Try for a moment to forget about the numerous food safety problems including the recently announced recall of 22 million pounds of beef and instead focus on the GOP plan for just about everything: let industry self regulate. OK, so we already know that is a big reason why we are even in this current mess because industry has failed time after time to properly self regulate, probably afraid of the negative business impact of a new announcement. So here we are, years down the path of self-regulation and what's the new plan being proposed by the special new commission created by Bush? Uh huh, more of the same.
Worse still, the Washington Post delivers cover for this failed policy and manages to not even mention the 22 million pounds of beef that were just recalled, though they did mention the infamous E. coli recalls in spinach from a year ago. The Post article also fails to question the "new" approach which is hardly new, other than "new" statements made yesterday which only repeat the same plan as before. Is it not possible to ask questions or do anything besides regurgitate what the administration wants to say? What a terrible job by the Post on this story.
Yesterday, Mike Leavitt, secretary of health and human services and chairman of a panel established by President Bush to study the safety of imported food, reflected that point of view when he said: "We simply cannot inspect our way to safety."
This quote pretty much says everything we need to know about how the Bush administration plans to make food safer. There is no interest whatsoever in protecting consumers. The only interest is in protecting the businesses and their failed system. They can also quit blaming China because many, if not most of the problems are with American companies, unless the beef and spinach is suddenly being imported from China.
