One perpetual and frustrating riff I hear on this blog and throughout the conservative elements of Virginia is the bug-a-boo about government regulation.
Everyone from the Gipper on down has told us that we need to get the government off our backs, that government is the problem. I think the opposite is true. We need government to actually do its job.
Ask people who eat peanut butter.
According to The Washington Post, Lynchburg-based Peanut Corporation of America shipped contaminated peanut butter from a plant in Blakely, Georgia 12 times in the past two years. The firm’s plant has been linked to a recent outbreak of salmonella that has killed eight people and sickened 502 in 43 states across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Closely-held Peanut Corporation of America doesn’t make the types of peanut butter who find on grocery shelves. Instead, it sells its product to foodmakers such as Kellogg, Trader Joe’s and Little Debbie which put in their products.
Federal investigators have found four strains of salmonella at the Georgia plant. One strain was found next to a washroom, which isn’t surprising since salmonella is spread by animal feces. It seems possible that some plant workers didn’t wash their hands thoroughly as instructed after using the toilet.
The firm isn’t required to share internal testing results for samonella with regulators. But there sems to be a problem with the lack of regulation. The Food and Drug Admininistration is tasked with plant inspections but in this case gve the job to Georgia state authorities. How come? FDA says it just doesn’t have enough regulators to go around.
State regulators inspected the plant most recently in October. Lo and behold, that’s when the contaminated batches of peanut butter this time around were being produced. But the Georgia regulators somehow didn’t test for salmonella. State authorities are investigating why they didn’t.
Getting hard-pressed state regulators to do the jobs of hard-presssed federal regulators has been the modus operandi for years. Here in Virginia, too-few state regulators actually do the heavy lifting for the feds by investigating hazardous chemical waste sites and air and water pollution control as mandated by federal laws.
The right-wing General Assembly is loath to spend much money on regulation because we just love that “pro business” moniker. We also go for loopey self-regulation. So, we really don’t have many regulators compared to other states which take public health and the environment more seriously.
Not many might remember but I sure am reminded of Kepone which polluted the James River back in the 1970s. The carcinogenic pesticide was made at a converted gas station through a scheme operated by now-defunct Allied Chemical. The idea was to somehow shield the chemical giant legally by having a little sub-company make the stuff at the Hopewell site. Waste ended up in Hopewell’s water sewage system and since it’s a chlorinated hydrocarbon that doesn’t break down, it retained its toxic potency for years after it was flushed into the James River.
So where were the state regulators? Probably off keeping the state safe for profits and business interests.
So next time you are bitching about government regulation or reading the pathetic new “Bacons Rebellion” e-zine operated by the dogmatic “Thomas Jefferson Institute” with its whining about the need for limited government, think peanut butter.
And think that half of the people affected by the peanut butter poisoning were children. They could be yours.
Peter Galuszka
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