BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Well, I have laid off the “F” agencies for a while, even commending FEMA for the work they are doing in the flooded central part of our country.  But, just when one starts to think there is hope for a government agency, the FDA shows that it has no direction and no focus.  Of course, they are under funded.  That’s going to be their first excuse.  But, the truth is they haven’t done a good job with what they have so giving more to the dysfunctional agency will only add a few more overpaid jobs that get nothing done to protect the American people.

The first cases of salmonella broke out in April.  It’s now July.  And, so far, the only thing the FDA has done is to say that tomoatoes are the culprits and ruin the economy for those farmers who grow the red fruit.  869 sickened citizens later, and now the FDA isn’t sure tomatoes are to blame.  They can’t determine which tomato producer is the cause of the salmonella outbreak, so today we are hearing that the sicknesses may be coming not from tomatoes, but one of those complementary foods that is most often served with the tomatoes.  Oh, that could be lettuce, onions… oh, just look at your next salad.

The FDA is calling on 100 more labs to help in the investigation.

The extra labs are needed because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over the weekend expanded its investigation of the outbreak originally blamed on contaminated tomatoes. The federal agencies are now collecting samples of foods typically consumed with tomatoes.

The FDA, like a bad cop, assumed they had the suspect and stopped looking for other evidence.  They zeroed in on the poor old tomato, to the exclusion of every other food.  Even so, once again the agency has proved that they have absolutely no way of tracing where our food supply comes from.  There is no tracking of imported foods, and apparently there is little inspection by any agency on the foods we grow.

“In a digital age should we still be using paper and pencil to try to figure these things out?” he said. “It certainly seems illogical at this point that we don’t have a more expeditious way to deal with traceability.”

Jean Halloran of Consumers Union called on Congress to mandate traceability of fruits and vegetables back to their source. “The FDA should not have to spend its modest resources trying to track down the source of food contamination,” she said. “If FedEx can keep track of all its packages moving around the country, the produce industry should be able to do the same.”

Looking at the big picture over the past couple of years, it would seem to me… and what do I know?… but it would seem to me that following the poisoning of our pet food, lead painted toys from China being recalled from the shelves of Wal*Mart, heparin killing hundreds of patients, and all the other debacles, someone in one of the agencies in Washington would have realized that we are not safe.  In fact, if we total the deaths due to poisonings and the like, it could be assumed that food and drug contamination has killed more people than the September 11 attack… just more quietly. 

While Homeland Security is protecting us from dirty bombs and NSA is listening to our conversations to find one of us saying something that can be interpreted as “terrorist talk,” while our suitcases are being rifled through at the airports, perhaps someone needs to consider that our most deadly attack may come from our imports and the food we eat.  I’m not suggesting by any means that the present case of salmonella contaminated food is a terrorist attack.  But, based on what we have seen in the past few years from the “F” agencies, we all know where our national weakness lies.