Health officials warned spinach growers in 2005

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Federal health officials told California farmers to improve produce safety in a pointed warning letter last November, nearly a year before the multistate E. coli outbreak linked to spinach.

In fact, the current food-poisoning episode is the 20th since 1995 linked to spinach or lettuce, the Food and Drug Administration says.

And

There have been 19 other food-poisoning outbreaks since 1995 linked to lettuce and spinach, according to the FDA. At least eight were traced to produce grown in the Salinas Valley. The outbreaks involved more than 400 cases of sickness and two deaths.

In 2004 and again in 2005, the FDA's top food safety official warned California farmers they needed to do more to increase the safety of the fresh leafy greens they grow.

"In light of continuing outbreaks, it is clear that more needs to be done," the FDA's Robert Brackett wrote in a Nov. 4, 2005, letter.

Click here for the rest.

What I want to know is why these were warnings instead of heavy fines or even jail sentences. I suppose that's what comes from a regulatory body staffed by industry insiders and GOP cronies who see themselves more as cheerleaders than watchdogs. The bottom line here is that people have gotten very sick, and in some cases have died, because of overly greedy business practices. That is, none of this had to happen.

Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food Nation describes how the first major E. coli outbreak back in early 90s happened: in a move to cut costs and increase profits, the meatpacking industry cast off its experienced unionized labor and replaced it with inexperienced non-union workers who weren't as capable with stomach and intestine removal, which resulted in a massive increase in fecal spillage, which was magnified a thousandfold when the meat was ground up; suddenly people were dying all over the place--the same practices are still in effect today; what ended the outbreak is that now we have to make sure we cook our shitburgers well enough to kill the E. coli. That's right, whenever we eat hamburgers, there's a good chance we're eating cow shit, too.

Anyway, the point is that we regulate businesses and consumer products for a damned good reason, the health and safety of our citizens. But twenty five years of "get the government off the people's backs" rhetoric has made our regulatory agencies become little more than fronts for the industries they are supposed to regulate. If regulation makes the cost of spinach or any other product rise, then so be it; that's the price we have to pay, and if it makes producing such products completely unprofitable, then so be it. The general welfare easily trumps profit.

If you're a moral person, that is.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$