(NaturalNews) The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), an organization whose mission includes "defending the rights and broadening the freedoms of family farms and protecting consumer access to raw milk and nutrient dense foods", recently filed a lawsuit against the FDA for its ban on interstate sales of raw milk. The suit alleges that such a restriction is a direct violation of the United States Constitution. Nevertheless, the suit led to a surprisingly cold response from the FDA about its views on food freedom (and freedoms in general).
Read the original Mike Admas report here: http://www.NaturalNews.com/028757_raw_milk_FDA.html
In a dismissal notice issued to the Iowa District Court where the suit was filed, the FDA officially made public its views on health and food freedom.
The FDA essentially believes that nobody has the right to choose what to eat or drink. You are only "allowed" to eat or drink what the FDA gives you permission to. There is no inherent right or God-given right to consume any foods from nature without the FDA's consent.
"There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds." [p. 26] "Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish." [p.26]
Essentially, the FDA does not believe in health freedom at all. It believes that it is the only entity granted the authority to decide for you what you are able to eat and drink.
In a cow-share program, you buy a share of the cow's produced milk, and you pay a cost of the cow's upkeep. It's sort of like CSA shares for farm veggies, but with cow's milk instead of veggies. This arrangement drives the FDA absolutely batty because it bypasses their authority and allows free people to engage in the free sales of raw dairy products produced on small family farms.
Raw milk's track record of safety is phenomenal, and all legitimate studies indicate that it's actually less prone to harbor harmful bacteria than the pasteurized stuff (which is all dead, modified milk anyway). According to a Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) report, between 1980 and 2005, there were ten times more illnesses from pasteurized milk than there were from raw milk. And most of the reports that link illness outbreaks with raw milk provide little or no evidence that raw milk was even the culprit.
Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) recently sent cease-and-desist letters to four buying clubs even though there is no Massachusetts law that prohibits their existence. When club members challenged the legitimacy of the warnings, MDAR decided to propose a new regulation to specifically outlaw buying clubs. Scott Soares, a Massachusetts legislator who is friends with the MDAR commissioner, revealed to them that "large dairy producers" had contacted him to push for raw milk restrictions. BIG DAIRY trying to wipe out competition from small family farms?
So what we have here is a classic case of a large and powerful industry pushing government regulators to outlaw competing products so that it can monopolize the market. It's the same thing that Big Pharma does in getting the FDA to destroy nutritional supplement companies. But now it's happening with raw milk, too.
U.S. government regulators have become monopoly market enforcers for Big Business, and they won't let anything get in their way... not even personal health freedoms or just basic access to food.
Not only does the FDA think it has the power to regulate interstate trade; it also thinks it can regulate intrastate trade (which means buying and selling within state borders). In fact, the agency made this very clear on page 6 of its dismissal when it wrote, "It is within HHS's authority...to institute an intrastate ban [on unpasteurized milk] as well."
This is the FDA trying to run rampant over States' rights. The federal government, after all, isn't satisfied to exercise control over the limited powers granted to it by the U.S. Constitution -- it wants to overthrow the tenth Amendment and dictate rules, regulations and laws that the states are being forced to follow.
Even private contracts aren't a fundamental right, according to the FDA - On page 27 of the dismissal, the FDA also states that Americans do not have a fundamental right to enter into private contractual agreements with one another, either.
On January 28, 2009, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced HR 778, a bill that would end all federal restrictions on interstate traffic of raw milk. It's along the same lines as the current lawsuit which challenges the constitutionality of such restrictions in the first place. You can read the entire bill at the following link: (http://www.ftcldf.org/docs/HR_778_I...)
The FTCLDF has a petition page where you can contact your Congressmen and urge support for HR 778. You can even ask your Senators to cosponsor it. Please support this effort by signing this online petition.
Even more urgent than this is the need to express your opposition to a "food safety" bill going before the U.S. Senate called the "FDA Food Safety Modernization Act". Also known as S. 510, this bill, if passed, will drastically increase the FDA's power over food and make it very difficult to obtain natural, unprocessed foods of any kind. It would give the FDA completely power to irradiate, fumigate, pasteurize or otherwise destroy every item you consume, from fruits and vegetables to dairy products.
Remember how I said that the FDA (wrongly) thinks it has the power to regulate intrastate trade? Well S. 510 would specifically grant the agency this power. The FDA would then have the power to destroy all small, local farming, gardening or dairy operations in your home town, even if your state expressly defends your rights to engage in such activity.
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