectly safe).

Melamine Scandal Far More Widespread Than Thought

This from Richard Spencer in Beijing, this morning:

A statement posted on online government media overnight said that 294,000 babies and young children had suffered “urinary system abnormalities” after drinking formula milk from Sanlu, the company most seriously affected, and other brand names.

It now says as many as six infants died and up to 294,000 suffered from urinary tract ailments including kidney stones. That figure is a lot higher than had previously been reported. More than 850 children are still being treated in hospital; at least 150 of them are said to be seriously ill. Why? Last year, China’s dairy industry was worth $18 billion. That’s a whole lot of dairy products.

The Skinny on Big Food & Big Pharma

A couple of days ago I wrote this diary and copped quite a few unkind comments, mostly from misinformed posters and a handful of hardcore denialists. Yet the problems persist, and shooting the messenger rarely helps. But I’m a tough cookie, comfortable in the knowledge of what I know and write about and in this diary I’m basically tackling the same issues albeit from a different angle: “Big Pharma” and the multinational junk & processed foods companies (“Big Food”) which, worldwide, make gigantic profits on the back of unsuspecting consumers, specifically marketing non-nutritious food appealing to children and adults alike via disingenuous advertising.

Obesity, though some would prefer to call it eating disorders, is a big growth area, not just for the unwitting sufferers, but also for some food companies which contributes so greatly to the problem. “Big Pharma” which works in tandem with “Big Food” would love to “terminate” its main source of competition: the natural products industry and the organic movement.

Non-Political Diary Alert: Melamine Now Found in Egg Products!

I wasn’t going to write anything until after the election (Go Obama!) but this is important, IMHO. Yesterday melamine was found in several egg products in South Korea following last week’s similar discovery in Japan, marking the first time the toxic chemical has been found in Chinese egg products.

Some of you have followed my pieces on the Chinese melamine scandal, here is the last one with a comprehensive list of the tainted products. Add egg products to this list now, and God knows what else! Egg products can be found in many items such as cake mixes, cookies and much more, see the list below. Having said that, don’t be alarmed, just make sure you know the provenance of your food products and read the labels carefully.

Dem. Congresswoman Raps FDA On Melamine Risk Guidelines

This is my fourth diary on the melamine scandal (but first here on Docudharma), and like the financial scandals it shows no sign of going away any time soon. To this day 10,666 infants are still in Chinese hospitals fighting for their lives.

Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), chairwoman of the Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, issued the following statement about the FDA’s announcement that, despite potential harm to the kidneys, some melamine would not raise health concerns:

“While other countries throughout the world, including the European Union, are acting to ban melamine-contaminated products from China, the FDA has chosen to establish an acceptable level for melamine in food in an attempt to convince consumers that it is not harmful. Not only is this is an insult to consumers, but it would appear that the FDA is condoning the intentional contamination of foods.”

Another pet food scare and recall!

Crossposted at dkos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

A friend emailed me yesterday about this FDA warning (bold mine):

Recall — Firm Press Release

Mars Petcare US Issues Voluntary Recall of Everson, PA Plant Dry Pet Food Product due to Potential Salmonella Contamination

Some of the brands are listed below.

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