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Senate Farm Bill Full Of Pork ... And Beef And Sausage

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By NEAL D. BARNARD

Published: November 13, 2007

Last month, the American Institute for Cancer Research unveiled the most detailed report ever produced on how healthy diets can prevent cancer.

This month, the Senate will ignore every word of it.

In the next few days, lawmakers will vote on the Farm Bill, a complex piece of legislation that greatly affects public health. At issue are ever-increasing rates of childhood obesity.

Sixteen percent of elementary schoolchildren are overweight. And it only gets worse as kids reach high school and adulthood. American doctors provide the best medical care in the world. And American dietitians have the greatest nutrition knowledge. But they cannot keep up with our fast-food and junk-food-laden diets. American business cannot keep up either. The price of every car that rolls off a Detroit assembly line - and every other commercial product, too - is inflated by the health-care costs that come from being among the fattest, sickest populations on the globe.

A big part of the blame goes to Congress. When beef prices fall, the government buys up millions of dollars worth of beef in order to remove surpluses and stabilize agribusiness income. When cheese prices slip, the government buys up millions of dollars worth of cheese. These products are then shipped to schools, where America's ever-pudgier children are the willing victims of cheeseburgers, sausage pizza and Salisbury steak with gravy.

When they decide on the Farm Bill, senators have two choices. They can vote to keep America fat, sick and uncompetitive. Or they can vote to stop livestock-feed subsidies that keep bacon and cheeseburgers cheap and vote to stop dumping high-fat, high-cholesterol foods on schools.

Senators will need courage. Up until now, nearly all members of Congress have accepted money from political action committees set up by meat producers. Tyson, the largest meat producer in the world, has a PAC. So do Hormel, Smithfield and other agribusiness giants. All told, agribusiness contributed $44 million to federal campaigns in the last election cycle.

Enough is enough. The Farm Bill was set up in a day when farmers needed help getting through tough times, and when Americans knew what beans and vegetables were. If the Senate fails to vote for reform, we will have lost our best chance to give our children a healthy future.

Neal Barnard is a nutrition researcher and the president of the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

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