Tomato farmers are suing the government over the big tomato ban declared by the FDA. Seems the ban caused them to take a pretty big loss. You can read about it at Bloomberg.
As a crabby critic and small-government fiscal conservative, I don't know what to think. The government took action to keep people from getting sick, but caused financial damage to innocent farmers in the process...
All I have are questions:
Could the ban and the tracking down the source have been done more efficiently?
Do we need the USDA to guarantee the safety of our food supply? Read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" before answering.
Could private enterprise do the job better? Would you trust a business more than the government, especially after the mortgage mess and Wall Street financial bacchanalia that have cost us dearly? The business and finance people damn near wrecked our economy and so far we haven't seen too many people pay for it.
On the other hand, businesses really guard their reputation. When's the last time a car spontaneously combusted, ala the late 60's Corvaire? Businesses do have a financial incentive to not harm the consumer.
Is it a good idea to routinely get fresh food from all over the world? Would consuming only regionally grown food be a better alternative? That is the progressives' answer, and they are not always wrong. Think about it: If a local grower poisons some people his business probably wouldn't survive the fallout. Also, I haven't heard of any salmonella cases originating from a Saturday farmers market.
I don't have the answers, but I urge you to ponder these issues if you care about the proper role of government. Sorry this wasn't funny.
2 comments:
The tomato farmers are like the person who, after murdering his own parents, demands compensation for being an orphan; because, the growers actively lobbied against the record keeping that ended up hurting them with this contamination.
"A former member of Bush's Cabinet and three former senior officials in the Food and Drug Administration told the AP that government food safety experts did not get the strong record-keeping and trace-back system originally proposed under a bioterrorism law to cope with a major foodborne illness.
"In retrospect, yes, if they (the regulations) had been broader and a bit more far-reaching, it could have helped with this," said Robert Brackett, senior vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. "It wouldn't have hurt, for sure." Brackett formerly was a top safety official at the FDA.
Under pressure in 2003 and 2004, the White House agreed to dilute record-keeping proposals by FDA safety experts.
"If the FDA had been given the resources and authority years ago that it requested to solve these kinds of problems, I think we would have solved this already," said William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner.
Tommy Thompson, who was health secretary during the industry's lobbying campaign, acknowledged that a more robust food-tracking system-opposed by business groups as too expensive-could have helped stem the current illnesses and business losses."
http://wbztv.com/health/food.salmonella.poisoning.2.780241.html
Thanks for the info and the link. Unfortunately, this issue is not sexy, so nobody pays attention and nothing gets done.
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