Attack of the killer tomatoes
by Capt. Fogg
I found out about the salmonella scare early this week; sitting in front of the TV while eating a take-out sub sandwich loaded with nice, juicy tomatoes. I guess I've lucked out, since I didn't get sick, but it's hard to forget that "oh shit" feeling you get as the potentially lethal food slides down the throat. I have no statistics to back it up, but the number of food scares seems to be far larger than it once was, and now that one hardly ever knows where the stuff comes from, how it's been processed and handled, or who handled it -- a bit of fear is probably justified. Tainted spinach, peanut butter, ground beef and even medicines like Heparin have made headlines of late. Where's the FDA? Inspections have declined as the number of producers has increased, according to the GAO.
The GAO, commenting yesterday on the FDA's new plan to focus on the riskiest food products says it really can't be evaluated because the agency has revealed nothing about how this plan would be carried out. Perhaps, like Dick Cheney, the FDA will take their case for keeping essential knowledge about what we pay for a secret all the way to the Supreme Court. Perhaps not. All we have been told so far is that it's a "strategic vision."
I hate to belabor the subject of creeping deregulation and crawling chaos. There are far too many examples, and some of them deadly examples, of the results of turning over responsibility for public safety and even national security to for-profit groups and depending on the kindness of corporations. Besides, I'm starting to feel a little queasy.
Meanwhile we still don't know where the killer tomatoes are coming from.
Cross posted from Human Voices
I found out about the salmonella scare early this week; sitting in front of the TV while eating a take-out sub sandwich loaded with nice, juicy tomatoes. I guess I've lucked out, since I didn't get sick, but it's hard to forget that "oh shit" feeling you get as the potentially lethal food slides down the throat. I have no statistics to back it up, but the number of food scares seems to be far larger than it once was, and now that one hardly ever knows where the stuff comes from, how it's been processed and handled, or who handled it -- a bit of fear is probably justified. Tainted spinach, peanut butter, ground beef and even medicines like Heparin have made headlines of late. Where's the FDA? Inspections have declined as the number of producers has increased, according to the GAO.
The GAO, commenting yesterday on the FDA's new plan to focus on the riskiest food products says it really can't be evaluated because the agency has revealed nothing about how this plan would be carried out. Perhaps, like Dick Cheney, the FDA will take their case for keeping essential knowledge about what we pay for a secret all the way to the Supreme Court. Perhaps not. All we have been told so far is that it's a "strategic vision."
I hate to belabor the subject of creeping deregulation and crawling chaos. There are far too many examples, and some of them deadly examples, of the results of turning over responsibility for public safety and even national security to for-profit groups and depending on the kindness of corporations. Besides, I'm starting to feel a little queasy.
Meanwhile we still don't know where the killer tomatoes are coming from.
Cross posted from Human Voices
Labels: deregulation, FDA
posted by Libby Spencer at 9:34 AM
6 Comments:
Our food supply has been in grave danger for years and now, with all the products imported from countries with little of their own regulations, we must also be on the alert for small parts and lead paint on everything from dishes to childrens' toys.
I have pretty much searched out food on a local level since hearing that Mad Cow disease was in Canada. I figured it was just a matter of time before it breached our borders, and, yep -- that's what it did.
I guess as a child of the 60s I have that don't trust the government mindset, so we just look out for ourselves.
I shop a local meat plant that has a butcher shop. I get really nice grades of local grown meat at reasonable prices. No dyes, no drugs, just meat. I also spend time finding local produce or we grow our own. We have truly become a third world country - let's hope the new administration will do a better job.
It's fairly easy, since I live in the country, for me to buy from local farmers and of course, stuff grows in the winter here too.
People here tend to trust food blindly. In other countries one washes or peels or cooks - or all three.
Of course the most dishonest of us will blame it on the immigrants, even though so much comes from abroad. In fact I deleted the troll who made a crack about Mexicans not using toilet paper as I do with most racist stuff.
Of course it's the responsibility of the growers to provide facilities for the workers, but bigots will be bigots.
I've pretty much stopped eating beef since I found out how lax the screening system is here and I tend to overcook everything on the rare occassions I do cook as a safety measure.
It's ridiculous that in a country as advanced as ours, we have to afraid of the eating the food.
Oh, and welcome back Fogg. I missed you.
The good part is that we may get rid of the "eat it raw" Hollywood food faddists.
God gave us tomatoes so that we could have pizza and spaghetti sauce.
LOL. A religious revelation Fogg? One might also say if God wanted us to eat raw food, he wouldn't have given us fire.
I thought that was Prometheus
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