More than a million Americans get sick every year from salmonella-tainted food. Better federal regulation could stop outbreaks. Madeline Marshall explains. a Vox video.
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Backyard chickens rule the roost at local regulation hearings, and designer coops and exotic chickens are the new status symbols. The media and Web may abound with pictures of cute kids cuddling hens, but pet family fowls are not an unmixed blessing:
“As of September 23, 2014, a total of 344 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Infantis, Salmonella Newport, or Salmonella Hadar have been reported from 42 states and Puerto Rico.
31% of ill persons have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.
Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings have linked this outbreak of human Salmonella infections to contact with chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry from Mt. Healthy Hatcheries in Ohio.
78% of ill people reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began.”
— “Multistate Outbreak of Human Salmonella Infections Linked to Live Poultry in Backyard Flocks,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
More:
“Backyard Chickens: Cute, Trendy Spreaders Of Salmonella,” Nancy Shute, NPR
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Image from the National Nursery Book
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President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act into law yesterday. The legislation improves the security and safety of America’s food supply, allowing the Food and Drug Administration to protect us from foodborne illness and contaminated comestibles, both foreign and domestic. That’s something to everyone’s taste.
Unless they’re Republican. The GOP is defending the rights of toxic bacteria to have access to your digestive tract. To do that, Republican lawmakers will try to starve the FDA of the funds needed to enforce effective food safety regulation.
The Congressional Budget Office puts the expense of enforcing the law at $1.4 billion over five years, with most costs offset by fees, but spending must still be approved by the majority-Republican House. The cost of treating foodborne illness instead of preventing it: $152 billion a year. Costs over five years: $1.4 billion if we enforce the law, $760 billion if we don’t.
Each year 48 million Americans get sick from eating something; 128,000 of them are hospitalized, and 3,000 die. Every year. Apparently, that’s OK with the GOP.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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An FDA recall of contaminated acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) has led to scrutiny of this misunderstood ingredient of industrial food products. HVP sounds like a means of adding nourishment to manufactured foodstuffs, but it is actually a flavor-enhancer, a neuro-exciter. Active ingredient: glutamic acid. You may recognize one of its salts, monosodium glutamate (MSG).
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