Schlosser in yesterday's New York Times

[Guest guest]

And he HITS THE MARK! The article is entitled " Has Politics Contaminated the

Food

Supply? " and I think you will agree that it has. Listen to this (all from recent

news)....

~More than 200 people sickened, 3 dead from E. coli in the spinach

~At least 183 people in 21 states sickened with Salmonella in restaurants

~At least 160 people food poisoned in NY, NJ, and others from Taco Bell

CDC says: 76 MILLION Americans food poisoned each year, 325,000 hospitalized

and

5000 dead.

HOW TO CURE IT: UPTON SINCLAIR's book THE JUNGLE gave birth the the Pure Food

and

Drug Act in 1906 after President Teddy Roosevelt read the book. The result

wasn't perfect

but things slowly improved.

BUT, over the past 40 years the FAST FOOD INDUSTRY and INDUSTRIALIZATION has

weakened the system and broadened the problem. Today only 13 slaughterhouses

process

the majority of all meat in the US. FAST FOOD and MEATPACKING industries donate

4/5 of

their political action money to REPUBLICANS. Why?

~The current chief of the USDA was the beef industry's chief lobbyist

~The recently deposed head of the FDA used to be an exec with the National Food

Processors Association (and may go to jail for secretely holding stock in the

beverage

industry).

~In the 1970s the FDA did 35,000 food inspections a year, now it's 3,400 a year!

~2006 CONSUMER REPORTS: 83% of supermarket chickens contaminated with dangerous

pathogens!

~Currently the USDA and the FDA fight over regulatory turf, the USDA gets meat,

poultry

and eggs and the FDA everything else. A sandwich making factory inspected by the

USDA

will get inspected daily while one regulated by the FDA about once every five

years!

~ Over a dozen federal food regulatory and safety agencies are now in conflict

in

overlapping bureaucracies in our broken system. The hope is that the incoming

Democrats will cut the corruption. Two democratic senators have already proposed

a new

SAFE FOOD ACT that will go a long way towards this end. Let's hope it works.

Meanwhile,

KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD COMES FROM. That fact will never change.

Will Winter