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Flood of food imported to U.S., but only 2 percent inspected

MaggieD said:
If you think we can ever spend enough money to ensure that 100% of our food supply is safe, you are naive. 70-some illnesses; 16 deaths. That's NOTHING. Inconsequential. Unless you're one of the 70-some. Our food supply is probably the safest on planet earth. But it is not and cannot be foolproof.
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Irradiation treatment would solve a lot of problems. However, we still need a lot more inspectors to find cream of wheat that has drywall in it.
 
I observe that food inspection in the US is not the Gold Standard of measure. Healthcare, education, and most everything else in this country has gone downhill and food inspection is the same. Many country have better standards than we do and reject US food products for that reason. Follow the meat trail on "Mad Cow," and I don't mean your mother in law.
 
Having worked in the food service industry for a few years, I'll say this. It's not really the NUMBER of inspectors, it's the quality. I've met with, and been inspected by about 6 or 7 of these people, and they have ALL been lazy. My store always gets top marks, 98 or higher, out of 100. I can tell you this. On the retail end of things, as least, company standards are actually far higher than state or federal. Oh, and the majority of food born illnesses are from high risk demographics eating high risk foods, like bean sprouts, chicken salad, and sushi/raw shellfish. Anyway, the reason why the retail end of food industry has HIGHER standards than the government requires is because they are succeptable to that most lethal of forces, lawsuits. Make the suppliers just as accountable, remove their corporate personhood status, and have them get hit by a few high yield lawsuits, and see if they don't start cleaning up their act...more/better health inspectors or no.
 
KevinKohler said:
Having worked in the food service industry for a few years, I'll say this. It's not really the NUMBER of inspectors, it's the quality. I've met with, and been inspected by about 6 or 7 of these people, and they have ALL been lazy. My store always gets top marks, 98 or higher, out of 100. I can tell you this. On the retail end of things, as least, company standards are actually far higher than state or federal. Oh, and the majority of food born illnesses are from high risk demographics eating high risk foods, like bean sprouts, chicken salad, and sushi/raw shellfish. Anyway, the reason why the retail end of food industry has HIGHER standards than the government requires is because they are succeptable to that most lethal of forces, lawsuits. Make the suppliers just as accountable, remove their corporate personhood status, and have them get hit by a few high yield lawsuits, and see if they don't start cleaning up their act...more/better health inspectors or no.
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No, the majority of food illnesses are from corporate practices borne from their desire to cut costs. However, I agree with your proposed solutions. That would work better than more regulations, but more stringent standards would make the threat of lawsuits more compelling to the suppliers
 
MaggieD said:
Show me a quote where any Republican said he/she wanted to deregulate the food industry. You can't because it's all baloney.

Is this what is going to happen every single time Republicans try to rein in spending?? On everything?? It's 2-cents away from "Ohhhhh, the chilllllldren!!!!" What a joke.

BTW, most of those deaths, it's 3,000 actually, are from home-prepared and restaurant food. Not from our food chain. The people who die have weakened immune systems, for the most part, are sick from other things, or are old. 3,000 is nothing in the scheme of things.
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Does abolishing the FDA count as wanting to deregulate the food industry?
 
MaggieD said:
BTW, most of those deaths, it's 3,000 actually, are from home-prepared and restaurant food. Not from our food chain. The people who die have weakened immune systems, for the most part, are sick from other things, or are old. 3,000 is nothing in the scheme of things.
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I'd like to see a link on the 3,000 deaths being at-risk individuals.

Of the 16 which died recently from domestic cantaloupes, only one had an immune disorder and two were elderly. None of the infants that were sickened by industrial lubricant that got infant Tylenol recalled had risk factors. It is simply not true that only the immune-comprised have problems with tainted food.
 
I'd like to know when the citizens of the USA are going to grow tired of the "most powerful country in the world" being dependent on FOOD from other countries and the FARMERS here being treated like red headed stepchildren. Why do we need food from other places? The USA is vast with plenty of land to GROW OUR OWN.

But now the government wants to label ALL foods "Grown in the World" so the consumer is ignorant of where their money goes for a can of frigging beans. I want to buy AMERICAN. But if the government gets its way, none of us will know what is grown where.
 
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