Poison for Profit

[Liberty Belle]

Source: The Nation magazine




In the six years since 9/11, food-borne pathogens and toxins have quietly killed ten times the number of Americans who died in the terrorist attacks. How many more Americans must conservatism kill before our leaders embrace a more responsible ideology?

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/goldstein

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The article refers to a philosophy of "E-Coli conservatism" that puts corporate greed over the public interest.

Here are some more troubling stats in the wake of the pet food scandal that killed 39,000 pets from tainted human-grade wheat gluten:

Americans were shocked to learn that the world's largest wheat exporter now imports more than 70 percent of its wheat gluten; but we also import 20 percent of our generic and over-the-counter drugs, 40 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients and 80 percent of our seafood--much of it from developing nations with lax standards and little regulatory enforcement. Yet even as the FDA struggled to track poisoned gluten through the food supply, it announced plans to close seven of thirteen regional testing labs.

More food for thought:

And had this "food grade" wheat gluten made its way to the US bakery and breakfast cereal manufacturers who use 530 million pounds annually, it could have created the largest and deadliest mass food poisoning in American history. Indeed, given the often silent, progressive nature of renal failure, and our regulatory and public health agencies' woeful inability to prevent, uncover, track or remedy such incidents, we cannot be certain that it already hasn't.

Hyperbole? Just days after pronouncing that there is "no acceptable level" of melamine and cyanuric acid in human food, the USDA and FDA suddenly recanted after learning that these industrial chemicals had also contaminated more than 23 million chickens and 56,000 hogs. Even as our pets were dying, the USDA/FDA issued a comically Orwellian joint press release proclaiming "no evidence of harm to humans" from eating melamine-tainted meat: "While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention systems would have limited ability to detect subtle problems...no problems have been detected to date."

Note: only one candidate has thus far spoken out on the need to protect consumers against food poisonings and other abuses: John Edwards. When I interviewed him in San Diego, he said we need a consumer bill of rights. Please start asking all the candidates about this important issue - as well as your elected representatives!

[Stargazer99]

1. There is a way to fix this damn problem

When I was young imported food was inspected and labled. Not much imported food came into the US then. It worked so go back to it...piss on the corp bottom line. Corporate America equals Legalized Murder.