Who watches the watchers?
What did the FDA know and when did they know it? From contaminated ingredients in pet foods -- and now animal feed as well -- to arthritis drugs linked to cardiac arrests in humans, food and drug safety issues have been making a lot of headlines lately.
But not to worry -- there's a federal agency that protects consumers, isn't there? An objective, well-funded, taxpayer-supported agency, free from bias and corporate influence, that monitors food processors, regulates the drug industry, and ensures that we are all safe.
Yeah, right. You get a pony.
But not to worry -- you don't take any prescription drugs, you don't have a pet, none of this affects you. What about your chocolate? What's it going to take before enough of us care about this to start making noise? Lindsay's recent post contains links to an FDA consumer response website and to more information about this issue.
Actual consumers need to learn how to respond to this kind of thing, because this particular issue -- which affects the very definition of chocolate -- is being advanced by "consumers" who happen to be part of the problem. "Big Chocolate," the LA Times editorial calls them. And even if you're not afraid of Big Ag or Big Pharma, maybe this looming threat from corporate candy interests will give you pause.
There's more to it than meets the eye, though. The whole system is deeply flawed. The FDA is insufficiently funded, and supported in too great a part by fees from the regulated industries (follow the money -- who gets paid and who gets screwed?). Financial conflicts of interest within the regulating bodies are too common. And the agency has very little it can do with respect to enforcement unless and until it becomes too late.
This recent article offers some constructive suggestions for reform of the agency -- at least in the drug safety arena -- that would certainly increase consumer safety and reduce corporate influence.
Gotta start somewhere, or the next chocolate Jesus is going to be made out of that waxy, cruddy chocolate-esque stuff they make those bunnies and santas out of.
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3 comments:
It still galls me that they think they can get away with just changing the definition of chocolate without people noticing. Something like that in place could actually allow Ex-Lax, for example, to be marketed like chocolate, as its taste is nearly indistinguishable from a Hershey's bar.
grr.
Shouldn't be eating Big Chocolate anyway, since most of it uses cacao grown with child slave labor in Africa, as you can read here:
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/02/14/chocolate/index_np.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4498442
http://www.organicconsumers.org/fair_trade/slavechocolate060414.cfm
and myriad other places, no doubt. It's a pet rant of mine.
Not that this helps with the whole uselessness of the FDA aka Official Lackey of Big Food and Drug. It's just another, related example of other people's all-encompassing greed being bad for your health, not to mention detrimental to any joy to the world that might otherwise flourish.
They can pry my bar of bittersweet baking chocolate out of my COLD DEAD HANDS. (psst! thats how you find good dark chocolate without paying a fortune for it!)
No wonder I always thought Halloween and Easter chocolate tasted bad. Waxy and stale, practically inedible.
I say: Let them try. Maybe they'll go out of business while sales of REAL chocolate go through the roof!
Meanwhile, can we get fair trade chocolater from . . . somewheres?
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