China's Countryside Facing "Extremely Serious" SARS Epidemic

Agence France-Presse ^ | Wednesday, May 07, 2003 | Robert J. Saiget

[Carry_Okie]

The Chinese have have been killing the domestic apple industry. I think they also send in citrus and grapes.

More I don't know. The point is that the American consumer might want to know the risks associated with imported food and have an assured way to verify freedom from contamination.

We may have a lot of rethinking to do, especially WRT food handling in stores or washing processes in the home.

[Carry_Okie]

I wonder how China can export food when they could produce enough to feed their 1.5 BILLION people....

That's never been a problem for Central America, has it?

[Rytwyng]

If SARS hits HIV areas, that will decimate all the people who are HIV positive right away

That's probably what the Chinese government has in mind.

[Domestic Church]

We do need a list, in fact we need a separate thread on what foods are being imported...this is very important. If we get it posted now we stand a chance of doing something about this before someone has to be buried.

[Carry_Okie]

We do need a list, in fact we need a separate thread on what foods are being imported...this is very important. If we get it posted now we stand a chance of doing something about this before someone has to be buried.

I'm not sure you understand how difficult that would now be, because the amounts are so huge. Most people are not aware that the United States now imports more primary food than it exports (we don't eat feed-grain or tobacco). This is particularly true of winter vegetables and meat, with the exception of poultry (just wait, Tyson is setting up in South America right now).

[Domestic Church]

I do realize it is a tall order so to speak, but unless an attempt is made to show the public where the SARS loopholes will be then we are culpable as we realize the danger(can't walk away in good faith.) If those who know something can post that info it is a start that hopefully will snowball when folks who have access to the import data start to share...we've got to try even if it is just a list of probable imported veggies to query the local grocer.

I know zip about importing fooods but it is apparent that the grocers have a nice variety even in December. Much comes from South America and I have seen Australian/New Zealand Apples recently. It would be interesting to see if any of the food import industry publications has addressed this yet.

[Carry_Okie]

It would be even more interesting to know whether they have considered their liability for such importation.

[Domestic Church]

I expect SARS will kill the insurance industry altogether... the pro socialized medicine monsters are drooling in the wings.

[Carry_Okie]

Insurance on food imports would properly recognize the additional food safety of domestic producers, who would then be more competitive in spite of the regulatory overhead. Importers would then have motive to invest to reduce the cost of that risk. That's how things work in a truly free market.

Socializing risk has been the key financial strategy of globalism because there's nothing like an investment with a government bailout should anything go wrong.

Of course, that leads to stupid investments that flush wealth down the dumper. There is a better way.

[WoofDog123]

"Now we still don't really know how the SARS virus developed. However, one should not rule out a "Red Hand" as a possible way this got started."

The soviets (russians) maintained for years (maybe still do) that HIV is american-engineered.

[Tauzero]

"Or how many people are infected and have such mild symptoms they never even suspect."

I've been wondering about that.

Could the nasty cold that passed through the US recently and talked about here at FR been it? Most of my own family caught it...

If so, that'd be great news.

[WoofDog123]

"I've been wondering about that.

Could the nasty cold that passed through the US recently and talked about here at FR been it? Most of my own family caught it...

If so, that'd be great news."

It would make sense...the way this thing hit the health care workers in proximity, I am amazed china doesn't have a 10% infection rate by now, given as long as it has had (months) to spread around. Broad infection with only a small % being acute cases has some sensible appeal, at least to a layman (me).

[cpprfld]

Bump for later read