Postpone the water testing
There was a horrendous E. coli outbreak last year.
The culprit turned out to be E. coli, a powerful pathogen that had contaminated romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, and distributed nationwide. At least 210 people in 36 states were sickened. Five died and 27 suffered kidney failure. The same strain of E. coli that sickened them was detected in a Yuma canal used to irrigate some crops.
For more than a decade, it’s been clear that there’s a gaping hole in American food safety: Growers aren’t required to test their irrigation water for pathogens such as E. coli. As a result, contaminated water can end up on fruits and vegetables.
After several high-profile disease outbreaks linked to food, Congress in 2011 ordered a fix, and produce growers this year would have begun testing their water under rules crafted by the Obama administration’s Food and Drug Administration.
Would have. Note the conditional. Would have, but didn’t.
But six months before people were sickened by the contaminated romaine, President Donald Trump’s FDA – responding to pressure from the farm industry and Trump’s order to eliminate regulations – shelved the water-testing rules for at least four years.
Eliminate regulations!! All of them!!! Including the ones that would keep people from eating E. coli on their lettuce and dying!!!! Preserve our god-given right to eat shit-contaminated lettuce.
Despite this deadly outbreak, the FDA has shown no sign of reconsidering its plan to postpone the rules. The agency also is considering major changes, such as allowing some produce growers to test less frequently or find alternatives to water testing to ensure the safety of their crops.
The FDA’s lack of urgency dumbfounds food safety scientists.
Oh well – maybe the wildfires or the floods will kill us first.
Our mayor once threatened to arrest anyone who showed up from the EPA to test our water. The EPA responded wrongly – they caved and did not show up. The water treatment plant regards the man who kept us from getting a new drinking water plant as a hero, because they don’t want to spend the money to get the nitrates out of our water. Their comment? “After all, nitrates only hurt infants.” (Yes, this is a pro-life state, why do you ask?)
A lot of people live in the land of “it can’t happen to me”, so they reject paying money to help someone else. Trump seems to be among those, but he also seems to believe he can make things the way he wants them by just yelling louder.
Pure madness.
As far as pro-lifers go, it has always struck me as glaringly obvious that pro-lifers only give a shit about unborn life, and then only as a lever to force a restrictive religious morality on them. They’re just fucking hypocrites lacking empathy or underlying sense of ethics.
Rob, pro-life is just a ploy to keep women pregnant and unable to determine their own destiny.
Anti-environmentalism doesn’t matter, because protecting the life of poor people (or anybody but rich people) doesn’t matter. You may not spend a penny to make life better for the non-rich. It is written at the highest levels…those which Trump reads/listens to (i.e., Fox News).
Yeah, a scant handful of people getting very rich indeed by selling contaminated food to people without any practical choice. The American Way, certainly.