Unsafe food is linked to trade pacts

[Robbien]

Source: ALEX PULASKI, The Oregonian Staff

Watchdog - Public Citizen's report urges Congress to rewrite four deals that it says expose Americans to more risk


International trade agreements and a resulting influx of foreign food are putting American consumers at risk, concludes a report issued Wednesday by Public Citizen.

The public-interest watchdog organization, based in Washington, D.C., said four free-trade pacts awaiting congressional review will expose more Americans to potentially unsanitary foods. The report contends that food inspections are inadequate and that the agreements would empower private companies overseas to file suit if the U.S. government attempts to block imports over safety concerns.

. . .

Owen Froerer, a Nyssa farmer, said free-trade agreements are also working against farmers who can't compete against lax pesticide rules and lower wages in other countries.

"We're slowly just getting killed in these small farming communities," he said.



Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1185418529226870.xml&coll=7

[SpiralHawk]

1. Want clean food for your family? Look into CSA

And do it soon.

"Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers a way for every human being to be directly involved in the care and healing of the earth, while also ensuring a supply of clean, healthy food for their families and their neighbors."

http://www.chiron-communications.com/farms.html

[jus_the_facts]

2. It's not just from overseas.. .salmonella in peanut butter and spinich... botulism...cardboard....

...in baby food...all happened right here...but I don't trust other countries to be honest either...I think it's a concerted effort to reduce the population...a few here..a few there..with food and drugs and destruction of the environment...it all adds up eventually...besides a select number of folks are still gettin' stinkin' ass rich...that's all that really matters. :nopity:

[cascadiance]

3. NAFTA/GATT, etc. also allows our multinationals to push unhealthy food on other countries...

Not only are they trying to race to the bottom of being able to profit from import of unsafe foods, but multinationals are also using the WTO to force other countries to import unsafe food from US too.

Check out this ruling by the WTO on Mexico's attempt to encourage soft drink manufacturers to use its own cane sugar instead of HFCS additives for sweetening soft drinks like coke through tariffs.

The WTO complains that this tariff is a trade barrier that shouldn't be there in the interest of "free trade", even though it is ignoring that the U.S. subsidizes corn-based products, which has really created this situation where Mexico has to put up tariffs to protect its sugar industry.

The side effect of this is that in effect the WTO and these trade agreements is being used to push HFCS into other countries, which arguably forces them to use more unhealthy products, since HFCS is arguably the cause of greater and earlier incidences of disease like diabetes.

http://www.geocities.com/jonclark500/stories/coke.html

The bottom line is that these trade agreements and the WTO, etc. aren't there to help enforce fair labor practices, environmental concerns, or health concerns in their rulings, but to push laws that feeds those that have control over it, the multinationals' interests in profit, and damn everything else that stands in the way of that!