The government needs to save us from salmonella

I’m only saying what nearly half the country is thinking and feeling, right?

News reports make it sound as though more government involvement would have prevented the largest egg recall and salmonella outbreak in recent history.

I heard it again yesterday: “Some blame the federal government for not doing enough to ensure the safety of eggs,” the reporter said. “They say tighter regulations might have prevented the outbreak from happening.”

What?

Could somebody please tell me how tighter regulations would keep bacteria in check? Do micro-organisms cower in fear at the very mention of big government? How utterly absurd to think that more laws and more government will cause there to be less bacteria.

How profoundly arrogant, too.

Somehow I rather doubt that microscopic, single-cell bacteria care whether or not humans and their organizations try to take greater control over their environment.

Case in point: Despite a massive campaign launched against the flu each year by government-run public health agencies, millions of people are stricken with one of millions of strains of the virus.

Yes, in spite of the popularity and prevalence of flu shots, the flu continues to affect a significant segment of the population each year without fail.

In 2009 the H1N1 “Swine Flu” virus became a national epidemic that claimed the lives of hundreds, even after the federal government intervened and authorized the release of vaccines to fight the virus.

Yes, sir, salmonella had better watch out because Uncle Sam is on the case, and he is going to pass more laws to fight its spread. I wish somebody would remind e. coli and botulism that they are also heavily regulated.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has very stringent sanitation standards for food industries. And yet, despite these tough regulations against food contaminants, e. coli, botulism and salmonella et al tend to raise their ugly heads from time to time.

Do you remember the California spinach scare a few years ago? That was an e. coli outbreak.

Salmonella and botulism are still such common threats in meat that they warrant additional food handling warnings to the consumer... despite FDA regulations already on the books. The U.S. meat industry has been perhaps under the harshest scrutiny for well over a century, since Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was published, exposing foul and unsanitary practices of meat packing companies.

Since then, sanitation has vastly improved, along with the incidents of spoiled, rotten and infected meat. But federal regulations have neither reduced nor eliminated the risk of bacteria to the industry.

In spite of the laws meant to keep consumers safe, raw meat should still be washed in cold water before cooking, and hands cleaned after being handled. Most meats should be fully cooked all the way through to kill off bacteria and reduce the risk of salmonella or botulism poisoning; all of this after meat companies have complied with the law.

What good, then, are additional food safety regulations on business if consumers must continue safe food handling practices after producers have already done so? Isn’t the law supposed to address the problem so you and I don’t have to? That’s the logic of some in the wake of the latest salmonella outbreaks. But it is flawed reasoning, to be sure.