Issue #3- Safe to Eat?

Summary: In more recent years there has been an increase in the number of food-borne illnesses. All of these cases have gotten the nation's attention and even the government is now worried. A bacteria that has caused many of the illnesses and deaths has been Escherichia coli (E. coli.) Just last year there was an incident that killed 3 people and made over 200 people sick. This case originated from a California farm. Many other outbreaks occurred that caused more people to become sick. There are many reasons for the sudden outbreaks but experts say the most likely reason is because Americans are trying to eat healthier which leads them to eating more fresh produce. Often times the produce is eaten raw unlike meat or fish which is cooked which usually kills harmful bacteria.) Another thing that America has started doing is going their produce locally, mainly in Arizona and California. One last reason that experts think is because processing and distributing the produce happens in large factors and numbers that when a bacteria gets in it affects more produce which will affect more people. As of right now safety standards are not very enforced and quite lenient. The fruit and vegetables are watched over right now by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and meat and poultry are very watched over by the Department of Agriculture. Many large groups have began developing their own standards to regain their costumers trust in their product. Consumers are starting to believe and argue that there should be just one agency that controls and regulates the safety of the U.S. food supply. The supporters of this idea believe that the agency could have mandatory guidelines for all the processes that go into our countries produce production. Supporters of a government run agency also believe that the FDA should be better funded. They believe that way there can be more jobs and be able to do more research on how to prevent such outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. People who do not believe there should be a government run agency that looks over the food industry and specifically produce believe that it will put many businesses at stake. Even though the sales went down of produce after many outbursts the industry was still able to recover. "Critics of the government regulation point out that the industry can respond faster and more effectively than any federal agency." Also pointed out is that if there were a government run agency the cost of producing produce would increase which would get passed along to the consumer who would have to pay more for their fruits and vegetables.

Opinion: I think that there should not be a government run agency that deals with mandating and controlling our produce. I do think that the rules should be much more enforced so that outbreaks like this do not happen as often as they are happening now. I feel that tax payers do not need to pay for something that we won't really get to hear about and see what kind of progress is happening. I also think that it is a good thing that Americans are trying to eat healthier and we should not be punished for that by having the prices of produce raised. Tom Mullen agrees with me in that there should not be a government run agency. He talks about how since the FDA has been created the drugs for foods aren't any safer and there really hasn't been much of a change in the way our produce has been handled and he believes it has not helped outbreaks and creating something like this or expanding the FDA would not be a benefit to Americans either.

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Issue #2