Archive for the ‘politics’ Category
FDA To Get More Muscle?
Following the outrageous case of the Georgia-based Peanut Corporation of America knowingly supplying salmonella-contaminated peanuts to the food industry, supermarkets and other retail outlets, which led to nine deaths and almost seven hundred cases of salmonella infections, lawmakers are now looking to do something that should have been done years ago.
Give the Food & Drug Administration more muscle.
The new legislation proposed by a Senate bill, would allow the FDA access to food company records and test results, and give it the power to order mandatory food recalls, which, incredibly, it cannot currently do.
Funding for the FDA would also be increased.
The Scandal of Food Contamination
In the United States food is imported from around 150 countries. Much of it is processed in those countries before it reaches the US, and there are almost 200,000 foreign processing plants involved.
In 2007, the US FDA checked less than 100 of them.
OK, so that’s overseas. What about here in the US itself. That’s got to be a whole lot better hasn’t it?
FDA Inspectors get around to each US food processor about once every ten years.
Makes you think about a couple of things. Firstly, how come there aren’t many many more cases of contaminated food cases, and secondly, isn’t it a good idea to cut back on the consumption of as much processed food as possible?
It’s not just US
The United States has long had a reputation for being a nation full of overweight junk food eaters. Of course, that’s not true, and the US isn’t really far ahead (if at all) of nations like the UK, in the amount of take-out junk food they consume, and the amount of processed food that they buy.
However, what might surprise some are the concerns being raised in countries like India. As the average consumer in India gets more disposable income they too, are turning more and more to Western style junk.
In Madurai, in southern India yesterday, the Health Minister, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss said, “The union health and family welfare ministry would continue its war against junk food, alcohol, tobacco and drugs as they are mainly responsible for making India “the capital of diabetes, heart ailments and obesity”.
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