What the fox isn’t telling us about the henhouse
By Gina Spadafori
June 13, 2008
Nine people sickened by a salmonella outbreak linked to fresh tomatoes ate at two restaurants from the same chain, federal officials confirmed today.
The chain’s name and restaurant location are confidential, said David Acheson, the associate commissioner of foods for the Food and Drug Administration, during a conference call with reporters. A spokesman for the agency also declined to provide the time frame for the cases — or say whether the restaurants were in the same state.
OK, so we all remember our “Food Safety Czar” from the pet-food recalls. Dr. Acheson isn’t going to tell us the name of the restaurant chain, where the restaurants are located of even when the toxic tomatoes were on the menu.
My first response: “Heckuva job, BrownieAcheson. By all means, it’s important that you never provide any information that could, you know, be used by an actual tax-paying consumer. I bet your family’s not eating at that chain, boy-o.”
My second response: “Well, if it’s two locations in a large restaurant chain, maybe it’s not fair to possibly put the entire company out of business because people tend to avoid businesses where people get killed by the food, even if most locations are perfectly safe. And then, what about all those people suddenly without jobs, and their families?”
I’m still leaning towards reaction No. 1, pretty strongly. I think we have the right to know what the FDA knows, and that the FDA needs to start remembering that they work for us, not corporate America. Mr. Food Czar, you arrogant no-comment twit, it’s not your freakin’ job to shield a company that screwed up. And besides … what about all the $50K retainer against $1K an hour crisis-management PR guys? Don’t they need work, too? Who’s looking out for them?
But then I think about a whole lot of minimum-wage restaurant workers trying to find jobs now, and …
Well, what do you think? Is Acheson padding his resume for a top job with a multinational food company after the Bush administration cronies leave office? Or is he being fair and prudent?
Foxes guard henhouse. Film at 11: I just got around to reading New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writing on the FDA:
“The Jungle,” Upton Sinclair’s 1906 exposé of conditions in America’s meat-packing industry, [...] helped Theodore Roosevelt pass the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act — and for most of the next century, Americans trusted government inspectors to keep their food safe.
Lately, however, there always seems to be at least one food-safety crisis in the headlines — tainted spinach, poisonous peanut butter and, currently, the attack of the killer tomatoes.
[...]
How did America find itself back in The Jungle?
It started with ideology. Hard-core American conservatives have long idealized the Gilded Age, regarding everything that followed — not just the New Deal, but even the Progressive Era — as a great diversion from the true path of capitalism
[...]
Such hard-core opponents of regulation were once part of the political fringe, but with the rise of modern movement conservatism they moved into the corridors of power. They never had enough votes to abolish the F.D.A. or eliminate meat inspections, but they could and did set about making the agencies charged with ensuring food safety ineffective.
[...]
Perhaps even more important, however, was the systematic appointment of foxes to guard henhouses.
Here’s the rest. Anyone else notice how now that we’ve had crisis after crisis after crisis in the human food chain, the media have forgotten how many pets died to sound the alarm?
Well, it’s not the restaurant chain’s fault that tainted tomatoes made it to their kitchens. That would be the FDA’s fault. On the other hand, there may be more sick people who don’t know what’s wrong with them because the FDA hasn’t reported when and where the exposure occurred. That endangers people’s lives. I say they need to disclose all the information.
Comment by C.L.H. — June 13, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
They wouldn’t tell us who bought the tainted wheat gluten, wouldn’t tell us what foods still on the shelves were going to be recalled… this is a pattern of behavior. The FDA seems to be actively engaged in a “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” food safety policy and only breaks the “ask” part when people start getting sick. I can’t imagine what it would take to get them to break the “tell” part.
Comment by slt — June 13, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
Yeah, remember the media conference where Christie asked them about a recall we knew about and they weren’t going to mention? They cut the sound to everyone, then came back on the line a couple minutes later to admit that, yep, that product was being recalled.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 13, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
I do! And I remember many conferences where Christie was live blogging and we were all furiously posting comments that all basically amounted to “Whaaaaa?!” Nothing has changed.
I have my own personal thoughts on what the letters FDA represent. It’s just unfortunate for the food safety czar that his initials are DA. You can take a guess on the F.
Comment by slt — June 13, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
I knew there was something else I was going to blog a minute ago: Krugman’s column. Glad to see you already mentioned it.
Comment by Kim Campbell Thornton — June 13, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
This whole FDA/tainted food thing is getting a little bit tiring…or should I say what I really feel, enough is enough!
Let’s see,
if they won’t tell us who it is, then maybe we should guess???
Now, who was it that said they wouldn’t be serving tomatoes on their fast food right now? Am I remembering correctly? Was it something to do with “golden arches?”
Just wondering…
Comment by Marcy — June 13, 2008 @ 10:03 pm
Ummmm…if you have gone to FDA and looked at the list of “safe” states and countries, you will see one major produce source is missing from the list. Since when is it the job of FDA to play international politics???????
Here’s your quiz. Find the missing country.
Hint: It borders the US and it’s not Cda.
http://tinyurl.com/45gsfx
Comment by Deb — June 14, 2008 @ 2:18 am
While the FDA ushers in a new campaign of harrassment of small, clean raw milk dairies in the states, it ignores much more dangerous imported foods:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....ory?page=1
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/gumpert
“While the FDA and most state agriculture and health authorities have for many years opposed raw-milk consumption and fill their websites with warnings about its dangers, the crackdown on dairies represents a change in tactics, says Pete Kennedy, a lawyer for the Weston A. Price Foundation. “They’re now going after the supply side,” he says, since growing numbers of consumers are ignoring the warnings.”
Many chapters on the raw milk issue can be found at Gumpert’s blog, The Complete Patient - http://www.thecompletepatient.com
Comment by ChrisRL — June 14, 2008 @ 7:24 am
Anyone else looking forward to a change in government leaders?
Personally, I take issue with the fact that I am seeing produce from Mexico (my family immigrated) and China.
Why?
Because they do not maintain the same standards or health conditions the USA does (or did).
Just how do they fertilize? Where is the irritation water coming from? How many sick or ill people are handling the stuff? What pesticides are being used?
Now more than ever with the “green” movement it is time to clean up more than the produce.
Makes me made. If you have not read “Gorgeously Green” the book has a natural produce cleaning agent recipe just for produce.
I’d suggest planning on using it and reading more labels.
For goodness sake even some of the grocery brand spices are from China!
Comment by Diana L Guerrero — June 14, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
Last night, in his endorsement speech for Obama, Al Gore included poisoned pet food in his very passionate list of why “elections matter.”
Comment by Lis — June 17, 2008 @ 6:07 am
Christie promises to find and post a clip. We were shocked.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 17, 2008 @ 6:08 am