This is not a joke: Trump wants to eliminate food safety regulations in new tax plan https://t.co/tNrmE5QmTV
— Salon (@Salon) September 16, 2016
We finally got a presidential candidate to talk about the food supply. That talk was about gutting what little protection we have from the FDA.
“The rules govern the soil farmers use, farm and food production hygiene, food packaging, food temperatures and even what animals may roam which fields and when,” also from the fact sheet. "It also greatly increased inspections of food ‘facilities,' and levies new taxes to pay for this inspection overkill."
"The FDA Food Police" quoted the Donald Trump campaign fact sheet "dictate how the federal government expects farmers to produce fruits and vegetables and even dictates the nutritional content of dog food.” The Trump campaign fact sheet said all of these protections — "specific regulations to be eliminated" — would be eliminated if he were to become president of the United States.
The fact sheet was later withdrawn but the damage has been done. This wasn't an accident. The backlash likely got the campaign to withdraw the fact sheet but there is no guarantee the Trump campaign wouldn't bring the proposal back.
Trump, whose fast food diet has been documented, might not think he personally needs to worry about food safety. The Republican presidential nominee said he eats fast food because "at least you know what they are putting in it." What we do know about fast food may not be everything to know (think back when McDonald's used beef tallow to cook its fries but didn't disclose that information), what we do know is thanks in part to the FDA.
The rest of us have been dealing with a relatively weak FDA. Strengthening food safety should be on the table in this presidential race.
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Let's be clear. Many Republicans, some elected and others not elected, want to gut the FDA but don't say it out loud.
This proposal should be the start of a dialogue on how the U.S. government approaches the food supply. The fear is this bombshell won't lead to a significant dialogue on the food supply.
But citizens who will vote on November 8 also need to speak up to demand the candidates give answers on how they would deal with the food supply. We still remember the considerable number of food recalls before Barack Obama became president. Almost no one wants to go back to that world.
States won't and can't serve in the role of food inspection and safety. If the federal government doesn't do inspections, they won't get done.
tweet credit: @salon
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