Don't Play With Our Food

So it looks like the source of the most recent E. coli outbreak has been traced to “wild pigs that may have spread the bacteria in the field” where spinach was grown on a farm on San Benito County, CA.

Well, it’s a comfort to know that our produce is safe once more for the time being. However, this paragraph from the Signs On San Diego story got me as hot as a jalapeno pepper…

In an effort to restore consumer confidence in the wake of the outbreak, California lettuce and spinach processors crafted a voluntary inspection program, overseen by the state, that will allow participants to put a food safety seal of approval on their products. Officials and industry leaders are working to outline the inspection guidelines.

I’m sick of reading about “voluntary industry compliance” of one type or another that is supposed to serve as a substitute for legitimate government enforcement, particularly when it comes to the safety of what we eat.

You may feel the same way I do after you consider the following information provided to us by Rep. Henry Waxman, who thankfully for us all is no longer the minority member but the actual chairman of the Committee on Government Reform (in particular this excerpt)…

(As of October 2006), this most recent outbreak (of E. coli) is not an isolated occurrence. This is the (21st) outbreak…in fresh produce since 1995, and the (now third) outbreak specifically linked to spinach.

Produce-related outbreaks have doubled from 44 outbreaks in 1998 to 86 in 2004. Overall, an estimated 76 million cases of food borne disease occur each year in the United States, causing about 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths annually.

And the predictable response from Bushco?

Food safety funding has not kept pace with rising costs and new responsibilities. Nominal funds for FDA food programs have risen from $407 million in 2003 to $439 million in 2006.

This funding increase, however, has not been enough to keep up with rising personnel costs and new duties protecting the food supply from terrorism. According to an FDA budget official, the agency’s food division operated under a shortfall of $135 million in 2006 due to increased personnel costs and new terrorism responsibilities, which the official described as equivalent to a 24% budget cut.

The official stated: “as long as the resources available to FDA do not keep up with the realities of increasing costs, it is increasingly difficult for FDA to perform in a way that meets public expectations.”

And as the Waxman document notes further, the proposed 2007 budget from Bushco is more of the same.

Well, at least the veggies themselves may be protected from any slander or negative publicity in California if Assemblywoman Audra Strickland has her way (“libeling a legume” – heh, heh).

And I’m going to engage in a bit of a pre-emptive strike on this subject and announce to people like Tom Tancredo and Lou Dobbs who are riding the anti-immigrant bandwagon that, before they try to use food safety as an issue to punish illegal immigrants, they 1) reconsider doing this because it’s xenophobic and absurd on its face, and 2) read this post debunking the fact that immigrants are lazy and are more highly incarcerated than individuals born in this country (I’m a little hesitant about using the phrase “Native Americans,” and I’m not completely sold on the issue of immigrants driving up wages either, but the Kos post still makes some good points).