- The 90 percent doctor-free animal liberation group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is trying to capitalize on the minor stir it created with a study that claimed that supermarket chicken was contaminated with poo. Despite widespread criticism from responsible food safety experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Georgia, PCRM wants the Agriculture Department to place warning labels showing a chicken going number two on every package of chicken sold. We don’t expect these PETA-types in labcoats to demand similar warnings on leafy green vegetables, which the Centers for Disease Control find are the leading cause of foodborne illness. (That’s no excuse to pass on the salad—just wash it first.)
- Washington State is considering a measure (Initiative 522, or I-522) that would require that many foods produced with biotechnology be labeled despite reputable scientific authorities finding such labels unnecessary. And like its defeated California cousin, Proposition 37, it contains a trial lawyer “bounty hunter” provision that could open a lawsuit floodgate. A Seattle Times columnist reports that at a legislator got to the heart of the pointlessness of such mandates by asking an activist: “I mean, why should I care?” The columnist concluded that the measure looks “like an organic-food industry effort to impose a label on its competitors.”
- The latest example of anti-food activist goalpost moving comes from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, whose chief lobby-scold Margo Wootan responded to a candy maker’s changing policies on marketing to youths by demanding more stringent regulation of in-store placement. (We told you they wanted alcohol-style controls like this; we were right.) A commentator responded by following the confectionery to the end of the activist rainbow: “Lawyers will smell a PayDay, tell some Whoppers and seek redress of far more than 100 Grand. Cash-strapped states will see the confection business as a Life Saver, impose Powerhouse “sin” taxes, and do a Butterfingers job of handling the funds.” Well said.
- CCF in the News: The downfall of New York City’s soda ban (at least for now) has dominated the headlines, and we’ve rejoiced to the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times while warning Fox Business viewers that the fight for food freedom doesn’t end with Judge Tingling’s ruling. We’ve also criticized proposed soda taxes in Vermont, Hawaii and Texas and debunked Nevada’s proposed boneheaded 5-cent surtax on certain fast food meals.
