Food Standards = Keep it hidden and lie!

[Guest guest]

Origin1 sender's name: Dr. Betty Martini,D.Hum.

Original sender's address: bettym19

 

This is very interesting. I recently wrote the Food Standards about

using nothing but propaganda in the issue of aspartame. Here is that

investigative

report:

http://www.mpwhi.com/investigative_report_on_aspartame_misinformation.htm

They were also reported. A copy was sent to many in Food Standards

and not one choose to answer this because they couldn't. I give

complete information about their lies. A copy is also going to the UK

Parliament.

 

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder

Mission Possible International

9270 River Club Parkway

Duluth, Georgia 30097

770 242-2599

www.mpwhi.com, www.dorway.com, www.wnho.net

Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame

 

 

 

 

Board stiffs

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Lobstein

 

January 7, 2008 1:00 PM

 

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_lobstein/2008/01/board_stiffs.html

 

The curious thing about last week's

<http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/work_areas/food_policy.aspx>cabinet

office report on our <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7169193.stm>food

supply is that it came from the cabinet office in the first place,

and not from the body set up by Tony Blair to look at our food

supply, the Food Standards Agency.

 

In 1997, the new Blair government asked Professor Philip James to

resolve the tangled mess in which the old ministry, the Ministry for

Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff), had entwined itself by being

both regulator and promoter of food and farming interests. James

suggested that an

<http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Issue/pn40/pn40p14.htm>independent

body, acting transparently and being seen to put consumer interests

first, might just do the trick.

 

And so, after two decades of mad cows, salmonella, listeria, E coli,

pesticides, GM foods and other notable crises in the food supply

chain, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was launched amid a wave of

publicity stating that at last UK consumers would have a champion

free from the industrial ties that had so badly compromised Maff.

 

In 1999, the white paper proposing the new FSA emphasised

<http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/maffdh/fsa/fsa.htm>the

independence that would be expected from the agency and the need to

put the public first. " The Agency will have protection of the public

as its essential aim, " it said. The governance of the agency would

rest with a board, of who " a majority will be drawn from a wider

public interest background " .

 

So now the question raised by the cabinet office report is this: Does

the government now see it as an unreliable source of independent

advice? Has <http://www.food.gov.uk/>the FSA become compromised by

the very commercial interests that it should be regulating?

 

Take the chief executive. The first one to be appointed was an

experienced senior civil servant. The second and third have also been

appointed from public service. But the latest - due to

<http://www.food.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/2007/nov/chiefexec>start

this spring - comes straight from running the UK's largest milk and

dairy company, Arla, having previously worked for food companies

Northern Foods, Sarah Lee and Express Dairies.

 

Take their daily activities. The FSA website lists the meetings held

by the top FSA officials. It shows that for every meeting held with a

consumer or public interest body, seven to eight meetings, lunches,

dinners and receptions are held with food companies and

industry-linked bodies.

 

Take the governing board. Are any of them likely to be compromised

when asked to regulate against the food industry? Their details are

listed on the agency's website. Eleven of the 12 members of the board

either works, or worked, for a food, farming or catering company, or

owns shares in such companies, or is an adviser to the industry or

has a close relative working in it.

 

And take the board's recent decisions. Presented with evidence that

confirmed earlier findings that certain food additives could cause

hyperactivity in children, the board could have recommended the

additives be phased out and banned. They had the power to do so. But

they ducked any decision and kicked it to Europe. They did the same

when a study of the commonly used sweetener, aspartame, showed a

raised risk of lymphomas and leukaemia in laboratory animals.

 

When the World Cancer Research Fund published its recent expert study

showing that

<http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=328938 & area=/insight/insight__in\

ternational/>processed

meats such as bacon and salami were linked to

<http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/>bowel cancer, the meat industry

was predictably upset. Did the FSA support the experts or the

industry? Remarkably, the agency's chief scientist, Andrew Wadge,

went on record in the Telegraph, stating that he would continue to

recommend that people eat bacon, and that he

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IPLI0JJF0GPCBQFIQMGSFFOA\

VCBQWIV0?xml=/earth/2007/11/05/scibuttie105.xml>enjoyed

it himself.

 

But perhaps the most remarkable incident is the board's discussion on

transfats - the industrially synthesised fats used to extend the

shelf life of biscuits, pastries and frying oils, and which are now

closely identified with raising the risk of

<http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKFLE67535820070327>heart

disease. Having commissioned a hasty review from the Scientific

Advisory Committee on Nutrition (<http://www.sacn.gov.uk/>SACN) - who

were clearly uncomfortable that they been asked for a rushed opinion

without being given time to consult with consumers and other experts

- the board were told by the SACN chair, Professor Alan Jackson, that

it appeared at first sight that the quantities of transfats being

eaten were now fairly low with only some 4% of adults above the

recommended maximum levels.

 

No one on the board asked how many people this represented (2 million

people in the UK, as it happens) nor if there were social

inequalities (in fact, 12% of low income people eat above the

recommended maximum), nor whether the recommended level might need to

be revised (Jackson felt there was not enough evidence either way,

but other experts believe there is no safe level).

 

No one asked how reliable was the evidence that people are eating

less now than they were before (in fact about 20% of foods and drinks

are missed in food intake surveys). Research as recently as 2005

showed that a single fast food meal of nuggets and fries could exceed

the daily recommended maximum transfats for an adult, but no one

mentioned this study at the board meeting. Curiously, the industry

claim that they now use very little of this nasty ingredient, while

also claiming that it is too difficult to make further reductions

(even though the have made such reductions in Denmark).

 

The outcome was that the board recommended that no action was

necessary. Just as the chair was moving onto the next agenda item,

the deputy chair interrupted and said he believed that a vote of

thanks from the board to the food industry was in order, for reducing

transfats voluntarily. This extraordinary and unprecedented proposal

was accepted by the board without further comment.

 

No one wants to see the FSA abolished, although the idea might creep

into an opposition party's manifesto at some point. But if the FSA

doesn't improve its consumer credentials pretty soon, it will be seen

as a captured agency, and politicians right up to No 10 will cease to

rely on it to provide strategic guidance on our food supply.

 

The author writes here in a purely personal capacity, and the views

expressed here are his own.

 

 

 

Board stiffs

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Lobstein

 

January 7, 2008 1:00 PM

 

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_lobstein/2008/01/board_stiffs.html

 

The curious thing about last week's

<http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/work_areas/food_policy.aspx>cabinet

office report on our <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7169193.stm>food

supply is that it came from the cabinet office in the first place,

and not from the body set up by Tony Blair to look at our food

supply, the Food Standards Agency.

 

In 1997, the new Blair government asked Professor Philip James to

resolve the tangled mess in which the old ministry, the Ministry for

Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff), had entwined itself by being

both regulator and promoter of food and farming interests. James

suggested that an

<http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Issue/pn40/pn40p14.htm>independent

body, acting transparently and being seen to put consumer interests

first, might just do the trick.

 

And so, after two decades of mad cows, salmonella, listeria, E coli,

pesticides, GM foods and other notable crises in the food supply

chain, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was launched amid a wave of

publicity stating that at last UK consumers would have a champion

free from the industrial ties that had so badly compromised Maff.

 

In 1999, the white paper proposing the new FSA emphasised

<http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/maffdh/fsa/fsa.htm>the

independence that would be expected from the agency and the need to

put the public first. " The Agency will have protection of the public

as its essential aim, " it said. The governance of the agency would

rest with a board, of who " a majority will be drawn from a wider

public interest background " .

 

So now the question raised by the cabinet office report is this: Does

the government now see it as an unreliable source of independent

advice? Has <http://www.food.gov.uk/>the FSA become compromised by

the very commercial interests that it should be regulating?

 

Take the chief executive. The first one to be appointed was an

experienced senior civil servant. The second and third have also been

appointed from public service. But the latest - due to

<http://www.food.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/2007/nov/chiefexec>start

this spring - comes straight from running the UK's largest milk and

dairy company, Arla, having previously worked for food companies

Northern Foods, Sarah Lee and Express Dairies.

 

Take their daily activities. The FSA website lists the meetings held

by the top FSA officials. It shows that for every meeting held with a

consumer or public interest body, seven to eight meetings, lunches,

dinners and receptions are held with food companies and

industry-linked bodies.

 

Take the governing board. Are any of them likely to be compromised

when asked to regulate against the food industry? Their details are

listed on the agency's website. Eleven of the 12 members of the board

either works, or worked, for a food, farming or catering company, or

owns shares in such companies, or is an adviser to the industry or

has a close relative working in it.

 

And take the board's recent decisions. Presented with evidence that

confirmed earlier findings that certain food additives could cause

hyperactivity in children, the board could have recommended the

additives be phased out and banned. They had the power to do so. But

they ducked any decision and kicked it to Europe. They did the same

when a study of the commonly used sweetener, aspartame, showed a

raised risk of lymphomas and leukaemia in laboratory animals.

 

When the World Cancer Research Fund published its recent expert study

showing that

<http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=328938 & area=/insight/insight__in\

ternational/>processed

meats such as bacon and salami were linked to

<http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/>bowel cancer, the meat industry

was predictably upset. Did the FSA support the experts or the

industry? Remarkably, the agency's chief scientist, Andrew Wadge,

went on record in the Telegraph, stating that he would continue to

recommend that people eat bacon, and that he

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IPLI0JJF0GPCBQFIQMGSFFOA\

VCBQWIV0?xml=/earth/2007/11/05/scibuttie105.xml>enjoyed

it himself.

 

But perhaps the most remarkable incident is the board's discussion on

transfats - the industrially synthesised fats used to extend the

shelf life of biscuits, pastries and frying oils, and which are now

closely identified with raising the risk of

<http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKFLE67535820070327>heart

disease. Having commissioned a hasty review from the Scientific

Advisory Committee on Nutrition (<http://www.sacn.gov.uk/>SACN) - who

were clearly uncomfortable that they been asked for a rushed opinion

without being given time to consult with consumers and other experts

- the board were told by the SACN chair, Professor Alan Jackson, that

it appeared at first sight that the quantities of transfats being

eaten were now fairly low with only some 4% of adults above the

recommended maximum levels.

 

No one on the board asked how many people this represented (2 million

people in the UK, as it happens) nor if there were social

inequalities (in fact, 12% of low income people eat above the

recommended maximum), nor whether the recommended level might need to

be revised (Jackson felt there was not enough evidence either way,

but other experts believe there is no safe level).

 

No one asked how reliable was the evidence that people are eating

less now than they were before (in fact about 20% of foods and drinks

are missed in food intake surveys). Research as recently as 2005

showed that a single fast food meal of nuggets and fries could exceed

the daily recommended maximum transfats for an adult, but no one

mentioned this study at the board meeting. Curiously, the industry

claim that they now use very little of this nasty ingredient, while

also claiming that it is too difficult to make further reductions

(even though the have made such reductions in Denmark).

 

The outcome was that the board recommended that no action was

necessary. Just as the chair was moving onto the next agenda item,

the deputy chair interrupted and said he believed that a vote of

thanks from the board to the food industry was in order, for reducing

transfats voluntarily. This extraordinary and unprecedented proposal

was accepted by the board without further comment.

 

No one wants to see the FSA abolished, although the idea might creep

into an opposition party's manifesto at some point. But if the FSA

doesn't improve its consumer credentials pretty soon, it will be seen

as a captured agency, and politicians right up to No 10 will cease to

rely on it to provide strategic guidance on our food supply.

 

The author writes here in a purely personal capacity, and the views

expressed here are his own.

 

 

 

 

 

Board stiffs

 

 

 

 

 

Tim Lobstein

 

January 7, 2008 1:00 PM

 

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_lobstein/2008/01/board_stiffs.html

 

 

 

 

The curious thing about last week's

<http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/work_areas/food_policy.aspx>cabinet

office report on our <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7169193.stm>food

supply is that it came from the cabinet office in the first place,

and not from the body set up by Tony Blair to look at our food

supply, the Food Standards Agency.

 

In 1997, the new Blair government asked Professor Philip James to

resolve the tangled mess in which the old ministry, the Ministry for

Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff), had entwined itself by being

both regulator and promoter of food and farming interests. James

suggested that an

<http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Issue/pn40/pn40p14.htm>independent

body, acting transparently and being seen to put consumer interests

first, might just do the trick.

 

And so, after two decades of mad cows, salmonella, listeria, E coli,

pesticides, GM foods and other notable crises in the food supply

chain, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was launched amid a wave of

publicity stating that at last UK consumers would have a champion

free from the industrial ties that had so badly compromised Maff.

 

In 1999, the white paper proposing the new FSA emphasised

<http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/maffdh/fsa/fsa.htm>the

independence that would be expected from the agency and the need to

put the public first. " The Agency will have protection of the public

as its essential aim, " it said. The governance of the agency would

rest with a board, of who " a majority will be drawn from a wider

public interest background " .

 

So now the question raised by the cabinet office report is this: Does

the government now see it as an unreliable source of independent

advice? Has <http://www.food.gov.uk/>the FSA become compromised by

the very commercial interests that it should be regulating?

 

Take the chief executive. The first one to be appointed was an

experienced senior civil servant. The second and third have also been

appointed from public service. But the latest - due to

<http://www.food.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/2007/nov/chiefexec>start

this spring - comes straight from running the UK's largest milk and

dairy company, Arla, having previously worked for food companies

Northern Foods, Sarah Lee and Express Dairies.

 

Take their daily activities. The FSA website lists the meetings held

by the top FSA officials. It shows that for every meeting held with a

consumer or public interest body, seven to eight meetings, lunches,

dinners and receptions are held with food companies and

industry-linked bodies.

 

Take the governing board. Are any of them likely to be compromised

when asked to regulate against the food industry? Their details are

listed on the agency's website. Eleven of the 12 members of the board

either works, or worked, for a food, farming or catering company, or

owns shares in such companies, or is an adviser to the industry or

has a close relative working in it.

 

And take the board's recent decisions. Presented with evidence that

confirmed earlier findings that certain food additives could cause

hyperactivity in children, the board could have recommended the

additives be phased out and banned. They had the power to do so. But

they ducked any decision and kicked it to Europe. They did the same

when a study of the commonly used sweetener, aspartame, showed a

raised risk of lymphomas and leukaemia in laboratory animals.

 

When the World Cancer Research Fund published its recent expert study

showing that

<http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=328938 & area=/insight/insight__in\

ternational/>processed

meats such as bacon and salami were linked to

<http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/>bowel cancer, the meat industry

was predictably upset. Did the FSA support the experts or the

industry? Remarkably, the agency's chief scientist, Andrew Wadge,

went on record in the Telegraph, stating that he would continue to

recommend that people eat bacon, and that he

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml;jsessionid=IPLI0JJF0GPCBQFIQMGSFFOA\

VCBQWIV0?xml=/earth/2007/11/05/scibuttie105.xml>enjoyed

it himself.

 

But perhaps the most remarkable incident is the board's discussion on

transfats - the industrially synthesised fats used to extend the

shelf life of biscuits, pastries and frying oils, and which are now

closely identified with raising the risk of

<http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKFLE67535820070327>heart

disease. Having commissioned a hasty review from the Scientific

Advisory Committee on Nutrition (<http://www.sacn.gov.uk/>SACN) - who

were clearly uncomfortable that they been asked for a rushed opinion

without being given time to consult with consumers and other experts

- the board were told by the SACN chair, Professor Alan Jackson, that

it appeared at first sight that the quantities of transfats being

eaten were now fairly low with only some 4% of adults above the

recommended maximum levels.

 

No one on the board asked how many people this represented (2 million

people in the UK, as it happens) nor if there were social

inequalities (in fact, 12% of low income people eat above the

recommended maximum), nor whether the recommended level might need to

be revised (Jackson felt there was not enough evidence either way,

but other experts believe there is no safe level).

 

No one asked how reliable was the evidence that people are eating

less now than they were before (in fact about 20% of foods and drinks

are missed in food intake surveys). Research as recently as 2005

showed that a single fast food meal of nuggets and fries could exceed

the daily recommended maximum transfats for an adult, but no one

mentioned this study at the board meeting. Curiously, the industry

claim that they now use very little of this nasty ingredient, while

also claiming that it is too difficult to make further reductions

(even though the have made such reductions in Denmark).

 

The outcome was that the board recommended that no action was

necessary. Just as the chair was moving onto the next agenda item,

the deputy chair interrupted and said he believed that a vote of

thanks from the board to the food industry was in order, for reducing

transfats voluntarily. This extraordinary and unprecedented proposal

was accepted by the board without further comment.

 

No one wants to see the FSA abolished, although the idea might creep

into an opposition party's manifesto at some point. But if the FSA

doesn't improve its consumer credentials pretty soon, it will be seen

as a captured agency, and politicians right up to No 10 will cease to

rely on it to provide strategic guidance on our food supply.

 

The author writes here in a purely personal capacity, and the views

expressed here are his own.