Hmmm… maybe this approach could be extended to every other aspect of government regulation. Instead
of driver’s license tests, drivers could just certify they know how to drive. Building inspections
would be a thing of the past, as contractors could just certify the quality of their work. Doctors,
lawyers, teachers, etc.? No need to test ‘em, just a simple statement from them that they’re qualified
and they’re good to go.

In the mean time, I can’t help wonder at all they hype to increase the FDA’s budget. It would seem to
me that $1.5 billion is a lot to pay an outfit that isn’t doing anything. That would be enough money
to pay 30,000 inspectors $50K per year. Last I heard they were touting how they had dedicated 400
staff members to the recall.

Maybe this July 2005 Boston Globe piece gives a bit more insight into the problem:

http://www.boston.com/business.....e_critics/

It would appear the problem has less to do with how much money there is, than it does with how the
money is being spent. It’s interesting that any major corporation in the world will restructure and
trim the fat when the business becomes less efficient, but with government operations, the fix is
always to make it bigger, more expensive, and even less productive.

Porcine multi-systemic wasting syndrome (PMWS): a review

http://www.thepigsite.com/pigj.....s-a-review

Wal-Mart said that green tags on their shelves, which identify food as organic, may have inadvertently or mistakenly been placed, or accidentally shifted in front of the wrong item.
[…]
The finding is a victory of consumers who care about the integrity of organic food and farming. Wal-Mart cannot be allowed to sell organic food ’on-the-cheap’ because they lack the commitment to recruit qualified management or are unwilling to properly train their store personnel.”

http://www.lacrossetribune.com...../1wis9.txt

It’s about time… Hopefully, the show is not entirely put together yet, and we can suggest resources and links for Sanjay - pet food recall and human food atrocities…

China sending us food with their industrial toxic wastes!

Ex. South Africa Journal of Veterinary Medicine - Crystalluria in sheep that ate melamine from 1966.

What steams me is that our farm animals, and ultimately we, and maybe our pets yet again (if the contaminated chicken & pork are put back in pet food), are all unknowingly & unwillingly part of a process of disposing of toxic waste for profit, using living beings in an unprecidented experiment. It all should have gone to a landfill. All the meat should have been recalled. The fish shouldn’t be released.
Powerful lobbies are surely at work.

This should be a crimiinal offense.

It’s so typical of our society. Not many years ago toxic wastes were mixed with fertilizer and sold on unsuspecting farmers at a profit, poisoning their fields right here in the U.S. If our own regulators allow such practices as using us as a means to dispose of contaminated products through the food chain, what can we expect purchasing food from third world countries with far less regulation?

According to a Canadian news report, “fish hatcheries, including at least seven Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife facilities that use the feed as a starter diet for juvenile salmon and trout”

They also said “Officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said because the food went to very young fish, there’s no risk that the contamination would have made it into the food chain”.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Ca.....68-cp.html

A blog from Oregon sais, “An Oregon hatchery that used potentially contaminated feed released almost 4.5 million fish into the Columbia River in the past month, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department said today”.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/bre....._used.html

Washington State hatcheries used the contaminated feed, though according to this report none of their salmon farms did.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....ish09.html

More than three-quarters of the state-run hatcheries in Oregon used feed linked to the pet food recall, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said today.

Almost 4.5 million of those fish were released into the Columbia River within the past month, said Rick Hargrave, a department spokesman.

But those juvenile tule fall chinook salmon pose little risk to consumers because they are years from reaching dinner tables, he said.

But they did breath one sigh of relief today: “It does not appear that any legal-sized rainbow trout from our hatcheries were fed any of the recalled product,” said Steve Williams, the department’s deputy head of the fish division.