This Could Be the End of Obesity in America: FDA admits that it catches only a portion of tainted foods from China.

Food Czar Acheson has solved a problem he appeared to have been working on in 2002.  I found a PowerPoint  on obesity written that year under a name identical to his, from the NIH IIRC, so I am going to assume it was from him.

Therefore, when the FDA lets the cat slip out of the bag that much of our imported food might be tainted (and how many places tell you where your food or even ingredients in it comes from), we know they've found the key.

 The threat of of poisoning, tainting, or contamination makes the muscles of the throat and stomach tighten and suddenly one doesn't feel like eating anymore for a while.

 So just keep the knowledge of how the FDA is protecting our food supply and you've be buying smaller sizes in no time.

That's the only good side I could find to  the revelations in Washington Post's report "Tainted Chinese Imports Common "

And Bulimia may suddenly be found to be "on the rise" as people think about what they've just eaten. 

Excerpt:

Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.

Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.

Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.

Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

If you ever want to eat again you'd better put your fingers in your ears and sing "la, la, la, la over and over again"  (oh and stop reading right here).

Excerpt 2:

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught -- many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

...

"So many U.S. companies are directly or indirectly involved in China now, the commercial interest of the United States these days has become to allow imports to come in as quickly and smoothly as possible," said Robert B. Cassidy, a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China and now director of international trade and services for Kelley Drye Collier Shannon, a Washington law firm.

As a result, the United States finds itself "kowtowing to China," Cassidy said, even as that country keeps sending American consumers adulterated and mislabeled foods. 

It's not just about cheap imports, added Carol Tucker Foreman, a former assistant secretary of agriculture now at the Consumer Federation of America.

"Our farmers and food processors have drooled for years to be able to sell their food to that massive market," Foreman said. "The Chinese counterfeit. They have a serious piracy problem. But we put up with it because we want to sell to them."

Sorry for such a long excerpt, but if there is a person reading this blog out there who hates clicking on links, they too need to know this, too.   So this is education as much and even more so than a Google image "thumbnail" . 

 That being said the second and third pages of this report may be even more important than the excerpts above.  See how the Bush administration is dragging its feet over food safety, and how demands from China may finally bring bird flue to our nation with the Bushies' help.

tags: food safety  pet food crisis  melamine  

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