Anger as US inspectors target Swiss chocolate

Swiss chocolate makers face inspections from American authorities to ensure their bonbons do not pose a bioterrorism threat in the US, according to a new report.

(The Local) Because of the importance of the US market, chocolate manufacturers in Switzerland are submitting to Uncle Sam’s intrusion in their factories but they are not happy about it.

“The fact that a foreign authority is involved in our Swiss businesses is unseemly,” Daniel Bloch, of Chocolats Camille Bloch, told Handelszeitung, the German-language business journal.

The newspaper has discovered that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to inspect 21 chocolate factories and 18 dairies in Switzerland.

The move is part of the implementation of America’s Food Safety Modernization Act, new legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama last year that aims, among other things, to combat bioterrorism.

The FDA contends that imported food could be contaminated chemically or even in a radioactive way.

Handelszeitung said Swiss chocolate makers are astonished to be subjected to such screening from a foreign country.

“The companies will let the inspections go through because they want to continue to sell to the US,” Franz Schmid, director of the industry association Chocosuisse told the newspaper.
 
But the planned inspections appear to go well beyond health issues to include such details as sales, ownership, employees and the size of company buildings.

“We ask ourselves, what is the real reason for the FDA inspections,” Jacques Gygax, director of the Swiss dairy association Fromarte, told Handelszeitung.

Gygax fears the Americans may be looking for technical barriers to trade and imports.    


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• Anger as US inspectors target Swiss chocolate

Plan B decision treats pregnancy as disease, U.S. bishops' official says

Washington D.C., Apr 24, 2009 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made the “Plan B” contraceptive available to 17 year-old women without a prescription. One pro-life leader has warned the decision treats pregnancy as a “disease” and could put young women and newly-conceived human beings at risk.

The move follows a March 23 federal court order requiring the drug Levonorgestrel—also known as the “morning after pill”--be made available to girls 17 and older without a prescription. The U.S. government said it would not appeal the decision.

The drug aims to prevent pregnancy when used within 24 hours of sexual intercourse.

Deirdre McQuade, Assistant Director for Policy and Communications at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, criticized the action in an April 23 statement.

Characterizing the decision as “court-driven,” McQuade said it “flies in the face of common sense.

“Levonorgestrel is a powerful drug, taken in two doses over a 12-hour period. It is 40 times more potent than comparable progestin-only birth control pills (Ovrette) for which a prescription is required.

“Wider access to Plan B could endanger the lives of newly-conceived children, and will put minors at risk for unnecessary side effects, undermine parental rights, and contribute to higher STD rates,” warned McQuade.

“Pregnancy is not a disease and fertility is not a pathological condition, so Plan B has no authentic therapeutic purpose, and can actually cause harm to women and their newly-conceived children,” she said...

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