Isn’t it funny how enviro attitudes (and arguments) change with the cause. Absurd “this food may contain food” labels regarding biotech or GE sourced product content are “necessary for informed consumer choice” but genuine issues like cross contamination and food-borne illness from reusable cloth bags may “mislead consumers about risk” and “discourage consumers“.
Just shot down their own anti GE labeling argument didn’t they.
While saying they agree with the need for greater public awareness about the importance of regularly washing reusable cloth grocery bags, members of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee rejected a bill Monday that would have required warnings about potential food contamination on the bags.
The bill was defeated 4-2, along party lines, with majority Democrats in support.
While Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, said his bill was “about food safety and public health,” environmental groups assailed it as an attempt to needlessly alarm consumers about an option promoted as an alternative to single-use plastic bags, which have become a source of litter and ocean pollution.
“Singling out reusable bags for this type of label risks misleading customers as to the risks associated with reusable bags compared with any other type of container, and may discourage consumers from the environmentally preferable option of reusable bags,” wrote Natural Resources Defense Council lobbyist Victoria Rome in a letter to the committee.
A pathologist and professor of environmental and occupational health at Loma Linda University School of Public Health testified in support of the bill.
Dr. Andre Feliz, who conducted postdoctoral research in environmental pathology at UC Davis, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that every year one in six Americans every year suffers from a food-borne illness and that 3,000 die from them.
Well, they couldn’t possible acknowledge that one of their green hippy solutions might be more dangerous than their “cause du jour”. I have no problem with taking care of the environment in which we live. It’s just the hysteria that you so aptly point out that has to be called out when they try to pass it off as science. Or, in this case, when they try to overlook science because it contradicts their agenda. Thank you!