Dangerous Food

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/opinion/17tue1.html?ref=opinion

The more investigators look into the latest food-safety scandal involving the Peanut Corporation of America, the worse it gets. It now appears that as many as nine people have died and 19,000 have been sickened after eating cookies, crackers or institutional peanut butter tainted with salmonella from a plant in Georgia owned by the company.

At a charged Congressional hearing last week, company executives refused to answer questions on the advice of their attorneys, but the questions told much of the story. “The food poisoning of people — is that just a cost of doing business?” one congressman asked. When another angrily asked the company’s president if he would like to try some of the recalled products, he refused.

The company is facing a criminal inquiry and has now filed for bankruptcy court protection. But it would be a mistake to view this as “an unconscionable act by one manufacturer,” as an official from the American Peanut Council, the industry’s trade association, said.

While most successful food producers are far more diligent — big name-brand peanut butter is considered safe, for example — American consumers have faced far too many food-supply emergencies in the last few years. Congress and the Obama administration must finally make food safety a serious priority.

(snip)
President Obama promised during the campaign to create a government that does a better job of protecting the American consumer. The nation’s vulnerable food supply is a healthy place to start.

[aquart]

1. Create jobs: hire inspectors.

[pansypoo53219]

2. don't eat out of a box.

i eat peanuts. rarely peanut butter.

[azul]

3. For Pete's sake, what is this China?

Do we get to start executing executives in charge for deadly business failures and corruption too? Publicly, to set an example?

Just who writes these laws that are supposed to protect the public but really end up protecting business profits and the greedy crooks that would bargain the health of their own children away?

Any business that injures people or damages nature without a desperate need to do so, should be killed, dissolved, period, IMO. Businesses exist only to serve a public need is the way I think that they should be regulated. With out mercy.

[this_side_up]

4. As bad as this is, go to

your local county restaurant inspection website and check
the scores of your favorite restaurants and fastfood joints.

EWwwwwwwwwwww

We now restrict ourselves to those businesses with
scores of 99 and 100. Anything less is not acceptable.
Or safe.