Sorry Fritz, but this is just dumb. To put this into perspective I offer the following *sample* of contaminated food problems that occurred in just one year during the Clinton administration (not attacking Clinton, he just happens to have been the president before Bush);
- A parasite, Cyclospora, on raspberries from Guatemala caused over 1000 consumer illnesses all over the country and in Canada. - E. coli poisoning outbreaks traced to lettuce caused at least 100 consumer illnesses in three states. - E. coli and Cryptosporidium poisoning from unpasteurized juice products, including Odwalla juice, caused over 100 consumer illnesses and one death in at least 5 states. - 23 deaths were traced to one bacteria, Vibrio vulnificus, in raw shellfish. - Over 70 consumer illnesses from shellfish were traced to raw oysters from Louisiana. In January 1997, in another major outbreak, over 400 consumers became ill from oysters. Oddly enough, I don't recall that vast right wing conspiracy team ever blaming Clinton for these problems. The truth of the matter is it's impossible to police everyone, and these things will happen. It usually turns out to be careless and indifferent producers who figure they can take shortcuts and not get caught. Normally they do, until someone gets hurt. Here's a quote from the same story, which was written in June 1997, right in the middle of Clinton's presidency; "Last year, there was a bumper crop of food borne illnesses from FDA- regulated foods," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the CSPI. "Years of inadequate funding have left FDA with a food safety program that is little more than a recall agency for contaminated foods." >From a May 1997 report titled; "Scrambled Eggs: How a broken food safety system let contaminated eggs become a national food poisoning epidemic" (http://www.cspinet.org/reports/eggs.html) "The history of the federal government's failure to curb the [Salmonella] epidemic illustrates the ineffectiveness of having multiple government agencies responsible for regulating the same food. The agencies were further hamstrung by a Congress that cut funding for a pilot control program just as it was beginning to show results and an industry that, except for producers in Pennsylvania, resisted attempts to prevent egg contamination on the farm." This problem has existed for a loooong time. It's just a shame there are still disingenuous people more interested in scoring political points than addressing the problem. On Jan 30, 12:36 pm, Fritz_da_Cat <[email protected]> wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/29Peanut.html?_r=1&8au&emc=au > > Bush didn't protect us. He poisoned us. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
