Calif. AG Disputes FDA on Tuna Warning

[Eugene]

Calif. AG Disputes FDA on Tuna Warning


Saturday August 20, 2005 3:31 PM

By ERICA WERNER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration told California
this week that the state's attempt to require mercury warnings on
tuna conflicts with federal law.

California's attorney general disputed the FDA letter Friday, and
said it was an attempt to stop a lawsuit the state has filed against
tuna companies over the warnings.

"The federal government has no authority to prevent California, or
any state, from requiring warnings that provide truthful, important
information to consumers," said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

A year ago, Lockyer sued the nation's three largest canned tuna
companies to enforce Proposition 65, California's 1986 law requiring
businesses to provide ``clear and reasonable'' warnings when they
expose consumers to known reproductive toxins, such as mercury.

The companies are Tri-Union Seafoods, maker of Chicken of the Sea;
Del Monte, maker of Starkist; and Bumble Bee Seafoods, maker of
Bumble Bee.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5222567,00.html

[tiptoe]

1. "FDA" under Bush = "Food and Drug Abomination" - pro-business to...

...the detriment of the public health safety.

"EPA" under Bush = "Environmental Pollution Agency"

"USDA" under Bush = "US Department of Agribusiness" where the relative importance of public food safety vs private $$$ is exemplified by the "discovery" of the second case of Mad Cow in the US (from Texas, btw) only after 7 months(!) passes from initial "positive" rapid-test result. Then, the agency has the junk-science gall to call the more subjective, open-to-interpretation follow-up IHC (Immunohistochemistry) test the "Gold Standard" for confirmation of Mad Cow, when in Europe the objective Western Blot test is considered the definitive test rather than the IHC (more "redefining of reality" by the dumbo, vulgar-individualistic Neocons). USDA testing policy had not even included the Western Blot test as standard procedural followup to the IHC after initial positive rapid-test results.

Do I believe the USDA under Bush is really interested in food safety? Seems the agency under Bush is more interested in NOT finding cases of Mad Cow.

(Nobel Laureate) Scientist: US Beef Not Safe
March 21, 2004 High Plains Journal

WASHINGTON, D.C. (DTN) -- A key scientist told the Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus today that the United States should follow the Japanese model and test every cow for mad cow disease if the meat is intended for human consumption.

"The Japanese solution is the right one," said Stanley Prusiner, the University of California scientist who discovered prions, the infectious agent that causes mad cow disease and its human form, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Prusiner said he would not eat beef "at the moment" in the United States and would eat beef in Japan only if the cow had been "tested by a very sensitive test."

"(Mad cow disease) is the greatest threat to the safety of the human food supply in modern times," he said. "(Variant CJD disease) threatens the safety of the blood supply worldwide."

As a father and an uncle, Prusiner said, he cannot understand why the U.S. doesn't adopt a test-all policy for every cow and bull destined for consumption by humans.

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