An online petition to get large players, like, say a Walmart, to take a pledge along the following lines - they will certify within a specified period, e.g. 60 days, that all food products they carry after that date will only have ingredients or bioactive materials of domestic origin or they will be pulled until this can be done and verified. All suppliers will have to provide acceptable verification of this, certified by the FDA as well as the company and any prevailing industry standards for domestic production.

Alternatively, they could certify to the FDA, etc. that any part of the food supply coming from abroad will be subject to the same level of quality control and oversight as is required and generally practiced here.

An alternative petition (could be in addition to the first) could be one to demand that the Feds (FDA, Congress, President, etc.) immediately take steps that would basically achieve the same thing as the petition to retailers would.

A central goal of these efforts to change regulatory polciy would be to shift the burden of proof for safety claims entirely onto the sellers, producers, distributors, oversight agencies and other players to insure safety and back up any claims about safety, such as asserting that the human or pet food supply is definitely safe.

I actually thought this up and proposed it during a long conversation with a customer service person with a local supermarket chain. If large sellers like WalMart were smart, they would be proactive and get ahead of the curve (and the undoubted growing storm that will predictably result in changes anyway) and decide to become part of the solution to these problems rather than part of the problem. In addition to good publicity and good will, it should be a smart move financially, as buyers of pet and human food have now lost any remaining innocence and much confidence in the food supplies and a seller who can help restore this confidence should reap the rewards of increased, rather than decreased, sales.

So what does anyone think? This is a very rough conceptual draft for a petition, and I’m open to any suggestions to fill in more specifics, particularly in order to make it practicle to carry out (such as the time frame to give stores or suppliers - I have little technical knowledge of the whole proces, which may be why I have so many unanswered questions about how safety and adequate regulation is achieved).

With the outrage we all know is out there and building, a simple yet sweeping measure to instantly transform the current safety pardigm - as an interim measure, and as the basis for more long-term, permanent change - a well-crafted petition and associated lobbying effort could spread like wildfire through the internet and help to quickly generate tremedous pressure on the private players or the government to rapidly implement much more adequate policies to insure human and food safety (maybe supplements, herbs, cigarettes and anything else we ingest but which is now largely unregulated). It’s now become not only a food safety issue, but a human food safety issue, as well as potentially a national security/war on terrorism issue, not to mention an ethical and financial issue (as changes will have to be made if players in the process want to keep their (our) business!

So I say, strike while the iron is hot - Carpe Diem!! As the Doors once sang, “the time to hesitate is through, no time to wallow in the more….” It is now time - pasttime - for careful, critical thought and sustained involvement by all of us, and decisive, swift action!

For example the peanut butter recall back in Feb 2007 originally said that all jars purchased since May 2006 were not safe. Now they have extended the recall back to 2004.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/.....01583.html

If it takes that long for proper updates on human consumption food, how quickly are they going to find more information on something as “trivial” as pet food.

There is very little news today about the pet food recall. Most of the news is directed at the issues of pet owners not being able to get much in compensation for lawsuits. Already the media are moving onto other issues, while there are still no answers about what is really happening with pet foods and tainted wheat gluten possibly in the human food chain.

There have been many accusations of FDA cover-ups in the past regarding many types of products..the chance of the pet food becoming another “swept under the rug” problem remains very high.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/engl.....688630.htm

Not sure if any of this food is sent back to North America but it does leave room for thought.