Ban the FDA!

[SineSwiper]

Maybe it wasn't the tomatoes...

I think a George Carlin quote is appropriate here. Funny, I just posted that same video in another thread.

"Do you know how many people die from food poisoning? Nine thousand! Nine thousand a year. Take the fucking risk!"

[Mully]

How many cases does it take to classify an "outbreak?"

The article says, "The widening outbreak - with 810 people confirmed ill..." 810 people in all the USA, isn't that much...but the better phrased, "Illnesses being reported in 36 states..." that's an epidemic. Sounds like Al-qaeda.

Why does 810 cases in the US mean I should be deprived of genetically enhanced, fertilizer injected, bug-sprayed tomatoes?

That's why I grew my own garden.

[Kupek]

And perhaps food-poisoning is rare in this country because we have aggressive regulation. I don't see a problem here. The FDA determined a link with a certain food, and decided the most prudent action was to pull that off the shelf.

It's similar with vaccinations. If you don't vaccinate your child, the chances of them getting sick from those diseases is small. But part of why that chance is small is that all of the other kids are vaccinated.

[Mully]

Yeah, not disagreeing that they pulled tomatoes. I really don't like them much anyway.

I just think they caused hysteria because they jumped to conclusion that tomatoes were the cause, only NOW their looking elsewhere.

[SineSwiper]

I'm sorry, but I missed my tomatoes, and I think the proper action would have been to isolate and contain. If you know which farms the tomato outbreaks came from, then you isolate those and don't sell them. Almost every outbreak/recall has been like that. However, it looks like they didn't even have the due diligence to figure out if it was tomatoes or not.

Banning every single tomato, and then not knowing if it really was tomatoes is even worse than not banning anything. (I know that they didn't ban anything, but everybody knows what the corporate knee-jerk reaction is going to be with just about every restaurant in the industry.) At least with not banning anything, they're still acknowledging that they're investigating, and not giving people a false sense of security. By banning tomatoes and (possibly) being wrong about it, all they've done is piss people off and get more people sick.

For fuck's sake, there were 810 cases! They can't isolate it down with THAT?!

[SineSwiper]

ATTACK THE JALAPENOS!

I'm sure I'll see another announcement posted on Taco Bell. Also, from the article:

Delays in pinpointing the cause of the outbreak have frustrated consumers, angered the produce industry and prompted members of Congress to call for food safety reforms.

"How sad is that? We can't even really figure out what it is," said Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat who has proposed food tracking and mandatory recall measures. "We've had the same problem with other products in past years, which shows us the food safety system in this country is outdated and underfunded."

Health officials fear that an acknowledgment that the outbreak was not caused by tomatoes could undermine confidence in the public health system. Officials are especially worried that it could reduce support for using statistical analysis of interviews with infected people to justify warnings and recalls, despite many previous successes, because officials decided to issue the tomato warning without waiting to find one that was contaminated.

The tomato industry estimates that it has lost $100 million since the June 10 warning.

"What makes it so pathetic is there has been nothing found," said Bob Spencer, co-owner of West Coast Tomato, which was forced to stop harvesting its fields in Florida and let tomatoes rot in company warehouses.

Liberal interest groups, leading trade associations and congressional critics say the failure to find the outbreak's source, after seven weeks of trying, points up the need for better food tracking systems. They contend that better labeling could quickly lead investigators to a farm that harvested suspicious produce.

Some growers and suppliers have such tracking systems in place. Critics say the FDA should require the tracking systems, which provide detailed information about the source and distribution of produce.

"There is a lot of frustration that the FDA cannot tell us where the tomatoes are from or even whether tomatoes are the cause," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

FDA, are you getting the goddamn message?