Most products we use are not tested by the FDA
Posted by closeyoureyestosee on Feb 24, 2009 · Member since Jan 2007 · 1218 posts
This piece is pretty amazing. I consider myself pretty aware of what's going on here, but this was very eye opening. Check out the video interview or just read the article.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/24/us_lags_behind_europe_in_regulatin
But aren't most of these types of products not tested by the FDA because they're already being tested by the companies (--> animal testing)?
I know there's an MSDS on just about everything, including toxicity. I'm not sure if the point is really that the FDA is supposed to test all this stuff (sounds like the mandatory animal testing that is already the rule for pharmaceuticals :(), but that we know certain things are harmful yet don't ban them.
Haven't read the book - sounds interesting.
Sadly, I don't think the FDA could make me feel any more secure about food anyway. I've kind of soured on the FDA anyway.
Well, what really gets me is that other countries test their food for melamine content which can be toxic, and they don't do that here aT ALL, whereas overseas they're throwing food out, even burning it to make sure no one consumes it, because it contains too much melamine via factory, etc.... and the same parent companies in USA claim they're fine and don't need to test. As in Nestle Singapore is testing and throwing stuff out, but Nestle USA is fine...right :o
The idea is that there are no regulations about what can be put into products. Things that have been proven to be unsafe can be put into products without a warning label. For example, there is no requirement for plastics to label the product for BPA. We have no idea, unless the company decides to say "BPA free" if that is in the product. They also talk about lead in lipstick and all kinds of stuff. Check out the video, it's actually really interesting.