It seems like there is always some sort of outbreak in the news that is usually linked to one of our food sources, perhaps a plant that has been producing food that is tainted with salmonella, or maybe e. coli, two of the most popular and easy to breed and catch, and two of the most popular ones that are in the news regarding food safety. Sometimes it’s more serious, such as the news story I heard recently where people actually died (I believe it was in India) because they had drank wine that was made illegally and was contaminated with something that was almost instantly lethal.
Now, the Obama administration, under increasing pressure from consumer advocacy groups and lobbyists, has decided to crack down on our food sources, giving the FDA, or Food and Drug Administration, a higher authority to be able to crack down on factories and their parent corporations that are producing food in unsanitary conditions or not adhering to control efforts to reduce the likelihood of contamination of bacterias and pathogens of different kinds.
The food safety bill is being hailed as a big step in the right direction toward tighter restriction and steeper punishments for those that put out food that is unsafe, so that we may hear less of these scary stories in the news about spinach leaves or peanuts being contaminated with something deadly. My hope is that they would put some sort of steeper restriction on the pet food industry as well, since there have been a few cases of pet food being contaminated so bad that it has literally killed hundreds of family pets.
The new bill would also give the Administration the authority to enforce recalls of foods that are deemed unsafe or suspected of being unsafe or the cause of some sort of outbreak. This new bill would also require food companies to provide detailed plans for providing safe, edible food, as sort of a show of good faith that they are following a certain protocol. Most think that the rash of outbreaks in the news finally gave those politicians that were pushing for food safety and tighter restrictions more ground, after all, what better than negative publicity to spur our lawmakers to take action sooner rather than later?
I actually think the push for food safety is good, however, I don’t want this all to go too far and interfere with our right to seeking out alternative medicines for our ills, since the FDA may tread where they aren’t needed or wanted if some in the pharmaceutical industry have it their way.
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