Posted on 06/14/2008 3:54:45 PM PDT by Westlander
WASHINGTON (AP) - Food and Drug Administration detectives had a hot lead, narrowing down on a grower who just might have supplied salmonella-tainted tomatoes. Then the patient changed her story: She'd eaten a round tomato, not a Roma one after all.
"We basically had to throw it all out and start over," says Dr. David Acheson, the agency's food safety chief.
(Excerpt) Read more at wxyz.com ...
Hey, FDA! Here’s a clue: look at the restroom sanitation practices (or lack thereof) in Mexican tomato fields.
A federal agency with a fat overblown budget, and they can’t figure this one out?
Even here in central IN we grow a lot of 'maters.
The facilities amount to a hay wagon with a couple of port-a-johns and a tank of well water at one end of a 80 acre field.
I should note....canning tomatoes...romas
That’s perfectly adequate.
But I’ll be willing to bet that in Mexico, workers just take dumps squatting between the rows. Not to mention what’s floating in the irrigation ‘water’.
We have a huge Roma farm just outside Tampa, in Ruskin. Huge huge facility. I eat em with salt and pepper.
Maybe Homeland Security should look into FDA practices and procedures.
Interesting.
I said this years ago....”not to many porta pottys” in those 100 acre fields we see
In the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s I worked at an outside storage facility which was operated with primarily Mexican labor. Although there were restroom facilities convenient to all, one had to watch ones step in the storage yard between the stacks of equipment being stored. It was disgusting.
“The facilities amount to a hay wagon with a couple of port-a-johns and a tank of well water at one end of a 80 acre field.”
Here in NC the field is about 200 acres and the porta johns sit on one end.
“But I’ll be willing to bet that in Mexico, workers just take dumps squatting between the rows. Not to mention what’s floating in the irrigation ‘water’.”
They do that here.
Lessee now...reflecting on past experience...seems there was a cow in Canada that was traced right to her stall as the cause of an outbreak of Mad Cow disease in one of our Northern States a couple of years ago.
Hmmm once again I reflect on the labeling of the fruit that identifies the growers etc., and then I think about how locally grown truck farms aren’t shippers to seventeen States, but primarily to local markets, therefore it wouldn’t be Ma and Pa farmer that is the culprit, and then I reflect on the farmers in Mexico crying foul over the potential loss of close to a million dollars if we hit them for the spread of the disease, and then I think the FDA is full of BULLCRAP.
Every tomato I have bought has those pesky plastic stickers on them. I hate them because they don’t peel off very easy. Most take the skin with them.
I seems to me that the stickers on the tomatoes could trace them to their origin. If not, what’s the point of the stickers?
It’s a produce terminal somewhere ~ hence no “point source”.
Next time you find yourself driving down a California highway thinking “wow, that’s some nice landscaping they have”, just remember that it’s just “filtered” sanitary sewer water they spray on the plants.
Next time you find yourself driving down a California highway thinking “wow, that’s some nice landscaping they have”, just remember that it’s just “filtered” sanitary sewer water they spray on the plants.
My granddad spent his last few winters in Ruskin.
He was one of the snowbird pioneers who started going south with trailers to spend the winter back in the 50’s. Bonita Springs for many years, Naples for many more, then Ruskin.
Always on the water, but the Condos eventually won
Yes, starting with hiring practices and procedures. How you get so many incompetents in one agency would be a very interesting study.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.