Maybe this is what's eating Chertoff's gut
Black pepper with salmonella from India .. crabmeat from Mexico that is too filthy to eat .. not to mention all that contaminated crap from China.
And the way these countries self-regulate is by body count.
"China’s not the sole source of tainted imports, U.S. rejected more than 3,000 shipments from Mexico, India in last year.
MEXICO CITY - Mexican cantaloupe irrigated with water from sewage-tainted rivers. Candy laced with lead. Chinese toothpaste is not the only concern for U.S. consumers wary of the health risks posed by imported goods.
Producers in other developing nations are big violators of basic food safety standards, even as they woo consumers with a growing appetite for foods like pickled mangoes from India and winter-season fruits and vegetables from Mexico.
....China, already under suspicion as the source of tainted toothpaste, contaminated fish and toxic medicine, had the largest number of violations in the past 12 months, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejecting 1,901 shipments of food or cosmetics. But India and Mexico weren’t far behind, with inspectors rejecting 1,787 and 1,560 shipments, respectively.
The biggest reasons? Foods that are unapproved or contain poisons and pesticides. Some are simply dirty, with inspectors finding that the shipment “appears to consist in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise unfit for food.”
And those are just the problems that are caught. FDA inspectors only have the money and resources to check about 1 percent of the 8.9 million imported food shipments a year.[..]"
The article says that Bush has set up a task force to look into the problem.
Well, big hooray .. the same guys who helped create the problem of tainted food coming into the US, and lax regulations *inside* the US, will now put together a master plan to solve the problem.
Yep, the party of small government (coff coff) just makes government bigger and bigger and bigger.
To hell with the panel .. quit underfunding the FDA! Show me the money needed to inspect a lot more than just 1 percent of our imported food. They only have money to inspect 1 percent!
This is important .. it means life and death. Don't forget how Mexican green onions caused an outbreak of hepatitis A in people who dined at a Chi-Chi’s .. four people died, more than 600 people were very ill. Not to mention our domestic spinach killers.
I saw a government guy on TV say it’s our fault because we want cheap food .. but I have yet to see people rioting in the streets for cheap food. But we certainly need to start kicking up a fuss for safe food.
No, it's Big Business who buy crap so they'll make more profit .. and then when their crap begins to sicken and kill pets and people, it’s China’s fault .. or it’s Mexico’s fault .. or India’s fault .. or the consumer’s fault. And they just roll merrily along, with Bush's FDA and USDA to cover their backs.
That's why Bush is so against giving poor children health care. It interferes with insurance companies.
How many times in the past 50 years -- before this administration took over our government -- did Americans have to worry about the food they were eating?
How many times did we have to wonder if the food we were getting from the grocery store was going to give us E Coli, or salmonella, etc.?
This administration does not seem to believe in a government FOR the people .. or that the government's job is to protect the general welfare of our citizens. No, the neo-cons want to protect and provide for mega-corporations before they do we the people.
Look what greed has done to this country. We were once a great food-producing nation to be proud of .. we loved our farmers. Then during the Reagan years mega-corporations started taking over our food-growing .. farms were lost .. farmers committed suicide.
I need to get serious about a garden....
