(NEW YORK) MintPress – Less than two weeks before the official presidential debates, President Obama and Mitt Romney went head to head on this week’s 60 Minutes, albeit in separate interviews, on several policy issues, both foreign and domestic, with the economy clearly dominating the latter. Among the main bread and butter issues for the 99% is of course health care, where the candidates’ stated positions vary widely.
Downplaying the need for the government to ensure that every person has health insurance, Romney suggested that emergency room care is sufficient as a substitute for the uninsured.
Obama meanwhile defended his record in office, including a health care plan that would succeed in insuring another 30 million Americans by 2014, arguing that “what we’ve done has been effective.”
In fact, argue critics of both parties, the government has not managed to overcome corporate interests when it comes to the health and welfare of the American people.
“Large corporations account for half of the national economy and pay more for lobbyists to write and pass laws in Congress favorable to themselves than they do in Federal taxes,” asserted public intellectual, prominent blogger and essayist Juan Cole in his “Informed Comment” column. “The way in which the Congressional committees that are supposed to watch certain industries actually become beholden to them is called ‘legislative capture.’
“For this reason, I don’t entirely trust the U.S. government any more to look out for our health,” he continued. “We are increasingly exposed to thousands of chemicals that haven’t really been tested (plastics are full of them). We’re not even given the courtesy of knowing which foods are genetically modified so we can make a market choice for the natural ones.”
Lobbying giants
Indeed, one of the key culprits is the Food & Beverage (F & B) industry. In fact, every year, F & B companies spend tens of millions of dollars trying to influence dozens of bills, ranging from nutritional labeling in restaurants to overhauls of elementary school nutrition programs, under consideration by Congress.
According to OpenSecrets.org, the industry spent $27,366,448 in 2011 alone, with 62 clients enlisting the help of 321 lobbyists.
One of the biggest spenders is Pepsi Co., the second-biggest food company by revenue in the world after Nestle. Its brands include — in addition to Pepsi — Frito-Lay, Tropicana and Quaker Oats.
It spent $2,610,000 last year to lobby about childhood obesity, soda taxes, front-of-package nutritional labeling, advertising to children and teens and patent laws.
Also at the top of the list: Mars, Inc., manufacturers of candy, including M&M’s, Snickers and Wrigley’s gum, savory food like Uncle Ben’s rice and pet food.
It’s lobbying bill in 2011 came to $1,720,000 for, among other things, sugar taxes and regulations.
Concerns about carbs and chemicals
Sugary soft drinks, which have more than 160 calories per can, are in fact a key cause of obesity, especially for those who are genetically at greater risk of being fat.
According to a study due to be published online by the New England Journal of Medicine later this week, teens who had genes that disposed them to put on weight easily were twice as likely to be obese if they drank a lot of soda pop.
“Almost everyone carries some genetic risk of obesity,” said Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and an author on the study. “People who carry a lot of obesity genes have a higher risk. People who drink a lot of soda also have a higher risk of obesity. For people who have both, their risk of obesity is much greater than either factor alone.”
It isn’t just the sugar that puts some people at risk of obesity. It is also bisphenol A or BPA,
a chemical used to coat the aluminum cans in which soft drinks, soups and other foods come to prevent them from rusting.
A recent study in JAMA found that the one-fourth of the thousands of children and adolescents in their study that had the most BPA in their urine were twice as likely to be obese as those in the one-fourth that had the least BPA. BPA has been implicated in other studies in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, reproductive disorders and obesity in adults.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently banned the use of BPA in the manufacture of baby bottles and sippy cups, but decided against banning use of the chemical in other products such as aluminum cans and food packaging.
The study’s lead investigator, Leonardo Trasande, argued that BPA in aluminum cans is likely to account for the greatest exposure risk to consumers, at least in the USA. “Removing it from aluminum cans is probably one of the best ways we can limit exposure,” he suggested. “There are alternatives that manufacturers can use to line aluminum cans.”
“When exactly will the U.S. government have enough evidence to ban BPA?” asked Cole. “When we’re all 400 pounds?”
Food fears
A recent investigation by Consumer Reports concluded that large amounts of arsenic have been discovered in American-grown rice. Apparently much of the rice in the U.S. is grown in the Southwest and West on land that used to be used for cotton, on which arsenic-laden pesticides were used for decades.
And arsenic, especially the inorganic form often found in rice, is a known carcinogen linked to several types of cancer, and it is believed to interfere with fetal development.
In a press release associated with the study, the Consumers Union recommended that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) phase out use of all arsenical pesticides and the FDA set limits for arsenic in rice products.
The FDA responded in the FAQ section on its website, describing its own testing of 1,000 different rice products. FDA officials also told the Washington Post, however, that they are “not prepared, based on preliminary data, to advise people to change their eating patterns.”
In addition to rice, there are hazards associated with genetically modified corn. Indeed, a new study by French scientists, which was published last week in the scientific journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, found that GM corn treated with Monsanto‘s herbicide Roundup, the widest selling herbicide in the world, can cause more elevated risks of cancer, organ damage and premature death in rats than ordinary corn.
It was the first GM food safety study to test the entire lifespan of laboratory rats.
On Thursday, the French government ordered an urgent review of the study and said it will work for a Europe-wide ban of imports of the crop if the findings were found to be conclusive. Health Canada said it will also take action if its review of the study finds the GM corn does “demonstrate a risk” to Canadians.
In the U.S., Congress has made no moves to have GM vegetables marked as such. Not surprisingly, Monsanto spent $6,370,000 on lobbying efforts in 2011.
“I know we ordinary folk don’t pay you the way the corporations pay you, but you are supposed to be representing us lab rats, too,” remarked Cole.
He also noted that 150 scientists and physicians are calling for the end of non-medical antibiotics being routinely administered to livestock.
“All that is happening is that we are evolving bacteria to be resistant to antibiotics, and are already killing 100,000 Americans a year that way (more than die of AIDS),” explains Cole. “This baneful practice, they warn, has to stop.”
During his 60 Minutes interview, Obama was asked to respond to Romney’s complaint that the administration is crushing economic freedom under a ton of government regulations, and he answered by saying that he has imposed fewer regulations than George W. Bush did.
That might not be such a strong selling point when it comes to ensuring the safety of what we eat.