When I first went to Japan in 1956 we were ‘warned’ not to eat the vegetables because they used human fertilizer and we were not ‘conditioned’ for same.
(FWIW) I, even at 17 had figured out that enough booze removes that problem - then again, veggies are not on my ‘menu’ as I feel the cows and pigs I eat ‘live off’ vegetables.
THE REAL PROBLEM (which people scoffed at me for suggesting it before) is
You have ‘stoop labor’ picking our fruits and veggies. They are ‘piece workers’, paid for what they pick or pluck.
So, when nature calls one does not ‘walk to the Johnny on the Spot (if one anywhere near), hold it or wear diapers, the ‘easiest’ method is to drop trou and take care of business and if adept enough not even miss a pick or pluck.
As a result of years and years of human waste being deposited in the soil and recycled over the years, OUR systems are not ready for the ‘mixed fertilization’ especially when we don’t ‘allow’ kids to eat that ‘pound of dirt’ we all grew up on.
I may be wrong but it makes much more sense than anything these ‘doom and gloomers’ can come up with.
We should make our illegal invaders become food tasters!
:-)