FDA: OK to Spray Virus Mixture on Meat

In a not-so-shocking display of stupidity – they did approve Donald Rumsfeld’s aspartame – the FDA gave the green light for manufacturers to begin spraying a virus mixture on ready-to-eat cold meats, like lunch meat and hot dogs. The viruses are bacteriophages that specifically target the bacteria that causes listeriosis, an infection that makes 2,500 people seriously ill and kills 500 per year.

All in all it may sound like a good idea, but if the meat manufacturers cannot be trusted to keep their meat free from bacteria, why should we trust yet another company to correctly purify this virus spray? We’re adding another possibility of serious illness to all of our cold meats, for nearly 300 million people, and what is the benefit? 500 people might be saved from death?

I’m not against saving these 500 people, but how about stricter regulations of food handling to make sure that the cold meats don’t even grow the bacteria in the first place, instead of spraying all of our meat with viruses? The FDA says the spray is safe, but we know they cannot be trusted. In the past, they’ve approved aspartame and said that companies could sell cloned meat to consumers without labeling it as such. Now it’s okay to spray viruses on our food. And the FDA says, “Consumers won’t be aware that meat and poultry products have been treated with the spray,”

Read the full article here.

Wake up.

~ by skepsis on December 4, 2008.