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Apr 14, 2009 -- Food safety is front and center on Clark's mind
Is the food we eat safe? It seems not, considering all the coverage of the recent peanut scare. Other recent recalls have included tomatoes and seafood.
What's striking every time there's a food recall is how nobody in the government knows what's going on. For example, during the tomato scare, Mexican suppliers were at first implicated as the source of contamination. Just as quickly, they were later exonerated.
Perhaps the threat of food-borne illness is so front and center in our minds because of our 24/7 news cycle. But there's no denying there's a real problem here. Recent numbers from the Center for Disease Control show a jump in the rate of food-borne illnesses over the last 5 years.
Who is most affected? Children under age 4 and adults over age 50.
The problem is that there's no cop on the beat. Clark thinks we need a federal agency whose sole mission is to oversee the food supply. It's just plain silly that we don't have such an agency in our modern society. It's a no-brainer.
Unfortunately, Clark won't be able to answer any questions submitted via commenting. If you have a question, please try posting it to our message boards.
Clark, Why support another government agency to try and enforce food safety regulation, when we currently have more than adequate regulation on the books, but little enforcement. It's not a situation of needing more government, it's a situation of enforcement. I am a former sanitarian for 27 years. Regulations are there, but when you pay a career high of $30K per year for a food inspector you get what you pay for. Good people can't afford to stay in that kind of career situtaion. I work for the government and I can personally attest that government is extremely inefficient non competitive. I worked at CDC and watched the USDA headed by former cattle industry members respond to the BSE scare, and that was like the fox watching the henhouse. Stop the political appointee process at USDA and empower and resource their enforcement arm. The answer isn't create more government Clark. It's making existing government do their job. Accountibility, my friend, accountability!
Food safety
I have been fighting to have millions of pounds of contaminated meat recalled that was produced using a warehouse facility that makes the PBA facility look like the Ritz. The pictures I gave to the USDA and the FDA showed RAT fecal matter and rodents nests on food ingredients and materials, I submitted documents to the USDA proving the use of this contaminated warehouse for years and was denied a recall of my own products .Why –to protect a State institution that was contracted to produce this meat for my company. Agencies state the manufacturer must generate the recall and the FDA and USDA not having the authority to initiate this action as the reason bad food gets into the system .This is not so ,I am proof of this statement not being accurate. Even when the USDA went and found this contaminated warehouse with live rodents they never tested any product for salmonella and co-operated with the state of Florida to use possible contaminated ingredients in further meat processing. I applaud your very fine story and comments and appeal to you to visit my blog site http://bullstone-larrym.blogspot.com/ and see the evidence of rat fecal contamination in meats produced by an instrument of the State of Florida department of Corrections. I have been battling with the USDA to issue a recall on the millions of pounds of meat the State of Florida produced under contract for my company. This meat was distributed nation wide to schools, supermarkets and institutions. When we discovered that this Florida State division was storing food supplies and edible ingredients in a rat infested warehouse we began our quest to get this information to the public and get accountability placed on those who allowed this to happen. When you read the information on my blog you will see the validity of both our stories .I support your efforts and request your support of mine. Regards Larry Stone
Food safety
I would love to see the Center for Disease Control get involved. Food and Drug Administration is affected by industry/market pressures or compromises that are not protecting us. Legal toxins are giving us cancer while medicine spends billions trying to conquer it...Truth is it is political and financial. We do need accountability outside of the government. Media tries to educate but the general public trusts if it is on our plates it is generally not destructive to our bodies. Not so...
Food Agency
Yes we need a Food Agency outside the realm of the FDA. But have we considered just what food entails, and the interrelationships with other Government Agencies within the food purview. The concept is good but implementation with existing laws and interrelationships would require 3-D outside the box thinking.
With the economic situation, and the cost of comprehensive food coverage, be careful for what you ask. When you are more concerned about what you eat, then the other critical aspects of your livelihood, then the time has come for Super "Food" Agency, but consider the cost. You can't prevent everything, and I'm sure all food company CEO's pray that something does not happen on their "watch".
We don't need another government agency
How hard would it be for growers to add a unique code on the stickers that are added to fruits and vegetables to identify the farm where it came from?
Food Safety
We do have a government agency whose job it is to inspect our food, it is the USDA.
Existing inspections work just fine.
Mexican food growers were the cause of that particular disease outbreak; they were not at all exhonerated. Food inspections in this country work just fine. Sadly, foreign countries are not as dilligent, and therin lies the problem. We don't need more government intrusion into food production in this country; the free market system keeps food producers working to unsure our safety --or they're run out of business very quickly.
Bring on the back-yard gardens! Ours gets larger every season, and we grow most of what we eat already. Squirrels and birds get half, and that's fine with us. I envy anyone with lots of acerage that can produce simple food for their family. We have become too dependent on others to provide that which we can for ourselves in this country.
Food safety
Have you ever tried to do a little garden? I have people at work wanting to know what I'm planting this year, a friend of mine love the maters, he's from yankee land and thinks maters are tomato's and learning how. Now what to plant now, Got to grow one for the bugs, one for the birds, one to fall off the vine, one to eat, and one for somebody to pick and enjoy.
safe food
If our food was irradiated the food would be safe and so would we. The fear of radiating our food is irrational - we irradiate ourselves for x-rays!
