Food Police - The Overbearing FDA

[Ryan Ruck]

Lol!

[American Patriot]

Hey, they aren't going after guns, they are going after vitamins. Those can be VASTLY more dangerous, because people living longer remember more....

[vector7]

Should Parents Lose Custody of Super Obese Kids?

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
By LINDSEY TANNER, Associated Press



In a July 11, 2011 photo, Stormy Bradley, left, and her daughter Maya, 14, are seen, in Atlanta. Maya, who is 5'4

CHICAGO (AP) — Should parents of extremely obese children lose custody for not controlling their kids' weight? A provocative commentary in one of the nation's most distinguished medical journals argues yes, and its authors are joining a quiet chorus of advocates who say the government should be allowed to intervene in extreme cases.

It has happened a few times in the U.S., and the opinion piece in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association says putting children temporarily in foster care is in some cases more ethical than obesity surgery.

Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital Boston, said the point isn't to blame parents, but rather to act in children's best interest and get them help that for whatever reason their parents can't provide.

State intervention "ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible.

That may require instruction on parenting," said Ludwig, who wrote the article with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and a researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health.

"Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child," Murtagh said.
But University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan said he worries that the debate risks putting too much blame on parents. Obese children are victims of advertising, marketing, peer pressure and bullying — things a parent can't control, he said.

"If you're going to change a child's weight, you're going to have to change all of them," Caplan said.

Roughly 2 million U.S. children are extremely obese. Most are not in imminent danger, Ludwig said. But some have obesity-related conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties and liver problems that could kill them by age 30. It is these kids for whom state intervention, including education, parent training, and temporary protective custody in the most extreme cases, should be considered, Ludwig said.

While some doctors promote weight-loss surgery for severely obese teens, Ludwig said it hasn't been used for very long in adolescents and can have serious, sometimes life-threatening complications.

"We don't know the long-term safety and effectiveness of these procedures done at an early age," he said.

Ludwig said he starting thinking about the issue after a 90-pound 3-year-old girl came to his obesity clinic several years ago. Her parents had physical disabilities, little money and difficulty controlling her weight. Last year, at age 12, she weighed 400 pounds and had developed diabetes, cholesterol problems, high blood pressure and sleep apnea.

"Out of medical concern, the state placed this girl in foster care, where she simply received three balanced meals a day and a snack or two and moderate physical activity," he said.

After a year, she lost 130 pounds. Though she is still obese, her diabetes and apnea disappeared; she remains in foster care, he said.

In a commentary in the medical journal BMJ last year, London pediatrician Dr. Russell Viner and colleagues said obesity was a factor in several child protection cases in Britain. They argued that child protection services should be considered if parents are neglectful or actively reject efforts to control an extremely obese child's weight.

A 2009 opinion article in Pediatrics made similar arguments. Its authors said temporary removal from the home would be warranted "when all reasonable alternative options have been exhausted."

That piece discussed a 440-pound 16-year-old girl who developed breathing problems from excess weight and nearly died at a University of Wisconsin hospital. Doctors discussed whether to report her family for neglect. But they didn't need to, because her medical crisis "was a wake-up call" for her family, and the girl ended up losing about 100 pounds, said co-author Dr. Norman Fost, a medical ethicist at the university's Madison campus.

State intervention in obesity "doesn't necessarily involve new legal requirements," Ludwig said. Health care providers are required to report children who are at immediate risk, and that can be for a variety of reasons, including neglect, abuse and what doctors call "failure to thrive."

That's when children are severely underweight.

Jerri Gray, a Greenville, S.C., single mother who lost custody of her 555-pound 14-year-old son two years ago, said authorities don't understand the challenges families may face in trying to control their kids' weight.

"I was always working two jobs so we wouldn't end up living in ghettos," Gray said. She said she often didn't have time to cook, so she would buy her son fast food. She said she asked doctors for help for her son's big appetite but was accused of neglect.

Her sister has custody of the boy, now 16. The sister has the money to help him with a special diet and exercise, and the boy has lost more than 200 pounds, Gray said.

"Even though good has come out of this as far as him losing weight, he told me just last week, 'Mommy, I want to be back with you so bad.' They've done damage by pulling us apart," Gray said.

Stormy Bradley, an Atlanta mother whose overweight 14-year-old daughter is participating in a Georgia advocacy group's "Stop Childhood Obesity" campaign, said she sympathizes with families facing legal action because of their kids' weight.

Healthier food often costs more, and trying to monitor kids' weight can be difficult, especially when they reach their teens and shun parental control, Bradley said. But taking youngsters away from their parents "definitely seems too extreme," she said.

Dr. Lainie Ross, a medical ethicist at the University of Chicago, said: "There's a stigma with state intervention. We just have to do it with caution and humility and make sure we really can say that our interventions are going to do more good than harm.

[vector7]

Should Government Take Two Million Children Away From Their Parents?

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Written by Thomas R. Eddlem

Thursday, 14 July 2011 09:43

An article in the most recent edition of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggests that as many as two million children who are "morbidly obese" should be put on a diet by government and removed from their parents and families if they don't show progress.

A morbidly obese person is someone who's body mass index (BMI) is 40 or higher, generally someone who is 100 pounds or more overweight. According to the July 13 USA Today, and the JAMA article, "Roughly 2 million U.S. children are extremely obese. Most are not in imminent danger, Ludwig said. But some have obesity-related conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties and liver problems that could kill them by age 30."

USA Today added, "Ludwig said he starting thinking about the issue after a 90-pound 3-year-old girl came to his obesity clinic several years ago. Her parents had physical disabilities, little money and difficulty controlling her weight. Last year, at age 12, she weighed 400 pounds and had developed diabetes, cholesterol problems, high blood pressure and sleep apnea." But Ludwig has apparently never heard of the legal adage that "hard cases make bad law."

David Ludwig of Boston Children's Hospital, one of the two authors of the JAMA article, is quick to say that society itself should be restructured — in addition to the family — in order to combat childhood obesity. "The point isn’t to blame the parents, but rather to act in the child’s best interest and get them help that for whatever reason their parents can’t provide,” Ludwig told the Children's Hospital blog. “It’s ironic that we would blame parents for their child’s obesity when we tolerate as a society policies that directly promote obesity, like food ads aimed at young people, atrocious-quality school lunches, cutbacks in school budgets to support regular physical education. There’s plenty of blame to spread around.”

Ludwig and his co-author Lindsey Murtagh of the Harvard School of Public Health acknowledge their proposals are going to be controversial. "State intervention would clearly not be desirable or practical, and probably not be legally justifiable, for most of the approximately 2 million children in the United States with a BMI at or beyond the 99th percentile," the two wrote.

Indeed, the legal hurdles are daunting. The traditional standard for removing a child from his or her parents has been only to prevent permanent "imminent and irreparable harm to the child." Despite the extreme example that inspired Ludwig, most obese children have little damage that is irreparable to them and little damage that is imminent. Moreover, even imminent harm to a child alone is not enough to necessitate taking a child away from his parents.

In a 2004 New York state custody case, the state's highest court unanimously ruled that "the court must specifically consider whether imminent risk to the child might be eliminated by other means" before parental custody can be removed.

This standard of presumption on behalf of parents is under assault, however. "It’s a controversial stance, but not one without precedent," the Boston Children's Hospital blog noted. "To date seven states have seen legal cases where the over-nourishment of a minor ended in state intervention."
And while nobody wants children to grow up obese and with health problems, the alternative is almost certainly worse. ABC-TV covered the Ludwig story and found that in one case placement in foster care did not cure the weight issue, but parental separation had traumatized the child.

Such is more likely to be the case with government, as "government competency" seems to be a bit of an oxymoron.

Consider just two recent examples:

Government health inspectors twice gave a City of Fall River, Massachusetts, pool a clean bill of health, even as the body of 36-year-old Marie Joseph lay unnoticed by lifeguards and other safety staff for more than two days. The hand-wringing and blame-game among government inspectors continues, with the consensus being that the pool water was too cloudy to see Joseph's body. Yet while Joseph — a mother of five — lay undetected by staff (despite lifeguards being warned by a nine-year-old child that someone had not come up out of the water) during two full days of operation. Joseph's body was eventually discovered by some teenage boys pool-hopping the municipal pool after hours.

In essence, an entire host of government employees — whose jobs were to check the pool — could not find a body in the pool during daylight for two days, even though some kids were able to spot the body at night without even looking for it.

Another example of government employees acting much like Mr. Magoo is the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who's book A Stolen Life is now a bestseller. Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped and spent 18 years in captivity at the hands of a convicted sex offender, even though there were some 60 home inspections by police and parole officers of her captor, Phillip Garrido, during the term of Dugard's captivity.

Moreover, her captivity was punctuated by 9-1-1 calls from neighbors warning that the childless Garrido had children living at his home.

Throughout Dugard's ordeal, the only person who never stopped looking for Jaycee was her mother, who founded a search foundation; distributed buttons, T-shirts, and awareness paraphernalia; and arranged to get her daughter on television's America's Most Wanted. Dugard's mother is testimony to the truth that no one loves a child more than his or her parents.

Faced with such unfathomable and universal government incompetency, the real question in the debate over childhood obesity is: How can an indifferent and incompetent government be trusted to take care of kids better than their parents?

[samizdat]

Fish oil, excellent stuff. It's the vitamin d that kills arthritis. Lots of sun helps too. I had a trick knee that with 20-30 degree weather changes could leave me stranded- hopping in mid-street. I take the cheap shark oil pearls. Now i only use advil for a real injury.

[American Patriot]

Getting plenty of sun, and I take daily vitamins anyway now.

[Luke]

While I have no squeaky fish I am inclined to sample this fish oil of which you folks speak. My Mother-In-Law swears by the stuff. I am at the point of trying anything, much like 1969.

[American Patriot]

While I have no squeaky fish I am inclined to sample this fish oil of which you folks speak. My Mother-In-Law swears by the stuff. I am at the point of trying anything, much like 1969.

LOL. I can promise you won't get psychedelic hallucinations.

Walmart sells it. There's another called "Krill oil" that is supposed to be even better.

Fish oil contains omega-3 fatty acids, which is good for your heart, your skin, helps to reduce inflammation in your body (such as arthritis... hint hint) and of course omega-3 also is an anti-oxidant. Countries with the highest intake of fish in their diets are correlated with the lowest rates of depression among citizens.

People who take this stuff are said to have lowered instances of various cancers including prostate and breast cancers.

The American Heart Association recommends 1 gram of fish oil per day.

[Luke]

With my luck I would be the first person to overdose on krill oil. Probably die of diareahia,which according to Ms. Luke would take awhile as I am full of material.

I most likely should stock up now as no doubt the "government" will "regulate" the sale of krill oil. It is my understanding that many large drug companies are not happy with the over the counter sale of vitamins and such.

[American Patriot]

With my luck I would be the first person to overdose on krill oil. Probably die of diareahia,which according to Ms. Luke would take awhile as I am full of material.

I most likely should stock up now as no doubt the "government" will "regulate" the sale of krill oil. It is my understanding that many large drug companies are not happy with the over the counter sale of vitamins and such.

I don't see why they would be unhappy since most of the companies MAKE most of those items.

Besides, the multivitamin is about the only other miracle drug besides aspirin.

[Ryan Ruck]

I take 5000 IU of D3 daily just because I don't get outside and in the sun as often as I'd like. Thanks heat and humidity!

I did notice when I started taking it I had improved energy levels.

[Brian Baldwin]

I take fish oil daily for my heart. Didn't know about the Vitamin D for arthritis. Gonna hit that hard. lol

[American Patriot]

Fish oil for arthritis.

[Brian Baldwin]

Fish oil for arthritis.

Then it ain't helping One of my heart meds actually causes arthritic pain. It sucks but what can you do?

[Ryan Ruck]

Michelle Obama's 1,556-Calorie Lunch Raises Eyebrows

July 11, 2011

First Lady Michelle Obama may have temporarily forgotten the lessons of her own anti-obesity campaign when she indulged in a sinfully caloric lunch Monday at a popular new hamburger restaurant.

A Washington Post reporter said the first lady ordered a cheeseburger, french fries, chocolate shake and Diet Coke at Shake Shack -- a trendy hamburger spot that recently opened an outpost in Washington's Dupont Circle.

Based on nutritional information on the restaurant's website, the meal added up to a scale-tipping 1,556 1,700 calories. (See following article)

Obama has made the fight against childhood-obesity a central focus of her White House tenure and launched the "Let's Move" campaign to promote exercise and ensure children have access to healthy food.

The Post noted, however, that she has also admitted to having an "obsession with french fries."

"It's all about moderation," she has told reporters.

Michelle Obama Orders 1,700-Calorie Meal At Shake Shack

July 11, 2011

Update: We made a mistake in our original calculations. The calorie-count for the first lady’s order was actually 1,700, not the 1,556 we originally reported. Our apologies.

First lady Michelle Obama ordered a whopper of a meal at the newly opened Washington diner Shake Shack during lunch on Monday.

A Washington Post journalist on the scene confirmed the first lady, who’s made a cause out of child nutrition, ordered a ShackBurger, fries, chocolate shake and a Diet Coke while the street and sidewalk in front of the usually-packed Shake Shack were closed by security during her visit.

According to nutritional information on Shake Shack’s Web site, the meal amounted to 1,700 calories. But it was impossible to tell whether the first lady intended to eat the entire order, or share with friends (the latter seems a tad more likely considering the two drinks).

The first lady’s office did not comment on the subject.

Obama, who launched the “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity last year, has previously admitted to having an “obsession with french fries,” which she says are fine to indulge in occasionally. “It’s all about moderation,” Obama told reporters.

Most nutritionists interviewed for a story on the subject by ABC news said that there was no harm in a one-term junk food splurge.

"While the goal for healthy eating is to limit choices like fries and shakes, occasional treats won't hurt. The problem is that many Americans do this more than occasionally," said Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis, told ABC. "It is good to see that even someone as committed to health as the first lady knows that healthy eating is about balance not perfection."

[American Patriot]

The fat slob.

lol

[vector7]

The Cheerios Charade

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Written by Beverly K. Eakman

Monday, 22 June 2009 17:00

0 If ever there was a textbook example of why a free people should think twice before tasking government with a job (much less dedicate an entire agency to it), the Food and Drug Administration’s latest goofball maneuver to classify the breakfast cereal “Cheerios” as a drug is it! A June 21 editorial in the Washington Times made the point that it was the accuracy of claim placed on the side of the Cheerios box promoting the cereal’s cholesterol-lowering properties that did it in, not false statements or misrepresentation. Apparently, the term “coronary heart disease” was way too specific for tender eyes at the FDA, as opposed to plain vanilla “heart disease,” and thus General Mills, Inc. was slapped with a mandate to obtain an approved drug application in order to market Cheerios legally. FDA press officer, Susan Cruzan, made the FDA into a laughingstock when she explained how the preciseness of the cereal-maker’s language outweighed truthfulness. The FDA, formed in 1906, is today an agency comprised of nine offices and bureaus under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Post 9/11, this huge behemoth works in tandem with the likes of the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Department of Homeland Security to safeguard the people’s foods, dietary supplements, drugs, vaccines, biological medical products, blood supplies, medical devices, veterinary merchandise, and even cosmetics. The original justification for the agency was to protect public health and inspect for dangerous diseases and faulty drugs before products got to grocery and pharmacy shelves. But like so many bureaus and offices since the 1960s, the FDA has become “too big for its britches,” throwing its weight around helter-skelter while neglecting the job for which it was created. Drug after drug has come to market, only to be recalled very publicly after many people have been sickened and even died. Psychiatric drugs comprise a case in point, since these are among the newest products aggressively being marketed, especially to youngsters who either are misbehaving or experiencing learning difficulties. For reasons that escape many pediatric neurologists, such as Dr. Fred Baughman of California, the FDA questions neither the whole concept of “emotional diseases” nor the drugs purported to cure them. Indeed, most such drugs haven’t been around long enough to support a track record. The only thing known for sure is that these legal, mind-altering substances are so riddled with side-effects that a virtual cocktail is frequently dispensed to counteract the unwanted outcomes. One would think alarm bells would have gone up long ago in offices at the FDA when children on psychotropic drugs started committing spectacular atrocities. Instead, the FDA is busy slapping black-box warnings on one psychotropic drug after another, after the fact, and cautioning manufacturers of all pharmaceuticals to provide TV viewers and magazine readers with page-long lists of “possible side effects” in their promotions. Unfortunately, most patients lack the training necessary to assess whether this confusing list applies to them. Meanwhile, tainted foods (spinach leaves, peanuts, etc.) are being distributed through our groceries and restaurants at an alarming rate. The peanut scare that resulted in salmonella being transmitted through peanut butter is just one in a long list of recent incidents pointing to a lack of inspection services that the public has grown to expect for its FDA tax dollars. The FDA has bigger fish to fry than Cheerios. For example, over-the-counter medications like Excedrin Migraine contain the exact same ingredients as Extra Strength Excedrin, yet the former claims to stop migraines — a patently ridiculous assertion to any sufferer who reads the ingredients. Like the cop who prefers to troll for easy marks along a tame stretch of roadway-turned-speed trap, the FDA pursues the simple cereal-maker over a more complicated pharmaceutical industry. Over-the-counter medications are not the only items with misleading packaging. Pharmaceutical moguls have figured out that they can rope in additional population sectors by simply changing the name and packaging of existing products. Take Eli Lilly’s so-called “antidepressant,” Prozac. It got a new color (pink) and a new name (Sarafem) for treatment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) in women. What is PMDD? The list of symptoms includes depression, anxiety, irritability, anger, lethargy, changes in appetite, and bloating. Had advertisers left it at “bloating” — a confirmable, objective ailment, if not quite a disease — they might have gotten by with the ruse, even if the drug didn’t work. But in the rush to legitimize more mental “illnesses” and administer mind-altering drugs to as many people as possible, Lilly opted for Sarafem, which reads like a dead-ringer for Prozac, given the identical empirical formula (reprinted in a 2006 book by investigative journalist Kelly O’Meara, Psyched Out). But it was the directions that gave the game away. Women were supposed to take Sarafem only during the two weeks before their menses — “a new concept, a mental illness: [one that] comes and goes every two weeks,” interjects author O’Meara — whereas Prozac patients have to take their drug every day and avoid discontinuing it too suddenly! So, if the ingredients in Sarafem are identical to the ingredients in Prozac, the warning given in the directions makes no sense. To underscore the farce, O’Meara reprinted a sentence from Lilly’s letter to healthcare professionals: “Prozac [is] no longer authorized for treatment of … PMDD.” Meanwhile, the only persons not being harassed over their medications are junkies and drug-runners. The laughable Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) injects the usual slew of useless paperwork into an already compromised individual privacy gambit and a failed War on Drugs. Numerous folks have reported picking up their prescriptions and signing for them, only to get home and receive notification an hour later on their computers (usually landing in their spam filters and junk mail) offering the same medication cheaper from questionable, online sources. Some of these medicines are atypical, lending credibility to the idea that pharmacy computers are being hacked by opportunists. Worse, however, is that this means so-called privacy laws like HIPAA, enacted by government, are unworkable or maybe even bogus. The fact is, most people, including Baby Boomers, have never used “recreational” drugs, abused prescription drugs, or driven a car “under the influence.” Yet, these law-abiding citizens are targeted, while traffickers of illicit drugs are out on probation in a New York minute. When law-abiding citizens have a painful medical condition, they often run a gamut of insulting drug-screening tests (aimed actually at illegal drugs) on a regular basis merely to obtain their prescriptions, while officials look the other way when a member of the political elite has a record of selling or partaking of illicit drugs in their younger days. Worse, good citizens who play by the rules are not protected after helping law enforcement stop traffickers and identify gang members (see: No Angel, the biographical bestseller by Jay Dobyns, the undercover cop at Arizona’s office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives whose family and home was targeted by Hell’s Angels thugs). Moreover, the FDA’s Cheerios charade is symptomatic of much more than bureaucratic overkill. It is about a government that is out of control — a government that protects itself, not American citizens.

Walnuts Are Drugs, Says FDA

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Written by Michael Tennant

Thursday, 21 July 2011 10:10

6 Seen any walnuts in your medicine cabinet lately? According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didn’t approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, “Your walnut products are drugs” — and “new drugs” at that — and, therefore, “they may not legally be marketed … in the United States without an approved new drug application.” The agency even threatened Diamond with “seizure” if it failed to comply. Diamond’s transgression was to make “financial investments to educate the public and supply them with walnuts,” as William Faloon of Life Extension magazine put it. On its website and packaging, the company stated that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts have been shown to have certain health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. These claims, Faloon notes, are well supported by scientific research: “Life Extension has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts”; and “The US National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than 35 peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk.” This evidence was apparently not good enough for the FDA, which told Diamond that its walnuts were “misbranded” because the “product bears health claims that are not authorized by the FDA.” The FDA’s letter continues: “We have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.” Furthermore, the products are also “misbranded” because they “are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.” Who knew you had to have directions to eat walnuts? “The FDA’s language,” Faloon writes, “resembles that of an out-of-control police state where tyranny [reigns] over rationality.” He adds: This kind of bureaucratic tyranny sends a strong signal to the food industry not to innovate in a way that informs the public about foods that protect against disease. While consumers increasingly reach for healthier dietary choices, the federal government wants to deny food companies the ability to convey findings from scientific studies about their products. Walnuts aren’t the only food whose health benefits the FDA has tried to suppress. Producers of pomegranate juice and green tea, among others, have felt the bureaucrats’ wrath whenever they have suggested that their products are good for people. Meanwhile, Faloon points out, foods that have little to no redeeming value are advertised endlessly, often with dubious health claims attached. For example, Frito-Lay is permitted to make all kinds of claims about its fat-laden, fried products, including that Lay’s potato chips are “heart healthy.” Faloon concludes that “the FDA obviously does not want the public to discover that they can reduce their risk of age-related disease by consuming healthy foods. They prefer consumers only learn about mass-marketed garbage foods that shorten life span by increasing degenerative disease risk.” Faloon thinks he knows why this is the case. First, by stifling competition from makers of more healthful alternatives, junk food manufacturers, who he says “heavily lobb[y]” the federal government for favorable treatment, will rake in ever greater profits. Second, by making it less likely that Americans will consume healthful foods, big pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers stand to gain by selling more “expensive cardiac drugs, stents, and coronary bypass procedures” to those made ill by their diets. But people are starting to fight back against the FDA’s tactics. “The makers of pomegranate juice, for example, have sued the FTC for censoring their First Amendment right to communicate scientific information to the public,” Faloon reports. Congress is also getting into the act with a bill, the Free Speech About Science Act (H.R. 1364), that, Faloon writes, “protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings with the public.” Of course, if the Constitution were being followed as intended, none of this would be necessary. The FDA would not exist; but if it did, as a creation of Congress it would have no power to censor any speech whatsoever. If companies are making false claims about their products, the market will quickly punish them for it, and genuine fraud can be handled through the courts. In the absence of a government agency supposedly guaranteeing the safety of their food and drugs and the truthfulness of producers’ claims, consumers would become more discerning, as indeed they already are becoming despite the FDA’s attempts to prevent the dissemination of scientific research. Besides, as Faloon observed, “If anyone still thinks that federal agencies like the FDA protect the public, this proclamation that healthy foods are illegal drugs exposes the government’s sordid charade.”

[American Patriot]

sigh

FDA needs to go.

[Luke]

Walnuts are drugs and ketchup is a vegetable.

[Backstop]

I'm semi-keeping track of this stuff, so I'll use this thread.

It continues...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,7791693.story

3 arrested on raw-milk charges

L.A. County prosecutors allege that unpasteurized dairy products were sold illegally and did not meet health standards.

By Stuart Pfeifer and P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times

August 4, 2011
The owner of a Venice health food market and two other people were arrested on charges related to the allegedly unlawful production and sale of unpasteurized dairy products, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said.

The arrests of James Cecil Stewart, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch on Wednesday marked the latest effort in a government crackdown on the sale of so-called raw dairy products.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles alleged that Stewart, 64, operates a Venice market called Rawesome Foods through which he illegally sold dairy products that did not meet health standards because they were unpasteurized or were produced at unlicensed facilities.

Palmer, 51, has operated Healthy Family Farms in Santa Paula since 2007 without the required licensing for milk production, prosecutors allege. She and her company face nine charges related to the production of unpasteurized milk products.

Bloch, a Healthy Family Farms employee, is charged with three counts of conspiracy.

The arrests followed a one-year investigation during which undercover agents purchased unpasteurized dairy products from Healthy Family Farms stands in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, said Matthew Krasnowski, a district attorney spokesman. The products included unpasteurized goat milk, cheese and yogurt.

The arrests came the same week that federal and state health officials warned the public about a food-borne illness outbreak tied to ground turkey contaminated with antibiotic-resistant salmonella, an outbreak in which one Californian has died and 76 others have fallen ill so far.

It also marks the latest salvo in the government's crackdown on unpasteurized dairy products.

In June 2010 investigators raided the Venice grocery store, seizing stacks of unmarked jugs of raw milk, cartons of raw goat and cow milk, and blocks of unpasteurized goat cheese, among other grocery items. Regulators alleged that Rawesome broke the law by failing to have the proper permits to sell food to the public.

Still, no arrests were made and Rawesome reopened the same week. Stewart said at the time that Rawesome didn't need such permits because it wasn't technically a retailer. He contended that the store was a private club whose members paid an annual fee and service charges to obtain products directly from farmers.

While the raid was taking place in Venice, another was occurring at Palmer's Healthy Family Farms in Ventura County. There, California agriculture officials said, the farm owner's milk processing plant had not met standards to obtain a license to sell raw milk or raw milk products. Shortly after the raid, Palmer was back in business.

Demand for all manner of raw foods has been growing, spurred by heightened interest in locally produced, unprocessed products.

But government regulators contend such products can be dangerous; there is scientific evidence linking disease outbreaks to raw milk. The milk can transmit bacteria, which can result in diarrhea, dangerously high fevers and in some cases death.

Raw milk, in particular, has drawn regulatory scrutiny, largely because the politically powerful dairy industry has pressed the government to act. It is legal for licensed dairies to sell raw milk at retail outlets in California, according to research by the National Conference of State Legislatures. But the number of such outlets has dwindled amid retailer concerns over potential litigation.

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com