An Update on Congress (Including a Batshit Crazy Bill by Ron Paul)

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Aug 06, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

• The Senate debated Ag Appropriations
  
• The House debated the Food Safety Enhancement Act (I wrote about this last week but the link here gives you the official transcript).
  
• And debated it some more.
  
• The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) wrote up a report on the Food Safety Enhancement Act
  
• Sen. Schumer wants to get milk protein concentrate out of our dairy products (yay!!!)
  
• Sen. Udall of New Mexico introduced a bill that would authorize the USDA to mandate a recall of tainted foods.
  
• Ron Paul introduced a bill about health claims on food labels.

  The Ron Paul bill reads as follows:

  The Federal Government may not take any action to prevent use of a claim describing any nutrient in a food or dietary supplement (as such terms are defined in section 201 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 321)) as mitigating, treating, or preventing any disease, disease symptom, or health-related condition, unless in a final order of a Federal court following a trial on the merits finds clear and convincing evidence based on qualified expert opinion and published peer-reviewed scientific research that--

  (1) the claim is false and misleading in any material respect; and

  (2) there is no less speech restrictive alternative to claim suppression, such as use of disclaimers or qualifications, that can render the claim non-misleading.

  Translation: If this bill were to pass (it won't), you would be able to label a package of Twinkies to say that they cure AIDS, so long as nobody takes you to Federal court and proves that you're lying. And even then, the result might be that you are allowed to keep the claim so long as you add a disclaimer like "Scientific evidence has not found any evidence that this is true."