FAN Bulletin #520:

March 12, 2006.

Dear All,

I received this disturbing email tonight from Dr Luise Light. We last heard from Dr. Light during her efforts to the get her fellow councilors in Bellows Falls, Vermont to take a second look at the fluoridation policy there. The other two authors of this email are also very concerned about fluoride. Marry Sparrowdancer has circulated a long paper that she wrote on the dangers of fluoride and Pam Killeen has interviewed me for the magazine The Crusader. Pam also shares a deep concern for the loss of scientific integrity among scientists working for regulatory agencies.

In this email they write about the passage of the controversial bill (”National Uniformity in Food Act”) in the U.S. House of Representatives’ which would wipe out more than 200 state laws protecting consumers from infected, toxic and carcinogenic food. Because this bill was pushed through with little public comment, at the hands of intensive lobbying by the big food conglomerates, several groups are organizing a boycott against “big food.”

I believe it is something that those fighting the nonsense of forced water fluoridation would wish to support. Sadly, we have reached a time in this country where rational debate on issues like these have been stifled. The only time when “those in charge” stop to think is when they are confronted by a dent in their pocket book or legal action.

It is also a delightful protest: eat local, eat fresh and eat organic. Now that is an action I, for one, will enjoy taking!

Please pass this message along to others. Thanks.

Paul Connett

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Contacts: Luise Light - Vermont - luvalu365@yahoo.com

 

 

Bellows Falls, March 13 - Responding to the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of the controversial “National Uniformity in Food Act,” the bill that would wipe out more than 200 state laws protecting consumers from infected, toxic and carcinogenic food, leading food safety advocates call for a boycott of the big food brands who wrote the legislation and lobbied Congress to secure its passage. The legislation is the most sweeping deregulation of our national food safety rules in the 100 years since the passage of the nation’s first food protections, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

This Act eliminates ways to alert the public to health hazards in our food and water with potentially deadly consequences for the most vulnerable– infants, pregnant women, immune-compromised and elderly individuals. States have played the main role for many decades in protecting consumers from hazards such as mercury in fish, arsenic in water, genetically modified ingredients in common foods, carcinogens in processed foods, and pathogens in raw and undercooked foods, problems largely ignored or inadequately addressed by USDA, FDA and EPA, which have already been charged with this responsibility.

 ”At a time when we know that there are 72 million bouts of illness, 325,000 hospitalizations, and more than 5000 deaths each year as the result of food poisoning, what justification can there be for destroying the minimal food safety protections now in place? As we import more food from third world countries with poor food sanitation, we need more and better regulations, not fewer and weaker ones,” says former USDA insider, Dr. Luise Light, nutritionist and food safety activist, who is calling for a big food brand boycott to drive home the outrage of many consumers and food, health and environmental professionals to the legislation passed in the House on March 8, 2006, without public input.

Other groups on record as opposing the bill are: 30 state Attorneys General, the Association of Food and Drug Professionals, the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, the Organic Consumers Association, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and numerous other consumer and environmental groups all of whom urge the Senate to vote to undo the damage done by the House.

Join the boycott of big food brands whose parent companies steamrolled this legislation. For just one month, buy only local, regional, fresh, and organic food. Avoid all the packaged, bottled and bagged foods and drinks in grocery and convenience stores, and when eating out, avoid the chains. “If we speak with our wallets and our actions, we will be heard,” says Light. 

For more about Dr. Light and her new book, “What to Eat; the Ten Things You Need to Know to Eat Well and Be Healthy” (McGraw Hill, 2006), www.luiselight.com

 Mary Sparrowdancer, science and health writer with extensive studies in clinical laboratory sciences; author of “The Love Song of the Universe,” (Hampton Roads, 2001). www.sparrowdancer.com

 Pam Killeen, Investigative Consumer Reporter and Real Food Activist, www.pamkilleen.com