FDA's Artisanal Cheese Crackdown: They Actually Haven't Backed Down
Lawyer Baylen Linnekin, executive director of Keep Food Legal, writes at reason that the FDA is not letting the cheese makers be:
The FDA's statement goes on to claim adamantly and definitively that agency bureaucrats "have not and are not prohibiting or banning the long-standing practice of using wood shelving in artisanal cheese."It notes that a letter the FDA sent to the New York State Department of Agriculture earlier this year was to blame. "[The] language used in this communication may have appeared more definitive than it should have, in light of the agency's actual practices on this issue," said the statement.
So all of this public concern about a potential ban on artisanal cheesemaking is really just much ado about nothing? The FDA backed down, right?
No, and no.
The agency's statement also says that the FDA "will engage with the artisanal cheesemaking community" based on FDA's historic concerns "about whether wood meets [agency food safety] requirement[s.]" It will also "invite stakeholders to share any data or evidence they have gathered related to safety and the use of wood surfaces."
Parsing this language is almost unnecessary. The FDA still wants to ban the use of wooden crates in cheesemaking.
When the FDA "invites stakeholders" to "engage" with its bureaucrats, only bad things happen. When those stakeholders lack a powerful lobby in Washington, D.C., it's time to expect the worst.
The recent FDA chronology bears this out. Recall that the FDA invited the makers of Four Loko and other beers that contained added caffeine to talk with the agency. This period of engagement between Four Loko "stakeholders" and the FDA ended with the agency banning the product.
Yes, it's more of the unconstitutional fourth branch of government increasing its bloat. Linnekin continues:
The FDA is a powerful and power-mad agency that regulates 80 percent of the food supply (and growing). The food and beverages you eat and drink today are only legal because the agency hasn't yet figured out a way to ban them.You dine at the pleasure of the FDA. Enjoy it while it lasts.
More from Walter Olson here.
What gets me about this is that the FDA's actions have actually been basically killing people for decades - but suddenly everyone's in an uproar over cheese. No headlines about the damage the FDA has done to medical research, and the thousands/millions of people dying and suffering unnecessarily from diseases we should have cured by now, or their direct contribution to the high cost of the few medicines they have "allowed". But don't dare go after our cheese.
Lobster at June 15, 2014 10:23 PM
Wait until they find out whiskey is aged in wooden barrels...
Radwaste at June 15, 2014 10:57 PM
Wait til they figure out what the bleu in bleu cheese is!
Pricklypear at June 16, 2014 7:36 AM
"BUT it's bacteria that actually makes cheese work!?!"
'Really? Well in the interest of food safety, then, we'll be banning that.'
SwissArmyD at June 16, 2014 9:35 AM
This was a problem with the European union, too. A whole bunch of ancient delicacies got wiped out of production by the continent-spanning regulations.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 16, 2014 1:25 PM
Leave a comment