Let them eat cake? Nah, let them eat cantaloupe.

[JayHawk]

Oh i agree logical leadership is not on the menu these days.

THAT needs to change.

My fervent hope with The nuts on the right (TP) and the nuts on the Left (OWS) is that the radical ideas on both sides will force a centrist party. Of course OWS has to last long enough to have an impact. that will be a few years.

 

[palemale]

Oh i agree logical leadership is not on the menu these days.

THAT needs to change.

My fervent hope with The nuts on the right (TP) and the nuts on the Left (OWS) is that the radical ideas on both sides will force a centrist party. Of course OWS has to last long enough to have an impact. that will be a few years.

When have centrists or conservatives ever come up with any policy that resolved a crisis in this country? It was always people and political leaders who were prepared to challenge the status quo and institute policies that brought about dramatic changes, such as the founders of the country, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Kennedy/Johnson. No centrists or conservatives among them. They were, of course, pushed to make the changes by radical reform movements and progressive forces within the country.

 

[Joshua_me]

Or we could do away with the Department of Education that doesn't educate, or the Department of Energy that produces none.

^ The straw man shit, again....

What do the departments of energy and education have to do with food safety ?

C'mon, man....

You wouldn't piss me off so much if I didn't know you were so intelligent.

Is it too much to ask of our nation to keep a decent amount of money set aside to make sure our fresh food is clean and safe for consumption ?

What's the alternative?

Well, let's take your "logic" to town for a moment.

"Well you know, GM is producing all electric cars now, and the iPhone5 is going to be a ripping piece of electronics, so who gives a good God damn fresh food safety ?"

meh

SO yesterday.

Let consumers wash their own food. And if they get sick and die - well - fuck 'em... Only the strongest survive anyway - Darwinism and all that.

What a bunch of horseshit.

And you bloody well know it.

 

[Just_Believe18]

Let's go with your argument for a moment. We can all agree that people dying or getting sick from food borne illness is a bad thing. We can similarly agree that the FDA is responsible to ensure the safety of the food supply.

Now, given these premises, give me a dollar amount that will guarantee that the food supply is safe and that no similar instances will ever occur again. This way, we can do a cost benefit analysis and make rational decisions about spending. Let's stop using scare tactics to fund government programs.

No one will ever guarantee such a thing. They can't. So we accept a certain amount of risk in everyday life. It's been documented previously, that Listeria is easily preventable by the consumer. No one has provided any evidence that additional funding would have prevented these illnesses. It's conjecture.

As to your assertion about law enforcement, it's not quite analgous to the FDA situation. There are either disease causing pathogens in food or there aren't. It's pretty black and white. The same doesn't hold true in terms of human behavior. Good people are sometimes bad and bad people are sometimes good.

A large portion of crime is drug related. Were the government not so concerned about what we decide we're putting into our bodies, that crime rate would be significantly lower. Just another example of government trying to do good and making things worse by doing so.

I can't give you a dollar amount that is going to result in perfect regulation. I do not have the expertise on the matter, and neither do you. To expect a regulatory agency to be perfect, is also unrealistic. As I said before, it is unfair to criticize a regulatory agency as underperforming when studies show said agency is vastly underfunded and understaffed. You are going in a completely different direction about my law enforcement analogy than intended. In a nutshell, I have proven with statistics, not conjecture, that the FDA is not being effective because it is dangerously underfunded. The solution is not to eliminate the regulatory agency, much like you wouldn't eliminate the police department. The solution is to provide fair and realistic funding, something the federal government has been ignoring for years. Until that happens, the FDA will not be able to regulate contaminated foods circulating throughout this country.

 

[BostonPirate]

Its interesting that people are not asking why it is that so many unhealthy produce environments have come into existence in the last few years.

One would think it is the republican position that the businesses are free to live an unregulated disease infested porfessional life, and the USDA is responsible only for cleaning up their mess so that they are not pestered by class action suits.

Another obesrvation... this fatalistic kill it movement that has infested the GOP is not entirely conservative by nature either.

The traditional conservative would seek out the best method ever used with success and only look to modest tweaking to fix.

What I see emerging over and over again, is the GOP trying to take advantage of a frightened group of people during a recession.

It is foolish.

The poor and middle class do NOT need to give up their last defense of their food in a nation of broken regulations and defunded regulatory agencies... They need the people who have been making a profit off of the recession to pay more taxes so that the wars they profit from are paid for. they need to give up their exemptions that are making them profiteers of the tax code during a time when the nation has a great debt and is at war.

And note... ITs what Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan did during times of war and economic struggle... IT is what republicans refer to as "shared sacrifice" out of respect to the men putting their life on the lines out there at war.

The men fought in the great wars.. WW1 and WW2 to preserve the american way.

Caring for your neighbors... getting through this together.. Reagans Shining city on a hill was the relfection of that as the last of the greatest generation presidents.

Cutting the services to the poor during times of war is the kind of shit that Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, Dubya Bush, or Saddam Hussein may have done, but it is hardly an american NOR a conservative american value.

It is radical and destructive. Americans expect the quality of life that insures their food is safe, at the very least.

A moderate or an old school conservative would expect that the agency be overhauled for efficiency, and that it pay for itself. That it get its ass out there and fine the ever loving crap out of the people that are producing bad food. We would expect them to get results and to pay their way as an agency.

Getting rid of all these agencies reeks of right wing anarchy, a world with a needy lower class meager to accept any crust the wealthy corporations toss as a PR event to look good for the stock market, wrapped up in teabagger ribbons to make it more appealing.

 

[BostonPirate]

could they not be asking the question because foodborne illness rates in general have been on a mostly-steady decline for the past 15+ years, outside of seafood?

http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/trends-in-foodborne-illness.html

before someone jumps down my throat, I need to preface this by saying that I'm not in favor of draconian cuts to the FDA or deregulating food safety... but I think that some level of foodborne illness is just something that human society has to live with. there's no practical way of inspecting every single apple picked in an orchard or every cut of chicken rolling out of the slaughterhouse.

we can impose regulations and sue the pants off of companies who violate the regulations, but I feel like the ultimate burden of responsibility lies with the person preparing the food and there's no amount of regulation that can substitute for really basic food preparation safety (washing your produce, not storing raw/cooked meat in the same place, cooking meat to a proper temperature, etc)

So people have mysteriously forgotten to cook chicken, pork, and seafood all the way through before eating it? That sounds unrealistic. What people are having a hard time with is understanding that you have to cook all fresh vegetables before eating them, and some of us happen to like fresh greens and salads.

Heres the graph that shows the flat line development of everything but Salmonella and Vibrio.

There are some mild improvements over time, but what you have to focus on are two key industries that are providing the most infections... Poultry and seafood. How are these bacteria getting into the garden produce? Laxed regulations. What seems harmless due to cooking practices becomes deadly. There are cross contaminations happening, and how thats occuring?

It needs to be studied, not defunded. New challenges always await, and are not concerned with the national debt.

Changes in incidence of laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections, United States, 2010 compared with 1996–1998

http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/trends-in-foodborne-illness.html

 

[jackoroe]

So people have mysteriously forgotten to cook chicken, pork, and seafood all the way through before eating it? That sounds unrealistic. What people are having a hard time with is understanding that you have to cook all fresh vegetables before eating them, and some of us happen to like fresh greens and salads.

You find it difficult to believe that there are a lot of stupid people in this world? Like people who ostensibly don't know that coffee is hot, spill it on themselves, sue and actually get a cash award for their world class stupidity?

It's not really a stretch to assume there are people too dumb and or lazy, to properly store or prepare their own food, is it?

There's nothing wrong with fresh veggies and salads. Just take the time to wash them prior to eating.

 

[BostonPirate]

You find it difficult to believe that there are a lot of stupid people in this world? Like people who ostensibly don't know that coffee is hot, spill it on themselves, sue and actually get a cash award for their world class stupidity?

It's not really a stretch to assume there are people too dumb and or lazy, to properly store or prepare their own food, is it?

There's nothing wrong with fresh veggies and salads. Just take the time to wash them prior to eating.

Salmonella and vibrio cannot be washed away. They CAN be cooked away, but in some situations, it is not even enough.

The cross contamination... storage... before it gets to the produce markets is the problem, and that is a regulatory issue. There is no good reason for a nation like the USA to have an food supply that cannot be trusted by its citizens.

There can be no other way to protect the consumer, but to create a gov't watchdog agency, and that needs to be run effectively, cheaply, and free of corporate influence.

How often have industry insiders gone on to oversee these agencies? Too many times to count. The result is that you have inspectors inspecting the people they worked with and for for ten years.

 

[opinterph]

And this site is for [whoever may not like] Alternet.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/10/7/202822/605

To be fair, the Alternet article is merely a republication of the exact same text which apparently originated on the Booman Tribune blog, which is named for the author’s pet dog.

… there is no feasible way we can afford the FDA that regulates all food production.

… is there any proof that FDA funding has anything to do with this at all yet? which part of the process failed here that a few more million dollars for the FDA would have fixed?

^^If you'd read either of the OP links you would see that:

A 2010 law increased the FDA's authority to regulate and shut down any food related business that failed to respond adequately to FDA warnings that the business' practices were unsafe. …

I assume you are referring to the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act signed by President Obama on January 4, 2011?

What he's getting at is whether the investigation of the outbreak was hampered by the lack of funding, or if the lack of funding would have prevented it. It is a valid question to be raised.

I read a couple articles on the topic … trillions of dollars

It would be helpful if you provide links to those articles. I haven’t found any legitimate estimation that involves “trillions of dollars.”

Below, I link a 2007 USA Today article in support of this statement:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-02-fda_N.htmp

That link is confusing. There are additional links to several articles, but none seem to be directly related to under-funding of the FDA.

… the FDA could have put the company out of business before some could get sick.

I don’t follow your reasoning. On what basis would the FDA be inclined to identify this particular company as eligible for being “put out of business” and how would that specific action be authorized by current US Code?

 

[opinterph]

... the second paragraph was conjecture and merely poses the question, "if we gave the FDA a trillion dollars, could they guarantee with certainty that we'd never see another piece of contaminated food again?"

Okay. I suppose there is some number of dollars that could reasonably guarantee absolute food safety, but whatever that number may be~ it's not realistic or feasible.

 

[Just_Believe18]

Ah, the link seems to no longer be working, Opinterph. It is redirecting now which is unfortunate. Just google "FDA underfunded" and you'll probably be able to find the link back to the USA Today article.

 

[opinterph]

…Just google "FDA underfunded" and you'll probably be able to find the link back to the USA Today article.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-02-fda_N.htm​

 

[BostonPirate]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-02-fda_N.htm​

From that article...

•Inadequate inspections of manufacturers, noting that foodmakers, for example, are inspected about once every 10 years.

•A "badly broken" food-import system and food supply "that grows riskier each year." In the past 35 years, FDA inspections of the food supply have dropped 78% due to soaring numbers of products and inadequate FDA funding.

•A depleted FDA staff, which is about the same size as it was 15 years ago despite huge growth in agency responsibilities. Instead of being proactive, the agency is often in "fire-fighting" mode.

•A workforce with a "dearth" of scientists who understand emerging technologies. Turnover rates in some scientific positions at the FDA run twice that of other government agencies.

•An "obsolete" information-technology system.

inspections once every ten years? Inspections dropped 78 percent? Low pay, understaffed and in desperate need of a new computer system.

And this is the food our kids are eating. Unnaceptable.

This program OUGHT to be used as a model for overhaul, not dismantling. Obama will veto any attempt to kill them, if anything manages to get through the senate. They left reality behind in the house of reps over a year ago, so there will be no action of any substance there.

one inspection a decade. That just makes my head hurt.

 

[opinterph]

Heres the graph that shows the flat line development of everything but Salmonella and Vibrio.

The most profound change represented in the graph you displayed in a quote from the CDC (Changes in incidence of laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections, U.S., 2010*) involves a 115% increase in cases of Vibrio. Coincidentally, the increase of incidents corresponds to new data collection criteria associated with that particular pathogen.

In 2007, infections caused by V. vulnificus and other Vibrio species became nationally notifiable. [CDC]

The less remarkable up tick in Salmonella infections is perhaps explained by observation of a series of “outbreak associated cases.” [MMWR/CDC] (Refer to section titled “Outbreak-Associated Cases of Infection.”)

Note as well, that FoodNet Data from which the information reported in the graphs is compiled, involves data collection from only 10 US states.

During 1996--2007, the FoodNet surveillance population increased … to 45.5 million persons (15% of the U.S. population) in 10 states. [MMWR/CDC]

So people have mysteriously forgotten to cook … seafood all the way through before eating it? That sounds unrealistic.

Perhaps an increase in data collection and interpretation of the corresponding results will help us to better understand a basis for realism.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus infections are associated with consumption of raw or undercooked shellfish, contaminated food, and exposure of wounds to warm seawater …

Between 1988 and 1997 … 88% of persons with acute gastroenteritis reported having eaten raw oysters during the week before their illness occurred. [The Journal of Infectious Diseases (Abstract)]

 

[Joshua_me]

You find it difficult to believe that there are a lot of stupid people in this world? Like people who ostensibly don't know that coffee is hot, spill it on themselves, sue and actually get a cash award for their world class stupidity?

Hmm...

Perhaps as a brief aside you need to watch the HBO Documentary entitled, (I believe) "Black Coffee"

I used to think as well that that lawsuit was the height of stupidity and that it opened the flood gates for wave after wave of greed-driven legislation, but turns out I was wrong.

When one learns that the coffee is question wasn't just "hot" but rather about 15 degrees under the boiling point (F) and that hundreds of complaints had been filed by people that had been terribly burned by trying to get the lid off of said java, (which Mc'D's promptly ignored) were swept under the rug...

...And worst of all when you seen the grizzly pictures of what this coffee did to this elderly lady's "private parts", (believe me...It's not an image that leaves your mind any time soon) You begin to realize that you....and most everyone else - fell for the corporate spin that McDonald's launched on the public.

Things are not always what they seem, and sadly we all know our corporate owned media stations haven't told us the truth for years...

But.

 

[JayHawk]

Wasn't that women's monetary reward for stupidity revoked by a higher court?

I had heard or read that but don't know if it is true.

We are too litigious and I personally think part of lowering health care cost would be a huge chunk of tort reform.

But that is amazingly off topic.