http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/food-poisoning-costs_n_1183310.html?ref=food
If you eat a bad mussel or an undercooked burger, you might find yourself vomiting and under the weather for days. It's miserable -- and if you're elderly, a small child or immuno-compromised, potentially lethal. But what's the cumulative economic impact of all these bouts of food poisoning across America? According to a new study by Robert Scharff of Ohio State University, it's over $77 billion in the U.S. alone, every year.
This new figure is actually a significant downward revision for Scharff's last tabulation of $152 billion, and reflects better data from the Center For Disease Control. But it's still almost twice the annual cost of the common cold. And it's roughly as much as the total annual cost of influenza in America.
This parity is especially striking when you consider that the flu affects significantly more people than food poisoning each year. The CDC estimates that 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die, each year, from food poisoning -- whereas more than 200,000 are hospitalized for the flu in a typical season.
,,,,, if food processing plants/companies refuse to keep clean and safe work places then they should be fined to cost to projected cost of the illnesses they will potentially cause, to consumers and workers at those plants, plus additional fines for willfully conspiring to cause harm to people health and well being, and arrested for felonies when those illnesses do occur.
Or, they can allow the federal government to regulate the food supply and provide enough money for the appropriate number of inspectors, which would absolve the plants of being fined for "normal" contaminations. your choice.
OK. This is hearsay but . . .
bob jones says: November 4, 2011 at 12:21 am
Listen up folks. My buddy works at FDA. He says that FDA is
not ÒownedÓ by anyone directly. The folks that work there actually try to make
decisions about what is safe and what is not. The problem, he says, is that
lawyers from the big business of medicine and agriculture are threatening FDA
if they do not approve their products. So FDA works for you, itÕs just that
they are being held at gunpoint by industry. There needs to be better
protection from industry threats.
For those of you with the silly idea of defunding FDA, trust me, you would not want to defund FDA- you will end up with a million new drugs and medical products that donÕt work and nobody will know which ones to use, plus many will have lethal safety issues and you and your family will likely die from them. My friend says that they find safety issues all of the time at FDA when new products are being submitted. If you get rid of FDA, how are you going to personally know what works and what doesnÕt? Or what is safe and what isnÕt?
ÒLimiting the size and scope of government translates into
limiting the sheer pervasiveness of consumer-unfriendly policies, Ó
ÒConsumer-unfriendly policiesÓ result from lobbying pressure
put on govt electeds by Big Food and Big Corporate Ag. For instance, the 1.4
million spent by Monsanto to lobby elected representatives in just the first
quarter of this year. How much did YOU spend lobbying this year? Zero? Me too.
I spent nothing lobbying electeds. Whereas, one company alone spent 1.4
million. THAT is where the problem lies.
Yes, the FDA has become a tool for Big Ag, Big Food and Big
Pharmaceutical to exploit and get their own way in all things. That is because
of the obscene influence that lobbying has on our system. Lobbying has totally
corrupted and all but destroyed the whole concept of democracy here. Thanks to
lobbying and the revolving-door practice that rotates Big Industry people in
and out of FDA, USDA and other so-called consumer protection agencies,
institutions that were created for the purpose of protecting us, the people,
have been corrupted.
But the solution is not to just make the corrupt
institutions shrink or go away. The solution is REAL regulation, impartially
and scientifically practiced for the common good and health of the nation.
Libertarianism is an immature political philosophy which is
being used by the powers of evil to cover their evil doings and enable them to
expand their evil on ever-grander scales. We need MORE regulation in this
country, not less. We need BIGGER and BETTER and TIGHTER and STRICTER
regulation. We need to return the FDA, USDA, EPA, and other such agencies to
their real purpose: protecting us from the excessive greed and destructivity of
hugely powerful corporations whose only morality is Òmake more money.Ó
ThatÕs how it smells from here, anyway.
Deb in Lake County, California
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2011 FDA Budget Summary http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/ReportsManualsForms/Reports/BudgetReports/2011/default.htm
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House Cuts FDA Budget by $285 Million! June 21, 2011
http://www.anh-usa.org/house-cuts-fda-budget-by-285-million/
FDA budgetAnd with that budget hit, the so-called Òfood safetyÓ law canÕt be implemented—and no money to approve Frankenfish! This is huge!
Last week the House of Representatives passed the agriculture funding bill for fiscal year 2012, and the bill included a gigantic cut in FDAÕs budget. This is particularly significant because they were tasked with implementing most of the provisions of the Food Safety Modernization Act that Congress passed last year.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the cost of implementing the Food Safety act would be $1.4 billion over five years. The whopping $285 million budget cut makes it likely that many of the enforcement and oversight provisions of the act will not be implemented. FDA told an industry publication just before the vote that if the House funding cuts were approved, there will be a Òsignificant delay in implementation of the new Food Safety Modernization Act (including the lawÕs nineteen priority areas, especially import oversight, training, and inspections).Ó
Before final passage of the agriculture funding bill, the House approved an amendment by Rep. Don Young (R-AK) to prohibit the FDA from spending money to approve an application for the controversial genetically engineered salmon.
Now the funding bill moves on to the Senate. ANH-USA will
work hard to make sure the GE salmon amendment stays in place. If it passes in
the Senate as well, FDA will not be allowed to use its funds in FY2012 to
approve genetically engineered salmon. This is a big win!