Full Article Published in Food Safety News:
Michael Taylor, with major accomplishments in food safety for two Democratic Presidents, is nevertheless finding himself the target of a petition seeking his removal.
And as if the old adage needed more proof that political movements always end up eating their own, Mr. Taylor’s nemesis is MoveOn, the left-of-center group that got its start trying to retain President Clinton after his sexual liaison with Monica Lewinsky.
Taylor, currently deputy commissioner for foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), did not get on MoveOn’s bad side for anything as nefarious as that.
He did however do a 15-month stint as vice president for public policy for Monsanto, leaving the corporation that has been called one of America’s ten most innovative companies, in January 2000. If Taylor’s obituary were written now, it’s not his short time at Monsanto that would get much attention. It would be his two longer periods of public service. At USDA during the Clinton Administration, he was the top administrator for the Food Safety and Inspection Service that first banned E. coli O157:H7 from beef.
And at FDA, he put his skills with Congress to work to get the Food Safety Modernization Act passed by Congress and he now in charge of implementation.
Still, a loose coalition of genetic engineering (GE) opponents, raw milk advocates, organic farmers and the like has voiced objections to Taylor since he joined the Obama Administration. They point to other stints in Taylor’s resume where they claim he had ties to Monsanto.
Read the full article at Food Safety News