by: Jonathan Benson
(NaturalNews) For 15 years, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been overstepping its regulatory bounds by restricting individuals from buying and selling — or even just transporting — raw milk across state lines. But legislation authored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) will undo this form of food tyranny, if passed, by once again establishing freedom of food choice for millions of Americans that currently do not have access to raw milk.
One of the foundational principles upon which any free society is built on is the fundamental human right to grow, eat, buy, and sell the food of one's choice. But this freedom stops, at least in most parts of the country, when raw milk comes into the picture, as 15 states currently prohibit the sale of raw milk for human consumption, and another 19 restrict it to on-farm or herd-share forms of distribution only (http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm).
Up until 1987, there were no restrictions on the interstate sale and trade of raw milk, which meant that raw milk lovers who lived in a prohibited state could have it shipped in from a nearby legal state. But all that changed when the FDA decided that Americans no longer had the right to carry raw milk across state lines, or to transport it to other people across state lines, a position that the agency has gotten increasingly aggressive in enforcing in recent years (http://www.naturalnews.com/033280_FDA_raids_timeline.html).
Last May, Rep. Paul announced House Resolution 1830 (HR 1830), also known as the Unpasteurized Milk Bill. This bill simply states that it will "authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption" (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-1830).
Since being unveiled, the bill has received three additional cosponsors — Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Cal.), Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), and Rep. Timothy Walberg (R-Mich.). And the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), a pro-food freedom group, is asking everyone in the health community to move the bill along by contacting their Congressmen and urging support for HR 1830.
FTCLDF has created an "Action Alert" page with two simple steps you can take right now to stop the FDA from continuing to hold captive our food freedom. The first action item is to call your Congressmen and urge them to cosponsor HR 1830. FTCLDF has even created a sample message you say over the phone:
HERE
The second action item is an online petition that will send a fax to your local representatives, state senators, and local newspapers, urging support for HR 1830. You can access that petition here:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php
Sources for this article include:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php