More info on Peanut Butter & Your FDA at work:

[AnnInLa]

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/newsletters/0000.html


Consumer News & Alerts
March 5, 2007





LEFT HOLDING THE JAR
Peanut butter is supposed to be comfort food. After all, it was invented by a physician as a high-protein nutrition supplement and was a big hit at the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair. But the tasty goober paste has become a lot less comforting lately and it's not likely to be seen as a health food again anytime soon. Truth is, the Peter Pan/Great Value Salmonella outbreak is a lot worse than you might think.

The Numbers Official figures make it all seem very low-key. The feds' official tally is 288. At ConsumerAffairs.Com, we've received 163 complaints -- but many of them report illnesses affecting entire families, including more than a few dogs. All told, the actual number of poisoned consumers is doubtless well into the thousands, but since most did not seek treatment or were misdiagnosed, the true number will never be known.

The deaths of at least three elderly people are being blamed on contaminated peanut butter. Once again, the CDC's paperwork has not yet caught up.

Not the First Time Interestingly, this is not the first major Salmonella outbreak involving Peter Pan. A now-retired Swift & Co. employee tells us he helped organize the collection and burial in Florida of 13 boxcars full of the stuff. He doesn't remember any recall, probably for good reason.

Your Tax Dollars And what is the government doing about it? Well, after finally getting into gear, FDA and CDC are gathering statistics and preparing reports. Congress is harumphing around and is likely to -- you guessed it -- hold hearings. That's probably long overdue. As Joe Enoch notes in this week's cover story, Consumers Left Holding the Peanut Butter Jar, our system of food safety is so absurd that one agency handles eggs, while another handles chickens. One agency is responsible for cheese pizza, another for pepperoni pizza.

more at link above

[Possumpoint]

1. What?

You expect your government to work for you, the consumer? You think that the FDA, the CDC, The FTA, and FAA have been put in place to protect you? Think again, they were created or changed to protect and promote big business. They feel that by protecting business, they are protecting jobs and tax revenues. The only exception is the CDC but it takes a large outbreak of something before they pay attention and I wonder how much influence the pharmaceuticals have made there? :sarcasm:

[unpossibles]

2. well, they used to do a better job before *someone*

cut the amount of regulating.

[donsu]

3. that most have been some hole to contain 13 boxcars of

peanut butter.

does the EPA know?

where is the burial?