From our friends at the National Health Federation

NEWS RELEASE

TAKE ACTION NOW TO STOP S.510

CALL YOUR SENATORS TODAY!

November 16, 2010

As you have heard from several other sources, the Beast is back.  Congress has begun its dreaded Lame Duck session where the discredited Congressional Leadership intends to pass every anti-freedom measure they can while they still hang by their filthy claws on to power. Among the many disturbing acts of violence Congress plans to inflict upon Americans is the so-called Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510), which is scheduled for a cloture vote on Wednesday.   You have already taken steps to oppose S.510 before, but now it is really time to take action and stop this monstrosity from being passed. In a misguided attempt to “safeguard” our food supply, S.510 grants extraordinary powers to the FDA, which already has a long history of abuse and misuse of its authority over both foods and supplements.  This bill would give the FDA the authority to impose extensive, burdensome requirements on small- and medium-sized farms, ranches, and orchards such that many of them would certainly be driven out of business.  Far from making our food supply safer, this bill would make it less safe.  You must help us stop it! So please call your Senators today to urge them to oppose S.510! You can find your two Senators’ contact information at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm. In addition, even if they are not your own Senators, contact the following Senators to complain about their anti-freedom support of S.510: Orrin Hatch (UT), Tom Harkin (IA), Mike Enzi (WY), Lamar Alexander (TN), Judd Gregg (NH), John Isakson (GA), and Richard Burr (NC).  These are Senators who should know better, but are supporting this bill in a misguided belief that it will actually accomplish something.

Tell your Senators and these others that:

• S.510 fails to address the real cause of the problem: Big Agribusiness and increasing centralization of the food supply.  We need to DE-centralize, not increase centralized, Federal control.

• They need to at least support the Tester-Hagan amendment, and even broaden its scope, so that small farms, ranches, and orchards will not be disproportionately impacted by burdensome rules and regulations when these food suppliers are not even the cause of any problems in the food supply.

• S.510 actually supports foreign food suppliers and helps them compete against our own U.S. companies!

• S.510 puts arbitrary power into the hands of the very agency (the FDA) that has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted with such powers.

• You will make it your personal mission to tell everyone you know that, if they vote for S.510, these Senators voted to wreck America’s food supply and that they are personally responsible for the food problems this bill will have caused.

• You support the efforts of Senator Tom Coburn to mandate spending offsets to pay for the massive increases in the FDA’s $4 billion dollar budget.  We need government fiscal restraint, not more increases in deficit spending.

And for all of those who signed our On-Line Petition opposing S.510, our NHF Lobbyist Lee Bechtel is hand-delivering that completed Petition to Senate Offices today.

Please take action right now!  Your calls could make the difference!

Senate main number is (202) 224-3121

National Health Federation: Established in 1955, the National Health Federation is a consumer-education, health-freedom organization working to protect individuals” rights to choose to consume healthy food, take supplements and use alternative therapies without unnecessary government restrictions. The NHF is the only such organization with recognized observer-delegate status at Codex meetings. www.thenhf.com