by Jim Marrs
The Fed responded to Bloomberg by reiterating its non-government standing and claiming that, although it had found 231 pages of records on the transactions, it was allowed to withhold such information as trade secrets and commercial information. Fed officials further argued the United States is facing “an unprecedented crisis” in which “loss in confidence in and between financial institutions can occur with lightning speed and devastating effects.”
The Bloomberg FOIA suit had argued that knowing what collateral was received in exchange for public money is “central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression.” However, in an e-mail response to Bloomberg News, Jennifer J. Johnson, secretary for the Fed’s board of governors, wrote, “In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information.”
Various Internet wags have suggested the “don’t delay us with questions or the whole economy will collapse” tactic has been used all too frequently to stall or prevent public scrutiny of financial wrongdoing. “If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” explained Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York’s global private investment house ICP Capital LLC.
In late August 2009, Manhattan chief U.S. district judge Loretta Preska rejected the Fed’s argument of confidentiality and ordered the central bank to disclose details of the emergency loans. New Jersey Republican representative Scott Garrett wrote that Preska’s decision was “strikingly good news…. This is what the American people have been asking for.” But, because Judge Preska’s decision is expected to be appealed by the Fed, there is now more reason for the central bank to be audited. Perhaps the reason more Americans are not upset by the financial improprieties today has something to do with what they ingest.
DEBILITATING FOOD AND WATER
[Nazi] German chemists worked out a very ingenious and far-reaching plan of mass control that was submitted to and adopted by the German General Staff. This plan was to control the population of any given area through mass medication of drinking water supplies…the real reason behind water fluoridation is not to benefit children’s teeth…. The real purpose behind water fluoridation is to reduce the resistance of the masses to domination and control and loss of liberty.
—CHARLES ELIOT PERKINS,
U.S. Chemist Sent To Reconstruct the I. G. Farben Chemical Empire After World War II
IT IS BOTH PARADOXICAL and tremendously ironic that the American public has more unlimited access to healthy food than any population in human history (long after World War II, a banana was considered a costly delicacy in England), yet Americans are on average unhealthy, obese, and overmedicated.
Many nutritionists believe the problem lies not only with the quantity of food consumed but the quality as well.
BAD FOOD AND SMART CHOICES
BY 2010, THE FOOD industry tried to bolster its responsibility with a new front-of-pack nutrition labeling program called Smart Choices. According to the food industry, the program was designed so that “shoppers [could] make smarter food and beverage choices within product categories in every supermarket aisle.” The Smart Choices website said the program was “motivated by the need for a single, trusted and reliable front-of-pack nutrition labeling program that U.S. food manufacturers and retailers could voluntarily adopt to help guide consumers in making smarter food and beverage choices.”
According to the program’s website, “To qualify for the Smart Choices Program, a product must meet a comprehensive set of nutrition criteria based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other sources of nutrition science and authoritative dietary guidance. The Smart Choices Program covers food and beverages in 19 distinct product categories, including cereals, meats, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and snacks, allowing shoppers to compare similar products,”
Critics, such as syndicated columnist and former Texas agricultural commissioner Jim Hightower, claim the program is nothing less than an industry scam, created and paid for by such outfits as Coca-Cola, ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Kraft, and PepsiCo.
“Under this handy consumer program, hundreds of approved food products in your supermarket are getting a bold, green checkmark printed right on the front of the package, along with the reassuring phrase, ‘Smart Choices.’ No need to read those tedious lists of ingredients on the back, for the simple green check mark is henceforth your guarantee of nutritional yumminess. For example, you’ll find it on such items as Froot Loops and Fudgesicle bars,” groused Hightower. “But even by industry standards, this is goofy. I mean—come on, Froot Loops? A serving of this stuff is 41 percent sugar. That’s a heavier dose than if you fed cookies to your kids for breakfast. Wow, talk about setting a low bar for nutritional quality! Indeed, food manufacturers can slap a Smart Choice label on a product just by adding some vitamin C to it, even if the product also contains caffeine, saccharine, and chemical additives known to cause cancer and other diseases. That’s not smart, it’s stupid—and deceptive.”
Deceptive, or just shrewd business? And do others do better or worse for eating nonnutritious food? A recent issue of the journal Cancer Causes & Control reported that a 1996–2003 study of Ohio’s Amish community showed significantly lower incidences of cancer. The Amish, known for their horse-drawn wagons and simple diets, are far healthier than the rest of the American population.
An inadequate diet diminishes the ability of the body to fight disease and leads to lingering illness and even death. This plays well into the globalists’ scheme to reduce the human population, as shall be seen. And they control the corporate food industry along with the mass media.
FALSE CLAIMS AND RECALLS
SOMETIMES EVEN A MANUFACTURER’S standard marketing presentation leads to legal action. In early 2009, the Coca-Cola Company was notified of a class action lawsuit filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that claimed the company made deceptive and unsubstantiated claims on its VitaminWater line of beverages. “Coke markets VitaminWater as a healthful alternative to soda by labeling its several flavors with such health buzz words as ‘defense,’ ‘rescue,’ ‘energy,’ and ‘endurance,’” stated a CSPI news release, which pointed out that the company makes a wide range of dramatic claims, including that its drinks variously reduce the risk of chronic disease, reduce the risk of eye disease, promote healthy joints, and support optimal immune function. However, CSPI nutritionists claim the 33 grams of sugar in each bottle of VitaminWater do more to promote obesity, diabetes, and other health problems than the vitamins in the drinks do to perform the advertised benefits listed on the bottles.
CSPI also criticized MillerCoors, in the wake of a previous settlement with competitor Anheuser-Busch, over advertising for new beverages directed toward the youth market. CSPI described MillerCoors’s Sparks as “an alcoholic energy drink that contained stimulant additives that are not approved for use in alcoholic drinks, including caffeine, taurine, ginseng, and guarana.” Often called “alcospeed,” Sparks contains more alcohol than beer, according to CSPI, which added, “No studies support the safety of consuming those stimulants and alcohol together, but new research does indicate young consumers of these type of drinks are more likely to binge drink, become injured, ride with an intoxicated driver, or be taken advantage of sexually than drinkers of conventional alcoholic drinks.” Following a settlement with thirteen state attorneys general, MillerCoors agreed to remove stimulants from Sparks.
Many people still feel that the food they prepare from a supermarket or local grocery must be safe. After all, doesn’t the federal government assure it’s safe?
In 1993, more than five hundred people were sickened and four died in the Northwest from E. coli 0157:H7, then termed “hamburger disease” because it was found in undercooked beef. This particular pathogen, however, was found in
other foods, including salami, lettuce, apple cider, and even raw milk, and it, as well as similar infectious bacteria, can survive and even multiply at refrigerator temperatures. A public outcry resulted, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issuing its “Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points” (HACCP) rules in 1996. Under these regulations, the food industry was given the responsibility of ensuring the safety of its products. The government only had to verify this was being done.
In 2008–2009, a wide variety of food items were recalled for potential Salmonella contamination. These recalls included everything from snacks, cakes, candies, seafood, and dips to vegetables, fruits, eggs, meats, infant formula, and mouth rinse. An extensive listing of recalled products is available at http://www.recalls.org/food.html.
Eating on the run may help explain the rise in both cases and concern over tainted or unsafe food. In the United States, two out of three people ate their main meal away from home at least once a week in 1998. According to a 1997 study entitled “Impact of Changing Consumer Lifestyles on the Emergence/Reemergence of Food-borne Pathogens,” a typical consumer more than eight years old ate food away from home at least four times per week. It also reported that half of each food dollar spent by Americans went to food prepared outside the home.
The nation’s growing dependence on prepared food means that by the time consumers eat the food, it has been transported numerous times, cooked and cooled, and touched by many different people. Each step in processing could increase the risk of pathogens.
Although food once was grown and distributed locally in America, today large corporations produce food in centralized facilities and ship nationally and internationally, which means that a processing mistake will be felt nationwide or all over the world instead of just locally. Improper holding temperatures, inadequate cooking, contaminated equipment, food from unsafe sources, and poor personal hygiene by packagers can all lead to foodborne illnesses. According to Answers.com, in 1998 Sara Lee recalled thirty-five million pounds of hot dogs and lunch meat due to the presence of Listeria. “This is food contamination on a scale unprecedented a generation ago,” stated the site. It’s enough to make even a glutton think twice about the food he or she eats.
GROWING HORMONES
RECENTLY, GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD crops using growth hormones have come under increasing scrutiny for causing health irregularities. Monsanto first synthesized the hormone in large quantities in 1994 utilizing recombinant DNA technology. Cattle now are routinely given growth hormones to make them gain weight faster, thus reducing both the time and feed required prior to slaughtering. Regulation of these hormones is not possible because it is impossible to tell the difference between the added hormones and those made by the animal’s own body.
Since the introduction of artificial growth hormones several reports have shown that boys are growing pubic hair and girls are developing breasts at younger ages than in the past. According to the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, studies in the United States have shown an earlier onset of puberty in recent decades and there is evidence that the onset of puberty is changing, possibly related to environmental exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body. It is hormone signals from the brain that trigger the onset of puberty.
Some experts argue that such premature puberty is merely the result of cosmetics and the desire for kids to emulate favorite celebrities. However, this does not explain why premature puberty has been noted in the United States and not in Europe, according to a May 2009 study cited in the New York Times, which added, “This discrepancy has led to speculation that the changes observed in the United States may really be due to differences in data collection methods among large-scale studies and changing ethnic demographics in that country.” But such rationalization fails to mention growth hormones. Has the use of growth hormones in beef and milk-producing cattle escaped the consideration of these researchers? If the hormones will increase growth in the cows, it surely must promote accelerated growth in humans.
In a recent report based on a fifteen-year study of young girls in Denmark, researchers determined that the average age of breast development has begun a full year earlier compared with girls studied in the early 1990s. This may mean that as the use of growth hormones spreads, so does the accelerating maturation of youngsters.
This may not be just another conspiracy theory as, according to the New York Times, “Studies have documented that a number of chemicals, such as bisphenol-A used to make hard clear plastic containers, may act as endocrine disruptors and have estrogenic effects on the body.”
Few large epidemiological studies have been conducted to determine whether early puberty is associated with growth-hormone-treated foods, and some that have, such as a study of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), were done by the manufacturer. So no clear connection has been established between chemicals having estrogenic effects and premature puberty. It is reminiscent of how the cigarette industry once fought health studies over the hazards of smoking.
Concerns over food safety can be dated back to 1902 when USDA chemists found that food preservatives contained harmful chemicals, a discovery that added to growing public concern. In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act were passed in an effort to assure the public that the government was attempting to protect them from impure foods and drugs. But then in 1933, Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink published 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs and Cosmetics, a popular book attacking the 1906 Food and Drug Act and stating that the federal government was incapable of protecting the public from unsafe food and drugs due to incompetence and ineffective laws. The authors stated their book was “written in the interest of the consumer, who does not yet realize that he is being used as a guinea pig….”
Noting the close connections between the government and the giant corporations that produce both the nation’s food and drugs, they foresaw that “If the poison is such that it acts slowly and insidiously, perhaps over a long period of years…then we poor consumers must be test animals all our lives; and when, in the end, the experiment kills us a year or ten years sooner than otherwise we would have died, no conclusions can be drawn and a hundred million others are available for further tests.”
THE RISE OF THE FDA
DUE TO THE POPULARITY of Kallet and Schlink’s book, as well as federal whistleblowers speaking out publicly, the mass media that tended to stand with the corporations was bypassed, leading to demands that action be taken to safeguard food and drug consumption. The result was passage of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) of 1938. Today this act is considered the foundation of government food and drug regulation. It was meant to be enforced by the Food and Drug Administration, which was created in 1927 when existing federal offices were combined. The FDCA expanded the definition of contamination to include harmful bacteria or chemicals and allowed the FDA to inspect food manufacturing and processing facilities and monitor animal drugs, feeds, and veterinary devices. The act also required ingredients of nonstandard foods to be listed on labels, prohibited the sale of food prepared under unsanitary conditions, and authorized mandatory standards for foods, such as setting the allowable amount of rat feces in foodstuffs.
Some claimed such legislation was not enough. According to a citizen petition to the USDA, filed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in 2001, “[T]he prevalence of food borne illness in this country caused by eating fecally contaminated meat and poultry remains staggeringly high, providing clear evidence that current inspection methods and regulations are insufficient and misdirected.” The petition claimed that current inspection policies pertain only to that feces which is visible to the naked eye and does not protect consumers from unseen particulates.
Further promises of public protection came in August 1996 with passage of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) that allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate
pesticides used in the food production. However, the FQPA also eliminated the 1958 Delaney clause to the 1938 law that prohibited even tiny amounts of any cancer-causing substance added to food products. The Delaney clause, an amendment named after New York Democratic congressman James Delaney, had set a fixed risk standard of “zero cancer risk” for pesticide residue in food, whereas the FQPA softened this to a mere “reasonable certainty that no harm” would result from any type of exposure, including drinking water. Some saw the hand of the corporate globalists in this move to lessen public protection.
One method to protect corporate interests is to fill government posts with persons connected to both sides. One prime example of the revolving door between government regulation and corporate foodstuffs is Michael Taylor, who was named President Obama’s new deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA in early 2010.
Fresh out of law school in 1976, Taylor began his career as an FDA staff attorney. He then moved to the law firm of King & Spaulding, which represented Monsanto as it was developing genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (BGH). Returning to the FDA in 1991 as deputy commissioner for policy, Taylor, while instituting tougher anticontamination measures for foods, supported the FDA decision to approve Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone. He also was partly responsible for a controversial policy permitting milk from BGH-treated cows not to be labeled as such. Taylor then moved to the U.S. Agriculture Department in 1994 to oversee its food-safety program before returning to work for Monsanto as a vice president for public policy. After a time at George Washington University, in July 2009, Taylor became an adviser to the FDA commissioner.