House Threatens Food Safety Standards

No point rewriting Marian Burros' lead from Wednesday's New York Times: "The House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill that would pre-empt all state food safety regulations that are more stringent than federal standards."

That's right -- states that are doing their best to protect consumers are about to be preempted by a Congress that's only interested in protecting its industry donors. The powerful food lobby is crying crocodile tears about -- surprise -- excessive regulation, and wants uniform standards that would conveniently fall at the loweset common denominator of consumer safety. In particular, the new law would overthrow California's landmark Prop. 65, legislation that requires warning labels on products containing chemicals related to cancer or birth defects.

EWG's got a lot of content on food safety: Our pesticide guide, tuna calculator and rocket fuel reports are all of interest to concerned consumers.

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