To the thousands of Americans whose dogs and cats have already been sickened or killed, and the many millions more who rightfully fear for the health of their beloved pets, the recent massive pet food recall already represents a disastrous failure of our food safety systems. But if it eventually turns out that toxic wheat gluten made its way into the human food supply, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) tentative response and equivocating public statements might have set the stage for a collapse of confidence of post-Katrina proportions.
In finally identifying itself today, the U.S. importer of the melamine-tainted wheat gluten — the unappetizingly named ChemNutra — revealed new information that is sure to anger aggrieved pet owners: Menu Foods knew their product was causing problems as early as March 8, a full week before the first recall was made public. And while ChemNutra insists that none of its 792 metric tons of contaminated wheat gluten shipped to facilities that manufacture food for human consumption, one can forgive suspicious consumers for not accepting the suddenly talkative company at its word, especially considering that this assurance directly contradicts an FDA report from earlier today. For whatever the true risk to our food supply, the corporate and regulatory response is shaping up to be a textbook example of failed crisis management.
First it was only “cuts and gravy” varieties from a single manufacturer, then late last week products from three more facilities were suddenly added to the recall, including one variety of dry cat food. And now the FDA not only admits that the recall could widen further, it has also revealed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten was indeed delivered to processing plants that make human food as well. Still…
“To date, we have nothing that indicates it’s gone into human food,” said Dorothy Miller, director of the FDA’s Office of Emergency Operations . “We have a bit more investigation to do.”
They certainly do. But the FDA should have acted as if the human food supply was at risk from the moment Menu Foods notified it that test animals were dying, presumably sometime before March 8. Tainted wheat gluten was always the prime suspect, and anyone given the facts and a little familiarity with our food processing and distribution system should have heard alarm bells. Yet the federal regulators charged with safeguarding our food supply seemed more concerned with protecting the interests of the corporations involved, then in giving consumers the facts they needed to make informed decisions on their own.
While the FDA focused on pet food, it was left to persistent bloggers and journalists to slowly tease out the full scope of this potential public health disaster. Wheat gluten is not an obscure feed stock, but rather a common ingredient widely used in a large number of processed foods and baked goods. And while federal regulations distinguish between “food grade” and “feed grade,” the overwhelming majority of wheat gluten distributed in this country is sold as the former. MGP Ingredients, the largest U.S. manufacturer of wheat gluten, only produced and distributed “food grade” product, shipping to Menu Foods the same high quality wheat gluten meant for human consumption until 18-months ago, when they lost the business to cheaper, Asian imports. And responding to an e-mail query, a spokesperson for Del Monte Foods quickly confirmed that it was “food grade” gluten that led to its own recall.
The FDA always knew the tainted wheat gluten was sold as “food grade,” but never offered this information to the public. And even now they continue to obfuscate the matter.
According to import records, the wheat gluten was shipped to the United States from Nov. 3, 2006 to Jan. 23 of this year and contained “minimal labeling” to indicate whether it was intended for humans or animals.
The FDA officials who provided this information either don’t understand our nation’s import regulations, or are intentionally misleading reporters with this “minimal labeling” canard. For as Steve Pickman, VP of Corporate Relations for MGP Ingredients explains, all “edible” imported wheat gluten is meant for both human and animal consumption:
Regarding imported wheat gluten, U.S. Customs allows for two different gluten classifications to come into the country, “Edible” and “Non-edible.” Non-edible product is not considered destined for the food/pet food markets. Product used in industrial, or non-ingestible, applications would be considered non-edible. Both food and pet food products are under the jurisdiction of the FDA. These products must adhere to the same standards. Non-edible gluten would be allowed into applications where no food/ pet food products are made.
Over 70-percent of the wheat gluten consumed in the U.S. is imported, mostly from Asia, and the remaining 30-percent produced domestically is almost entirely “food grade.” There is no separate channel for “food grade” vs “feed grade” wheat gluten, so the FDA should have understood that the Chinese imports involved were always graded for human consumption.
Given the nature of the industry and the scope of the recall thus far — over 60 million units from four manufacturers at five separate facilities — and the three month period of time over which the suspect wheat gluten was imported, it was perfectly reasonable to assume that at least some of the tainted product would make its way to facilities that process human food, and then onto store shelves and into our kitchens and restaurants. It has been at least a month since the FDA was first made aware of a potentially widespread food supply contamination, and yet they continue to hold their information close to their vest as they do “a bit more investigation.” Meanwhile, it only took Nestle Purina four hours to discern that it had a contamination problem after the FDA announced on March 30 that the culprit was tainted wheat gluten from a Chinese supplier — information the FDA apparently had since at least March 8.
The American people have the right to know the facts in a timely manner — all the facts — including the identity of the unnamed distributor mentioned in ChemNutra’s press release, the facilities suspected of receiving contaminated wheat gluten, and a complete timeline detailing what was known, and when. When it comes to issues of public health and safety the best way to avoid undue speculation and give consumers the information they need to properly protect themselves is to be completely and openly honest. ChemNutra was notified that its wheat gluten was killing animals back on March 8. We need to know why contaminated product was still on the shelves as late as March 30.
But there is a larger issue here: the failure of the FDA to keep up with the challenges of safeguarding a food supply that has become so deeply integrated into the global economy. Perhaps us humans dodged a bullet, and the contamination was indeed limited to pet food. But if it had been the other way around, how would we know? Renal failure can be slow and progressive, the symptoms sometimes not manifesting themselves until months after the initial toxic exposure. Our dead and dying pets may very well have saved thousands of human lives, warning us of the poisoned gluten before it inevitably reached the dinner table.
The FDA failed to protect these dogs and cats, but it just as easily could have been people who paid the price. It is time to rethink the laws governing the FDA, and reevaluate the officers running it. As Mike Brown proved at FEMA, it is best to have government agencies run by people who actually believe in government.
From a February 26 item on msnbc.com: Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency’s own statistics. msnbc.com article
Goldy, by God, your best work ever. Congrats, award winning.
To protect international business cartels, this administration would lie to the hilt…..must send these people to jail and the unemployment lines….
Incompetent, lying, reckless….stupid….FDA/FEMA….all shitheads installed by Bush Criminal Conspiracy….to the barricades….OUR FREEDOM, OUR DEMOCRACY, OUR LIVES at stake.
Great report. Thanks Goldy
Years ago, I bought a book titled “American Chamber of Horrors” thinking it was an anthology of American short story writers. It turned out to be much scarier.
It was a collection of data and court cases to help people realize that the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act needed a little more teeth.
From lead, thallium and arsenic in hair removers to the women blinded or killed by cosmetics to the apple orchard workers dying of arsenic poisioning to the tales of what really was in ‘sweet creamery butter’ to the businessmen stating: “Oh, I didn’t know that arsenic/thallium/lead/mercury would be bad for people.” and getting off time and again in court cases just to create a new product with the same ingredients made it an interesting read.
The FDA was created to protect U.S. citizens. By removing their enforcement capabilities and lowering drug testing requirements all we do is open the door for things like the wheat gluten problem to happen.
Thank you, Sir. After that awful AP headline, I’m glad responsible journalists such as yourself are raising important questions and getting to the real issues behind this fiasco.
Back in 2004 because of one cow in the state of Washington infected with BSE, American companies could no longer export cosmetics to China.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
P04-46
April 21, 2004
Statement on Cosmetic Exports to China
The Food and Drug Administration today announced a successful resolution of an issue arising out of the January, 2004 decision by the Chinese government to suspend on public health grounds the importation of United States cosmetics. The Chinese measure, which was issued after the discovery in the state of Washington of a cow infected with BSE, the so-called Mad Cow Disease, has been estimated by the Department of Commerce to result in the potential loss of $100 million worth of cosmetic exports a year.
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/.....01056.html
——————————————————————————–
This is crazy. Why is our Goverment in bed with China? Why can’t we do the same with their dangerous business practices?
Thought you may want to know the horrid stuff China has been importing into our country. Not everything gets inspected –so this is only what the FDA has caught. It’s disgusting; I had no idea; bet you did not either. Our food, pet food, cosmetics, hair dye, lotions, human medications, pet medications, vitamins, raw materials, juices, fruits, etc. is being severly compromised to the inth degree.
Breaded shrimp, blueberries, dates, fish, mushrooms, meat, noodles, garlic, pumpkins seeds, honey etc. you name it. It’s all here on the FDA website.
Open up the links and prepare to get mad as hell, and get informed. I am not against the people in China–but I am against what is happening here in the U.S.A.
What gets inspected coming into this country is a tiny amount–a troubling issue.
http://www.fda.gov/ora/oasis/o.....l.html#249 Filth from Nov 06
http://www.fda.gov/ora/oasis/9/ora_oasis_c_tw.html Filth from Sep 06
http://www.fda.gov/ora/oasis/2/ora_oasis_c_cn.html Filth from Feb 07
Reason: DISEASED
Section: 402(a)(5), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The food appears to be, in whole or in part, the
product of a diseased animal or of an animal which has died
otherwise than by slaughter.
Reason: BUTTER
Section: 402(e), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The article appears to be oleo/margarine or butter
with raw materials consisting in whole or in part of a
filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or the article is
otherwise be unfit for food.
Reason: CONCEALED
Section: 402(b)(3), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: It appears to be food which has damage or
inferiority concealed in any manner.
Reason: CONTAINER
Section: 601(d), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The container appears to be composed, in whole or in
part, of a poisonous or deleterious substance which may
render the contents injurious to health.
Reason: COSM COLOR
Section: 601(e), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The cosmetic appears to not be a hair dye, and is,
bears, or contains a color additive which is unsafe within
the meaning of section 721(a).
Reason: COSMETIC
Section: 601(c), 801(a)(3); Adulteration
Charge: The article appears to be an ingredient in a
cosmetic product and may have been prepared packed or held
under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become
contaminated with filth or rendered injurious to health.
Reason: DANGEROUS
Section: 502(j), 801(a)(3); MISBRANDING
Charge: The article appears to be dangerous to health when
used in the dosage or manner, or with the frequency or
duration, prescribed, recommended, or suggested in the
labeling thereof.
Reason: DE/RX KIT
Section: 801(d)(1),(2); IMPORTATION RESTRICTED
Charge: The article appears to be a combination medical
device/prescription drug kit for which the prescription drug
component was manufactured in the U.S., is offered for
import by other than the manufacturer, and reimportation
Reason: DIOXIN
Section: 402(a)(1),402(a)(2)(A),402(a)(2)(C)(i),801(a)(3)-Adulterated
Charge: The article appears to bear or contain dioxins
and/or PCB compounds, poisonous or deleterious substances
and/or unapproved food additives which may render it
injurious to health.
Reason: DR QUALITY
Section: 501(b), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The article appears to be represented as a drug the
name of which is recognized in an official compendium and
its strength appears to differ from or its quality or purity
appear to fall below the standards set forth in such
Reason: EXCESS SUL
Section: 402(a)(1), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The article appears to contain excessive sulfites, a
poisonous and deleterious substance which may render it
injurious to health.
Reason: FALSE
Section: 403(a)(1), 801(a)(3); MISBRANDING
Charge: the labeling appears to be false and misleading in
any particular.
Reason: FALSECAT
Section: 403(t), 801(a)(3)
Charge: The article is subject to refusal of admission
pursuant to section 801(a)(3) in that it appears to be
misbranded because it purports to be or is represented as
catfish but is not a fish classified within the family
Reason: FEED & NAD
Section: 501(a)(6), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The article appears to be an animal feed bearing or
containing a new animal drug, and such animal feed is unsafe
within the meaning of section 512.
Reason: FILTH
Section: 601(b), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The cosmetic appears to consist in whole or in part
of any filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance.
Reason: FILTHY
Section: 402(a)(3), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The article appears to consist in whole or in part
of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise
unfit for food.
Reason: WARNINGS
Section: 502(f)(2), 801(a)(3); MISBRANDING
Charge: It appears to lack adequate warning against use in a
pathological condition or by children where it may be
dangerous to health or against an unsafe dose, method,
administering duration, application, in manner/form, to
Ships are loaded with empty containers being shipped BACK to china for Refill. Ocean freight is soooo cheap going to china. Anyone wanna guess why?
Americans consume more imports than they export.
It Starts at home. Buy american. Make your own Dog Food. Grow your own garden. Raise your milk cows, beef cattle, chickens, and pigs. Sew your own clothes……
Shop local, but shop american made. This is always where the door meets the jamb, the imports are cheaper. Give up a little and gain for the good of mankind…..
Yikes! I guess I’m glad I’m on the Atkins diet and my pet was buried last year.
Thanks for the great analysis.
The real enemy here is not the FDA (though they certainly deserve the slings and arrows). The real enemy here is a food economy that is horridly wasteful, and which is basically a setup for a cascading ecological disaster.
Read yer Wendell Berry.
The industrialization of agriculture is broken, and even an effective FDA can’t fix it.
goldy, ok w/ your analsysi here. We conservatives want to conserve our own lives…
nit though on last line or so….you said “it is best to have government agencies run by people who actually believe in government”
–bad point to a decent post…if that notion were true then KCRE or our transport agencies would be well run too.
What kind of low-life bullies kidnap and beat up women and children? Republicans, that’s who:
“By ANTHONY MITCHELL
“AP
“NAIROBI, Kenya (April 3) – CIA and FBI agents … have been interrogating terrorism suspects … at secret prisons in Ethiopia, which is notorious for torture and abuse, according to an investigation by The Associated Press.
“Human rights groups, lawyers and several Western diplomats assert hundreds of prisoners, who include women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally in recent months from Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia, where they are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families.
“The detainees include at least one U.S. citizen and some are from Canada, Sweden and France, according to a list compiled by a Kenyan Muslim rights group and flight manifests obtained by AP. … Ethiopia … is a country with a long history of human rights abuses. …
“U.S. government officials contacted by AP acknowledged questioning prisoners in Ethiopia. But they said American agents were … fully justified in their actions …. The prisoners were never in American custody, said an FBI spokesman, Richard Kolko, who denied the agency would support or be party to illegal arrests. …
“But some U.S. allies have expressed consternation at the transfers to the prisons. One Western diplomat in Nairobi … said he sees the United States as playing a guiding role in the operation.
“John Sifton, a Human Rights Watch expert on counter-terrorism, … said in an e-mail that the United States has acted as ‘ringleader’ in what he labeled a ‘decentralized, outsourced Guantanamo.’
“Details of the arrests, transfers and interrogations slowly emerged as AP and human rights groups investigated the disappearances, diplomats tracked their missing citizens and the first detainees to be released told their stories.
“One investigator from an international human rights group, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media, said Ethiopia had secret jails at … Addis Ababa, the capital; an Ethiopian air base 37 miles east of the capital; and the far eastern desert close to the Somali border.
“More than 100 of the detainees were originally arrested in Kenya in January, after almost all of them fled Somalia because of the intervention by Ethiopian troops accompanied by U.S. special forces advisers, according to Kenyan police reports and U.S. military officials. Those people were then deported in clandestine pre-dawn flights to Somalia, according to the Kenya Muslim Human Rights Forum and airline documents.
“At least 19 were women and 15 were children. ‘It was a nightmare from start to finish,’ Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni, a 42-year-old mother of three … told AP … after her release … on March 24 from … 2 1/2 months in detention without charge. … She was … interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed by a U.S. agent, she said. Tuweni … said she was arrested while on a business trip to Kenya and had never been to Somalia or had any links to that country. … Tuweni said she was beaten in Kenya, then forced to sleep on a stone floor while held in Somalia in a single room with 22 other women and children for 10 days before being flown to Ethiopia on a military plane. Finally, she said, she was taken blindfolded from prison to a private villa in the Ethiopian capital. There, she said, she was interrogated with other women by a male U.S. intelligence agent. …
“‘We cried the whole time because we did not know what would happen. The whole thing was very scary,’ said Tuweni, who flew back to her family in Dubai a day after her release. Tuweni’s version of her transfer out of Kenya is corroborated by the manifest of the African Express Airways flight 5Y AXF. It shows she was taken to Mogadishu, Somalia, with 31 other people on an unscheduled flight chartered by the Kenyan government.
“The family of a Swedish detainee, 17-year-old Safia Benaouda, said she was freed from Ethiopia on March 27 and arrived home the following day. Benaouda had traveled to Somalia with her fiance but fled to Kenya during the Ethiopian military intervention, her mother said.
“‘She is exhausted, her face is yellow and she’s lost about 10 kilograms (22 pounds),’ her mother … wrote on a Web site she set up to help secure her daughter’s release. ‘She was beaten with a stick when she demanded to go to the toilet.’ The mother spoke briefly by telephone with AP ….
According to the Web site, an American specialist visited the location where Benaouda was being held and took DNA samples and fingerprints of detainees. It said the teenager was never charged or allowed access to lawyers. The teen was also concerned about a 7-month-old baby that was in detention with her, the Web site said.
“The transfer from Kenya to Somalia, and eventually to Ethiopia, of a 24-year-old U.S. citizen, Amir Mohamed Meshal, raised disquiet among FBI officers and the State Department. … U.S. diplomats on Feb. 27 formally protested to Kenyan authorities about Meshal’s transfer and then spent three weeks trying to gain access to him in Ethiopia, said Tom Casey, deputy spokesman for the State Department. … An FBI memo read to AP by a U.S. official in Washington … quoted an agent who interrogated Meshal as saying the agent was ‘disgusted’ by Meshal’s deportation to Somalia by Kenya. The unidentified agent said he was told by U.S. consular staff that the deportation was illegal.
“‘My personal opinion was that … the precedent of ‘deporting’ U.S. citizens to dangerous situations when there is no reason to do so was a bad one,’ the official quoted the memo as saying.
“Like Benaouda, Meshal was arrested fleeing Somalia. … Meshal’s parents insist he is innocent and called on the U.S. government to win his release. … ‘Clearly the U.S. government interrogated him, and threatened him with torture according to the accounts that we’ve seen,’ said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law who has been assisting the family.
“Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday to demand Meshal’s immediate release. ‘Our government cannot allow an American citizen to continue to be held by the Ethiopian government in violation of international law and our own due process,’ he said.
“The International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of the Geneva Conventions that protect victims of war, is seeking access to the Ethiopian detainees, said a diplomat from a country whose citizens are being held. …
“U.S. officials, who agreed to discuss the detentions only if not quoted by name because of the information’s sensitivity, said Ethiopia had allowed access to U.S. agencies, including the CIA and FBI, but the agencies played no role in arrests, transport or deportation. … Kolko, the FBI spokesman, … said … ‘We do not support or participate in any system that illegally detains foreign fighters or terror suspects, including women and children.’
“Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, declined to discuss details of any such interviews. He said, however: ‘To fight terror, CIA acts boldly and lawfully, alone and with partners, just as the American people expect us to.’
“One of the U.S. officials said the FBI has had access in Ethiopia to several dozen individuals … as part of its investigations. … The official said FBI agents would not be witness or party to any questioning that involved abuse. It wasn’t clear how many people the CIA interviewed or whether the agency’s officers were working jointly with the FBI.
“The CIA began an aggressive program in 2002 to interrogate suspected terrorists at an unknown number of secret locations from Southeast Asia to Europe. Prisoners were frequently picked up in one country and transferred to a prison in another, where they were held incommunicado by a cooperative intelligence service. … Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua insisted no laws were broken ….
Lawyers and human rights groups argue the covert transfers to Ethiopia violated international law.
“‘Each of these governments has played a shameful role in mistreating people fleeing a war zone,’ said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director of Human Rights Watch. ‘Kenya has secretly expelled people, the Ethiopians have caused dozens to disappear, and U.S. security agents have routinely interrogated people held incommunicado.’
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info, see http://tinyurl.com/2pvt4p
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Click here for photo of Republican interrogating terrorism suspects: http://tinyurl.com/2twnty
McCain Wanted On Kerry’s ’04 Ticket
There are reports today that Sen. John McCain approached Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry about joining the ticket. http://tinyurl.com/2edf44
Recurring reports of McCain overtures to Democrats about switching parties, together with a poor fund-raising showing, probably dooms McCain’s ’08 campaign. And the other GOP front-runner, Rudy Guilinia, is being dogged by his martial indiscretions and business associations with organized crime. This will throw the GOP race wide open and raise the chances of some rightwing nutbag making off with the nomination, setting the stage for the biggest Democratic landslide in history.
Man I’m going to enjoy this. =:)
I don’t let my veterinarian give me any drugs approved after Jan. 19, 2001.
“Yet the federal regulators charged with safeguarding our food supply seemed more concerned with protecting the interests of the corporations involved, then in giving consumers the facts they needed to make informed decisions on their own.”
This is a surprise? The criminally corrupt Bush FDA has done exactly the same thing with dangerous drugs, mad cow disease, and every other threat to public health.
And these Republican assholes don’t want you to know what hormones and chemicals are in the meat and milk supplies, either.
Give us another 4 years of GOP government and you’ll have Chinese-made wings falling off Boeing jetliners in flight.
Hiring people who hate and mistrust government to run the government is like hiring people who hate and mistrust children to raise your kids.
This latest fiasco is 100% perfectly in line with Smirky McFlightsuit’s approach to ALL public agencies. Fox guarding the hen house is pretty mild to describe the abdication going on.
Perhaps I have been watching the reruns of The Sopranos, but these evil people are nothing but RAT BASTARDS.
May they all enjoy a nice warm afterlife.
Fired Prosecutor’s Replacement Lied About His Experience And Was Involved in GOP Voter Suppression Operations
“Little Rock’s interim U.S. Attorney J. Timothy Griffin – already at the center of a firestorm over whether the White House has put politics ahead of prosecutorial integrity – made claims about his experience as an Army lawyer that have been put in doubt by military records.
“The 38-year-old Griffin claims … he prosecuted 40 criminal cases while at Ft. Campbell … [b]ut Army authorities say … records show Griffin only serving as assistant trial counsel on three cases, none of which went to trial.
“Griffin didn’t agree to be interviewed about his claim of 40 criminal prosecutions versus the Army’s confirmation of three cases, all of which were settled as plea bargains.
“But Cherith Beck, a Griffin spokeswoman, suggested that Griffin’s higher number might refer to all cases he worked on in any capacity. ‘Just wanted to clarify, make sure you had an understanding that prosecuted means it’s a case he handled while he was there; it doesn’t mean that it went to trial necessarily,’ Beck said. ‘Prosecuted means he handled those cases in one form or another.’
“Griffin’s prosecutorial experience at Ft. Campbell is important in evaluating Griffin’s fitness to serve as the top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Arkansas since the bulk of Griffin’s legal career has been in political operations ….
“On NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ last Sunday, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hailed Griffin as ‘a person with prosecutorial experience who … the U.S. Attorney who was going to be removed said was his right-hand man and one of the best prosecutors he had.’
“… [H]owever, Cummins disputed Hatch’s characterization of the letter. ‘I don’t see … where I referred to him as my “right arm,”‘ Cummins said. ‘I don’t know where they are getting that.’ … Cummins noted that Hatch also made disparaging remarks about Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney in San Diego who was … fired last year because the White House and Justice Department didn’t rate them highly on … an assessment of whether they were ‘loyal Bushies.’
“‘I imagine Senator Hatch will be very upset with the person or persons that fed him all the wrong information,’ Cummins said …. ‘Sounds like he was provided talking points by someone as reckless with the facts as other previous occurrences in this saga. I have lost count of the public statements they have made that are simply wrong, or … obviously deceptive. It smacks of desperation.’ …
“In an earlier phone interview, Cummins told me he had no clear recollection of Griffin actually trying any case during his nine-month stint in Little Rock. ‘I honestly don’t remember,’ Cummins said. ‘He may have tried one or two but nothing jumps out at me.’ Cummins added that … ‘other people had to try his cases because he left.’ Griffin quit his job with … Cummins to … work … for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. …
“In December 2006, Griffin was named to replace Cummins, a Republican who was well-regarded for his fairness by both Republican and Democratic lawyers in Arkansas. …
“Griffin’s other principal experience in a prosecutor’s office came early in his career, in the mid-1990s, when he was hired as an associate to special prosecutor David Barrett, a Republican lawyer who was appointed by a conservative-dominated three-judge panel, to investigate alleged misstatements by President Bill Clinton’s Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Henry Cisneros …. In the final report on the case, Barrett thanked Griffin ‘for helping in the early stages of the investigation.’
“Griffin’s résumé, however, paints a more substantial picture of his role, saying he ‘interviewed numerous witnesses with the FBI and supervised the execution of a search warrant, drafted subpoenas and pleadings and questioned witnesses before a federal grand jury.’
“Griffin next went to work for the House Committee on Government Reform, which was looking into other alleged offenses by Democrats, including improper campaign contributions.
“In September 1999, Griffin joined the Bush-Cheney campaign … handling … opposition research, digging up dirt on political opponents. He also worked as a legal adviser in the Florida recount battle ….
“In 2001, Bush appointed Griffin as a special assistant to Michael Chertoff, assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s criminal division. During five months on the job, Griffin ‘tracked’ issues for Chertoff, such as extradition and provisional arrest, according to Griffin’s résumé. Griffin then spent nine months … as a special assistant to U.S. Attorney Cummins before returning to the political world where he was named research director and deputy communication director for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign.
“Griffin’s campaign initiatives included the use of a technique known as ‘caging’ to identify suspect voters. Griffin’s team sent letters to newly registered voters in envelopes barring any forwarding, so they would be returned if a voter wasn’t at that address.
“BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast uncovered Griffin’s role in this practice that proved especially effective in ‘caging’ African-Americans who lived in low-income areas or who were in the U.S. military. ‘Caged’ voters would then be challenged by Republican lawyers when they arrived at the polls or cast absentee ballots.
“After Bush secured a second term, Griffin joined the White House staff as deputy director for political affairs under Karl Rove.
“Griffin’s résumé again portrayed him playing an important role. Starting in April 2005, Griffin said he ‘advised President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney on political matters, organized and coordinated political support for the President’s agenda, including the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.’
“Griffin’s brief White House service was interrupted in September 2005 when he reported for active duty as an attorney at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. … Then, after a tour of about three months as an Army lawyer in Iraq, Griffin returned to the United States where the White House offered him the job as U.S. Attorney in Little Rock. Over the preceding two years, White House and Justice Department officials had collaborated to create the vacancy by ousting Griffin’s old boss, U.S. Attorney Cummins.
“Although the Justice Department initially denied knowing ‘of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Griffin,’ an e-mail by Gonzales’s chief of staff Kyle Sampson revealed that Griffin’s appointment was ‘important to Harriet, Karl, etc.,’ in a reference to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers and Karl Rove. …
“Griffin’s appointment also has proved controversial because Gonzales exercised a new emergency power that was put into the USA Patriot Act to give the Attorney General discretion to name U.S. Attorneys without the normal Senate approval. Both houses of Congress have now voted to rescind that power. Griffin … has indicated he will not submit himself to the Senate confirmation process.
“Griffin told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that ‘I have made the decision not to let my name go forward to the Senate. … I don’t want to be part of that partisan circus.’
“One of the questions Griffin may want to avoid is a detailed recounting of his courtroom experience.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info, see http://www.consortiumnews.com./2007/040307b.html . For the BBC/Palast article on the GOP “caging” operation to disenfranchise soldiers deployed overseas, see http://www.gregpalast.com/mass.....o-soldiers . Interfering with a person’s right to vote because of his/her race has been a federal felony since passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965; I hope one of President Obama’s first official acts is to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the GOP “caging” operations, and because Griffin was personally involved in these operations, there’s a good chance he could end up in a federal prison.
@6 “Ships are loaded with empty containers being shipped BACK to china for Refill. Ocean freight is soooo cheap going to china. Anyone wanna guess why? Americans consume more imports than they export. It Starts at home. Buy american.”
Well, that’s easy enough — don’t shop at Wal-Mart.
95% of what Wal-Mart sells is made in China. If they could import coolie slave labor to work in their stores, they would.
@9 And you’re saying government works better if it’s run by people who hate government and the citizenry?
Or are you saying you’re against ANY government and believe in an every-person-for-himself society … in other words, you’re an anarchist like these guys:
http://tinyurl.com/3cn7bw
So let me get this straight. China buys wheat from the U.S., the wheat is shipped to China for processing, then is shipped back to the U.S. for use as dog and cat food?
And this is a good use for the world’s limited supply of oil?
Another market failure.
Why not process U.S. wheat into human and pet food in U.S. factories with American workers? Why do we waste oil to send OUR wheat to China just to avoid paying decent wages to OUR workers?
And CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVES want us to let them run our government? It’s bad enough they run our businesses.
Big business now controls how things are run in this country. As far as Dem vs. Rep I can’t tell much difference anymore–they each do a lot of harm. Power/greed it is interchangable.
How much does the unnamed Chinese food supplier contribute to the Democrat National Committee?
ChemNutra must be a Democrat company. From their website:
“We are qualified as a woman-owned and minority-owned company.”
http://www.chemnutra.com/who.htm
Sounds like a bunch of liberal Democrats who are in business only because of affirmative action and quotas.
How many innocent dogs and cats (and maybe even human beings) are going to die beucase of this liberal Democrat obsession with affirmative action and quotas?
Imagine the dollars that go into attempting to have no more tha1/10 space shuttle launches crash. Now imagine the world food supply.
23-24 Hate to be the one to ruffle your fur with this, Roger, but it ain’t just Wal-Mart. Go into Freddie’s, Penney’s, the Bon–er, I mean Macy’s, Eddie Bauer, Circuit City, Fry’s, Costco…hell, go down to Portland and take a walk through Sak’s, and look at the labels. Everything’s from China, or occasionally Mexico, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Singapore.
Wal-Mart Spying On Critics
“Reuters
“NEW YORK (April 4) – The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. worker fired last month for intercepting a reporter’s phone calls says he was part of a larger, sophisticated surveillance operation that included snooping not only on employees, but also on critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., The Wall Street Journal reported.
“As part of the surveillance, the retailer last year had a long-haired employee infiltrate an anti-Wal-Mart group to determine if it planned protests at the company’s annual meeting, according to Bruce Gabbard, the fired security worker, the Journal said.
“The company also deployed cutting-edge monitoring systems made by a supplier to the Defense Department … to capture and record the actions of anyone connected to its global computer network, the Journal said.
“The company fired Gabbard, a 19-year employee, last month for unauthorized recording of calls to and from a New York Times reporter and for intercepting pager messages. …
“Gabbard said in the Journal that he recorded the calls on his own because he felt pressured to stop embarrassing leaks. But he said … most of his spying activities were sanctioned by superiors.
“A company spokeswoman, Sarah Clark, characterized its security operations as normal. ‘Like most major corporations, it is our corporate responsibility to have systems in place, including software systems, to monitor threats to our network and our intellectual property so we can protect our sensitive business information,’ she said in the Journal. ‘It is also standard practice to provide physical and information security for our corporate events and for our board of directors and senior executives.'”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/2dy9o3
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I guess if you’re big and powerful enough you can pretend you’re a government and create your own police state. You can take it for granted that Wal-Mart, which is notoriously anti-union, doesn’t limit its spying to “security for corporate events and executives” but is also infiltrating and conducting (probably illegal) surveillance of labor organizers as well as community activists who oppose new Wal-Mart store locations.
Mr. Pope,
Have you had too much to drink tonight???
And I believe the really massive flood of cheap Chinese imports started during the Clinton administration.
No wonder. Hillary Clinton served on the Wal-Mart board of directors. Wonder if cat and dog owners are going to vote for her now?
Didn’t Bill Clinton allow China to join the World Trade Organization?
Private Equity Firms Fueling Romney Campaign
A financial blog I found on AOL reveals a little-known fact about GOP candidate Mitt Romney’s big fundraising numbers, which surprised the media this week:
“The private equity presidency?
“Posted Apr 3rd 2007 5:48PM by Tom Taulli
“This week, we got the tallies on the fundraising for the upcoming presidential election. As expected, the numbers are big. For example, Hillary Clinton raised a cool $26 million in the first quarter.
“But there was one apparent surprise; that is, Republican Mitt Romney raised $21 million. Not bad for someone who doesn’t have much name recognition with the American populace.
“Then again, he is well-known in the private equity world. You see, back in 1984, Romney founded Bain Capital Partners, LLC. The firm … currently manages $38 billion.
“Yes, it’s fertile ground for a politician to get big-time contributions. What’s more, as private equity firms get bigger, they will realize they need to be more politically savvy.
“With his connections, there shouldn’t be any shortage of money for Romney and it’s a good bet we’ll be seeing a lot more of him.”
http://www.bloggingbuyouts.com.....residency/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: What are private equity firms? Well, they’re groups of investors you’re not allowed to join who take public companies private so you can’t profit from their stock and they take the cream off the top and then spit out the companies by taking them public again. In other words, they’re Wall Street sharks who get fabulously wealthy by bleeding ordinary investors.
Looks like these guys are trying to buy themselves a president.
For example, Michael Dunmire runs a private equity firm and funds Tim Eyman’s initiative campaigns.
Do you want people like Dunmire choosing the next president? Do you want a president who sucks up to people like Dunmire?
If so, then Mitt Romney’s your man.
@38 Didn’t Tricky Dicky Nixon let China into the world in the first place? Does Wal-Mart sell goods made by political prisoners?
@29 My dear, there certainly are problems with how much Democrats suck up to corporations, but as the Bush administration has proved, it does make a difference whether we’re getting screwed by Democrat corporatists or Republican corporatists.
30 “How much does the unnamed Chinese food supplier contribute to the Democrat National Committee?”
Have you stopped beating your dog yet, Richard?
@31 Actually, it sounds more like a bunch of rich white Republican guys who are cheating the legitimate women’s and minority businesses of government contracts.
This is one of the programs I worked with during my long (30 years) tenure with the state; and I can tell you that putting the company in the wife’s or girlfriend’s name to get preferential treatment in government contracting is an old, old scam. Now, Initiative 200 (or whichever) did away with the contracting preferences for minorities and women, but there are still some benefits from registering as a minority or women-owned business, and the cheaters are still doing it. Trust me on this, Richard. Things aren’t always as they appear in the application forms.
I can’t resist.
Richard Pope. What a fucking jackass. You are doing a great impression of Monkeyface. Making wild accusations without any evidence. Woman run company, this is your evidence? What, you don’t have women in the Republican party? Well none that will date you, I guess.
You know Richard, I smell a class action coming on. Maybe you could get involved and make some real lawyer money?
I am glad to see some of our wingnut friends having the backbone to call bullshit on the government on this issue. Shame they won’t do the same with the war. You know, where thousands of America’s young men and women are dying needlessly.
Funny how that works.
A typical women-owned business works like this. The rich white Republican guy “sells” his business to his mistress. No money changes hands; only title and IOUs change hands. I saw a case where a part-time waitress making about $10,000 a year “bought” a business for about $3 million by signing her name to a piece of paper. She then “hired” her boyfriend and paid him $8 an hour to run the business. The loan collateral was her kid; I suppose if they had an argument and she got uppity and started acting like she actually owned or ran the business he would tell her to do things his way or he’d kill the little girl, or something like that. That’s how it works in the real world, Richard.
But the kid got a pony out of it.
Roger Rabbit @ 39
So you are saying that Mitt Romney is the Republicans’ answer to George Soros?
However, if her mommy got too big for her britches, he could repossess the pony any time he wanted because the pony was in his name. In fact, the pony was the ONLY thing in his name! Not only the business, but also the 7,000-square-foot house, the 7 cars, the horse ranch — all were in the waitress’s name. As I recall, he hadn’t been filing tax returns for quite a while.
@48 No. There’s no comparison whatsoever, Richard. The only thing George Soros wants is honest and competent management of the government.
@33 Yeah, Art; but is Freddie’s or Costco sending phony-longhairs out to spy on community activists? I don’t see anyone trying to throw Fred Meyer or Costco out of their community.
Let’s be honest here: Clinton had his fingers in the job-giveaway by signing off on some of these lopsided trade agreements that basically tell American workers to go fuck themselves. He took heat from organized labor for it, and did it anyway. But who was the impetus behind it? That stuff was sent to Clinton’s desk by Republican Congresses. And does anyone believe that Bush has made it better, or that anything will improve for American workers or consumers by voting Republican?
@35 No, but he’s up late because his law practice isn’t exactly prospering and he doesn’t have anything to do in the office tomorrow.
@37 I hope not. I don’t want Hillary. However, she’s a far, far better choice than ANYONE on the GOP side.
Did you listen to NBC News last night, Richard? NBC’s Tim Russert intimated that when Obama’s fundraising numbers are announced tomorrow, they’re going to “shock the political world.” Russert seems to have some inside information that as breathtaking as Hillary’s first-quarter numbers are, Obama did even better!
Money is important, of course, not only because candidates who can’t raise enough money won’t be able to compete in the primaries, but because it shows how the people who place financial bets on the outcome are placing odds on the various candidates.
And this is now shaping up as a 5-person race: Hillary, Obama, and Edwards on the Democratic side; and Romney and Guiliani on the Republican side. McCain appears poised to become the first big name forced out of the race.
On the Republican side of Lake Washington, the State Patrol ticketed 52 HOV lane cheaters in 2 hours.
http://tinyurl.com/2b4y7r
It must be the sense of entitlement all those arrogant assholes have.
darcy got another ticket?
Always listen to the advice of a guy like Pope. After all, he’s been SOOOOO successful in his career….
Here are some lowlights:
1) Divorced
2) Admonished by the legal profession
3) Rated NOT QUALIFIED by his peers
4) Rejected by voters so many times nobody has an accurate count but it could be as high as 18 times
5) Admitted to mental health issues
Yep Dickie, we REALLY care about your opinion. After all, it’s proven to be so valuable in the past.
Helluva Job Brownie!
Support our troops – take their place.
Mission Accomplished!
Roger Rabbit @ 56
There is a Republican side of Lake Washington anymore?
RightOn @ 57
Not that I can tell.
Roger said,
Roger Rabbit says:
“…The only thing George Soros wants is honest and competent management of the government.”
=======
The only thing George Soros wants is to have free reign to manipulate international currencies to benefit himself. He wants to be declared Supreme Being of the Universe.
Fortunately, he won’t live forever.
Roger Rabbit says:
“Yet the federal regulators charged with safeguarding our food supply seemed more concerned with protecting the interests of the corporations involved, then in giving consumers the facts they needed to make informed decisions on their own.”
This is a surprise? The criminally corrupt Bush FDA has done exactly the same thing with dangerous drugs, mad cow disease, and every other threat to public health.
04/03/2007 at 10:02 pm
Nice opinion statement that you quoted Rabbit. I would imagine that 90%+ of the folks at the FDA are career employees. Bottom line here. I know that you need and expect the govt to take care of you. Unfortunately no matter what party is in control of the govt, that isn’t going to happen (less we become stalinist, communist state)
It’s really fun to watch how you radicals tie the Bush admin to everything….
Let me help out.
“Yet the federal regulators, WHO ARE PROBABLY ON A NO BID CONTRACT FROM HALIBURTON, charged with safeguarding our food supply, EXCEPT THAT THE CHENEY-RUMSFELD CABAL HAS MISDIRECTED THE COUNTRY FOR A WAR OF CHOICE AGAINST THAT POOR INNOCENT FREEDOM FIGHTER SADDAM HUSSEIN, seemed more concerned with protecting the interests of the corporations, LIKE HALIBURTON, EXXON, BIG OIL, WALMART, CEO’S AND LOBBYISTS, then in giving consumers the facts they needed to make informed decisions on their own, OF COURSE WHAT I MEAN BY INFORMED DECISION OF THEIR OWN IS WHAT MY PARTY IS TELLING ME TO THINK. COMMRADE”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/.....usat_N.htm
“THE DECLINE IN FDA INSPECTION RESOURCES HAS BEEN PRONOUNCED IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS. While food imports have soared about 50%, the number of FDA food-import inspectors has dropped about 20%, the agency says.
Meanwhile, more food imports come from developing countries, where pesticide use is often higher than in the USA, water quality is often worse and workers may be less likely to be trained in food safety, says Michael Doyle, head of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.”
Lack of funding in the last 5 years? Hmmmmmn…… Must be Clinton’s fault!
As Roger is probably still sleeping off a long night entertaining Mrs. Rabbit, I’ll take this.
Government agencies tend to take their lead from the top. Career civil servants either learn to follow that lead or they change employers.
As far as the expectation of government “taking care of me”, you might be surprised that, as I have a certain libertarian leaning, I tend to agree with you more often than not.
But some functions are such that individuals are not readily able to perform them, and are better dealt with in a collective, governmental arena. While I’m in favor of the Second Amendment, I’m not in favor of private armies. Police, fire protection, parks, schools, libraries are all legitimate government functions.
As is testing food supplies. I cannot test for every possible contaminant, nor can I go down to the docks and test food stocks coming in from overseas. I must rely on the FDA for that function. Large corporate food suppliers have, for the most part, replaced the local farmers’ market.
When I eat lunch, my hamburger contains Washington beef, which was fed using foreign feed, the tomato comes from Argentina, the lettuce from Mexico, the onion from Peru and the bun made with wheat gluten from China and sesame seeds from India. Large corporations with the ability (and sometimes the will) to conceal important information from me are providing every item in that hamburger.
I must rely on the FDA and the government to police this, as it is beyond my ability.
Richard Pope.
I agree with you that WalMart is evil, and I don’t shop there (plus, I don’t like having to navigate all the dumbed down fatasses that tend to shop there). On the other hand, your comments @30/31 are just silly. US companies contract with suppliers, and expect US regulators to add a little security regarding enforcement of laws re adulteration etc.
It is the Grover Norquist vision of government that is failing, just as we saw during Katrina. Yes, they’ve cut funding for agencies until they can’t do their jobs effectively – now the free-marketeers can whine about how gov is ineffective, and promise that privatizing it would be better. This is a betrayal of good government principals, and it is sending us into a second robber-baron age. You may disagree, but I do not think this is a good thing.
JohnBarelli@67 The issue goes beyond your thesis. Anyone with a cursory acquaintanceship with The Jungle knows the pre-eminent role government can play in safeguarding public health and safety, particularly where the food chain is concerned.
Unhappily, certain elements of our current adninistration want to roll many of our standards back to the turn of the century.
Hmm, showing my age here, that would be the turn of the previous centurt, ie. 1900.
n San Francisco now 2-3 weeks back there was a `bug’ going around among elementary school kids. My preschool aged son got it-symptoms were vomiting followed by lethargy, mild fever, diarrhea–what was weird about the bug is that my wife got full on exposure but did not get sick — she cleaned up most of the damage and the last time this happened with a bug in January she subsequently got sick. What is also weird is that my son seems to have lingering irritability. Usually most of our household gets sick with any given bug, but not this one.
OK, note that the symptoms are much the same as the dogs and cats exposed to the tainted food, and that to a large degree this was not transmissible. The timing–March 15 +/- a few days, shortly after the wave of pet cases.
My question to the Horse’s ass community is this–any similar `bugs’ out there among kids with similar evidence for a lack of transmissibility? The gluten could be in any number of products that kids eat (hot dog buns, fish sticks, wieners, hamburgers, cookies–).
This is very hard to find looking around the internet. While you can get local info from advice nurses on children’s health, they tend to write this off as a bug running around. Fair enough, but the epidemiology seems off to me.
TreeFrogFarmer:
Certainly the issue goes beyond my comments, which were simply written to debunk the idea that government is an inappropriate venue to deal with the issue.
Back around 1900, most people had some idea of where their food came from. Much of it was grown in their back yard, or from local farmers. There was an automatic accountability. Sell food that makes folks sick, people stop buying from you, you go bankrupt, and someone else takes over your farm or store.
Now it’s difficult to even figure out which major company is actually supplying the end product, much less figure out where the components are coming from.
(For a while I made an effort to avoid Kraft products, as I disliked their parent company, Phillip Morris, and didn’t wish to support them with my purchases. Try doing that for just one shopping trip. You’ll be amazed how many things that one company supplies, and I’d be willing to bet that unless you shop exclusively at the Farmers Market or Trader Joe’s, you’ll miss something. If you routinely buy processed or packaged foods you will almost certainly buy something supplied, processed, packaged or distributed by Kraft. But I digress.)
Most folks don’t have the resources to take on a multi-billion dollar corporation and force them to divulge where they’re getting the components for their products. Heck, even when the government is actively trying to police them, there are still problems.
Since I’m unwilling to simply grow all my own food, I must rely on the government to police the suppliers, and with our current government’s “let’s just trust them” attitude, that is a very frightening reality.
China is a CESSPOOL of pollution! Why in the FUCK are we getting food from there?
And if so, why don’t labels say so???
@62 Temporarily, but not for long. Within 18 months you’ll have a hard time finding a “red” county anywhere north of the M-D line.
@64 Isn’t that what capitalism is all about? Everybody grabbing as much as they can until one guy gets it all and is king of the hill?
@65 “Bottom line here. I know that you need and expect the govt to take care of you.”
Isn’t that exactly what wingers like Reagan and Bush do when they pour trillions into defense? How much sense does it make to spend 10,000 times as much on guns as on food safety? And since when do “career employees” make policy decisions?
Would someone please recycle these ignorant wingnuts back to grade school for a basic education on how government works (or doesn’t).
Let’s not forget the criminally corrupt Bush administration wanted to fire all the federal meat inspectors and give taxpayer money to meat packing companies to hire their own inspectors.
Does anyone really believe an inspector will fail any meat if the guy who can fire him works for the plant manager?
I hope you all took note of the fact that “Right Stuff” equates competent food inspection with “Stalinism” and “communism.” And these guys want us to let THEM run our government? Just remember in November whooooo wants to privatize (and bastardize) the safety of what you put in your body.
Of course, the GOP will never run on a platform of “no food inspection.” That’s their platform, but they know what would happen to them at the polls if voters knew what they really stand for. That’s why they have to lie about Democrats and create distractions. They don’t dare run on issues!
69, 70 The very first government regulation on this continent was the weights and measures ordinances adopted by colonists almost immediately after they stepped off Plymouth Rock.
The very first Republicans on this continent were the shopkeepers who tried to cheat their colonist customers.
@73 We aren’t getting food from China. We’re shipping our own food (wheat) to China for processing, then shipping it back, so we don’t create jobs for American labor. Another reason is because we more cheap oil than we know what to do with and it’s necessary to burn it up in ships transporting wheat back and forth so we don’t drown in surplus oil.
Or, alternatively, you could look at this as another fucking failure of free-market economics.
… we have more cheap oil …
But don’t worry, Redneck’s “invisible hand” will keep finding more oil forever, when it’s not busy with domestic chores under his raincoat (snicker).
As Redneck knows, free-market economics puts more oil in the ground every day.
For the benefit of those of you who just fell off the turnip truck or suffer from early-onset dementia, the groundwork for our present relationship with the Peoples’ Republic of China was laid by Richard Milhous Nixon.
@79
Not exactly. More to the point I equate your political beliefs with those of Stalin and Communism. Not food inspection. As I stated it is your radical view, in which you tie all things bad to the Bush admin, is what I find amusing.
I’m not well enough versed in the workings of the FDA to opine on whether or not food inspection should be privatized. I am damn sure your not. What I want to know, and will be watching is what steps are taken to take care of the true problem here, which is China.
Public safety is certainly one of the functions I believe our govt is responsible for.
Eric Schlosser, in “Fast Food Nation” describes how the FDA and USDA under Reagan failed to do anything substantial when the e. coli outbreak at the Aurora Jack-In-The-Box led to the revelation that we were being sold meat laced with shit. It turned out McDonald’s, as the beef industry’s single largest customer, did more than any other entity to force the packing houses to clean up their act. Seems they had some understanding that they wouldn’t get much repeat business if their customers died.
I’m especially disturbed by all the frantic “assurances” we’re being given that none of the tainted wheat gluten is getting into the human food supply. How difficult would it be for there to be some confusion over which cans were getting labeled “Morsels and Gravy” and which were getting labeled “Dinty Moore”?
@67 Mr. B
“Government agencies tend to take their lead from the top. Career civil servants either learn to follow that lead or they change employers.”
Yes and no. I agree that the agency receives direction and steering from the top, however, my point is that most bureaucrats tend to stay in positions despite personal political beliefs because the job and benefits outway their political loyalties. The vast majority of federal agencies don’t roll over their employee base every 4-8 years…
Let’s take it one step further…how cavilier is the food industry being about what products it puts wheat gluten into and how they’re labeled? Wheat gluten allergy isn’t all uncommon.
“McDonald’s, as the beef industry’s single largest customer, did more than any other entity to force the packing houses to clean up their act. Seems they had some understanding that they wouldn’t get much repeat business if their customers died”
Be cafeful of who’s point you’re making here!
re 92: McDonald’s encourages the destruction of the Amazon rain forest.
There’s a very good reason those burgers only cost .99 cents.
You’re a fool if you trust any government agency with anything anymore…under the Bushies’ plan to seed America with good ‘n loyal ciphers, no agency is worth a crap. The people running government agencies in 2007 are wholly incompetent; they’re not chosen for their jobs based on any kind of expertise in a given field. It’s a raise of the hand, a swearing of fealty to Bush/Rove/Republican domination, and no oversight whatsoever. Our lives are expendable to them, our democracy is a plaything, and their despotic ideology is a lice contagion.
Eat organic if you can, eat from your garden, etc. Don’t believe a damn thing they say – in fact, play the inverse-proportionalities game: if they say A, B is the case, and if they come down hard on C, embrace D for its succor.
They’re criminals after two things: wealth and power. They’re getting those things. Consumers and troops are just what those words imply, and sure aren’t living, breathing people.
Pay attention.
Our food has been going this way since Monsanto started importing my tomatoes from New Jersey. We need to rethink how we provide food for ourselves in a way which is more locally provided, and provides less corporate pocket lining from the corporatising of our food. This is only one way the corporatising of our food is killing us and making our country less safe. The buy-Organic movement is off the ground and may soon be the favored alternative to MEGA-GeneticallyEngineered-uninformatively-labeled-Food. Especially if a couple more fiascoes like this pet killing food scandal keep occurring. Currently the trend looks like it will get worse before we make it better.
Does anyone out there have any idea how many poor old people are sick or dying from eating cat or dog food?