JWT :: Americans Doubt Safety of Nation's Food Supply in Wake of Pet-Food ContaminationThere's one report today that the FDA is publicly admitting the poisoning may have been deliberate. That would not be surprising, and it need not have occurred in China either.
... The random and representative survey of 1,172 Americans 18 or older was conducted the week ending March 31 to gauge Americans' perception of the safety of the nation's food supply in the wake of the recent pet-food contamination. The research builds on JWT's legacy of tracking anxiety in the post-9/11 environment. (Sixty-three percent of the respondents have children, 75 percent own pets, and 3 percent said the recent pet-food contamination affected their pets.)
According to the survey, 60 percent of Americans agree strongly or somewhat with the statement "I'm starting to believe that the food supply in the U.S. isn't as safe as it used to be." Nearly half (47 percent) do not believe that the U.S. government is adequately prepared to respond quickly to an attack on our nation's food and/or water supply (only 24 percent do). Forty-four percent do not believe that the U.S. government has adequate measures in place to prevent deliberate attacks on our nation's food and/or water supply, compared to a quarter who do. And 74 percent and 71 percent of respondents agree that safety measures at food/beverage manufacturers and farms, respectively, need to be heightened to prevent a deliberate attack on our food supply.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Pet food poison: Americans smarter than expected?
The early media coverage of the pet food poisoning was so feeble I assumed Americans weren't making some rather obvious connections. I was wrong. This probably explains why Congress has agreed to hold hearings (emphases mine)...
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2 comments:
MY PUPPY DIED YESTERDAY FROM KIDNEY FAILURE BECAUSE OF THE FOOD I BOUGHT HER!! IS THIS ARTICLE SAYING WHAT I THINK IT IS? WE AMERICANS ARE NOW BEING ATTACKED THROUGH OUR FOODS??
I am very sad to hear of your puppy's death.
No, I don't think this is really a form of military action, though I'm sure the Pentagon worries about that.
I suspect that melanine was used to get a higher price for the food (it causes erroneous elevation of protein measurements), and there wasn't much thought about what that would do to pets (or people). There may have been some collusion between the manufacturers and the US based shipper or not -- the FDA is investigating that.
The key lesson is how fragile and vulnerable our food chain is. If someone DID want to attack us via our food chain, we're wide open. One can imagine all kinds of nasty attack vectors, some direct and some via pet or agricultural food.
This isn't new, I think the 9/11 commission probably mentioned it. The Bush/Cheney administration has simply been sticking their heads in their ...
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