THE JUNK FOOD PUSHERS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 25

Under the Miller team, the Division of Food and Drug Advertising was eliminated and the twenty attor-
neys working on food and drug issues were reassigned and demoted. Staff resources for policing food ads
were drastically cut. An omnibus rule on food advertising was killed and only four complaints were heard,
with not one addressing the large national advertising campaigns of the major manufacturers. 3
Before Miller's arrival the FTC had actively participated in a broad-based group—the Network for Bet-
ter Nutrition—that was established by President Carter to focus on food and nutrition policies and included
government policy-setting agencies. The Reagan administration's failure to support the network led to its
collapse. Although Miller refused to challenge deceptive advertising, in 1982 he prepared a comment to
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) arguing that the agency should drop the requirement for sodium
information on nutrition labels and leave the issue to market forces.
Harlow's role in legislative affairs at the FTC was to take the Reagan administration's position and
lobby Congress. He later ran legislative affairs for President George H.W. Bush. In June 2007, he was
named by Washingtonian magazine as one of the fifty best lobbyists in the nation's capital.
Some things never change. Lobbyists raise millions of dollars from client firms for the politicians whose
favors they seek. Up until recently, some of those millions in fees that lobbyists collected from industry
went to the wining, dining, and lining of pockets of legislators and regulators. Today restrictions limit some
of these activities, yet influence over elected public officials has never been greater. Trade associations,
ever creative, have figured out new ways to establish clout in Washington.
The GMA is the quintessential trade association. During the many decades of the food industry's meta-
morphosis, it has weighed in on every conceivable issue—from food and agriculture policy to trade, health
care, and labor issues. Over the past decades its food-related agenda has included: weakening federal pesti-
cide and toxics laws; stopping the creation of a consumer protection agency; opposing liberal appointees
to the FTC; promoting lax global trade and investment rules; allowing dangerous preservatives, additives,
and colors to be used in food; weakening antitrust laws; advocating for food irradiation; stopping man-
datory food labeling; warping nutrition standards; weakening food safety regulations (under the guise of
strengthening them); and promoting genetically engineered food.
In 2007, the GMA merged with the Food Products Association, the organization Cal Dooley directed
after his fourteen-year stint in Congress as a free-trade booster; it became the largest trade association for
the food, beverage, and consumer products industry in the world. After the merger, the organization kept
its well-known acronym, GMA, but changed the “America” to “Association,” signaling the global reach of
the member corporations.
In 2009, the GMA hired as its CEO Pamela Bailey, who began her career working in various capacities
in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. More women are being tapped for senior management po-
sitions in the food industry, seemingly as part of a new strategy by this cutthroat industry, which caters to
women shoppers, to give itself a softer public face. Bailey is a tough advocate for the industry, including
opposing country-of-origin labeling, an important and hard-won policy that informs consumers where their
food is produced. Proponents of global trade of food, like Bailey, believe this type of labeling discourages
consumers from purchasing products grown or produced outside the United States. 4
Leslie Sarasin was hired by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI)—the powerful trade association for gro-
cery retailers and wholesalers formed by the merger of two smaller trade associations in 1978. Like many
lobbyists, she started as a congressional staffer before working for a lineup of trade associations, including
the American Frozen Food Institute and the National Food Brokers Association. FMI has been at the fore-
front of lobbying to: deregulate trucking; pass NAFTA; stop consumer-friendly labeling; weaken antitrust
laws; weaken child labor laws; prevent health care reform; weaken organic standards; irradiate foods; and
weaken labor standards and worker protections.