Thursday, October 10, 2013

Food Safety Down, Food Illness Up



2.       Category of problem: Government, Food Safety

3.       Level of Issue: National

4.       This article concerns: The government shutdown has caused the Food and Drug Administration and Center for Disease Control to furlough many of its employees which has left a big opening for food borne illness and outbreaks to happen in the United States.

5.       Why is this important to families/individuals OR how does this affect families/individuals? This affects families’ safety and health in the whole United States.

6.       My views: As a nutrition student and taking many hours of Nutrition course work and studying for tests all about food policy on food safety this situation only worsens our food system. In the article it talks about how the F.D.A only inspects about 2% of the imported meat and poultry. With the government shutdown this percentage is well below 2. I eat over 4 meals a day and for me to get sick because of lack of staff to inspect my food before it gets to me is a big failure on the governments side to the American people. I would not be surprised to see outbreaks of food borne illnesses start popping up. Furloughed workers had to return to work to take care of a salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds of people in 18 states. The zombie apocalypse is upon us!  

1 comment:

  1. The government shutdown is doing more harm then help. They need to get it together. They are worried about finances when they should be worried about the people who make the country what it is today. What if there was something more serious than salmonella that had an outbreak? They need to be concerned with the people of this country. That could easily be them fighting off salmonella. They want to oversee everything they need to be paying attention to the outbreaks in this country before it's an epidemic. Prevention is always better than treatment so they need to get on the ball!

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