Vic Smith wrote:
On Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:07:34 -0500, HK wrote:

February 6, 2009
Peanut Supplier Banned From Federal Business
By MICHAEL FALCONE
NY Times

WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department on Thursday banned the company
implicated in the nationwide contamination of peanut products from doing
business with the federal government. At least eight people have died
and hundreds have been sickened after eating tainted products.

During the Great Reagan Era of Joblessness (we're hitting his
benchmarks now) I ended up running packaging machines at Cloud
Packaging in Skokie, Illinois. This was 1983.
Main reason I could score that job was that I had previously been a
packaging machine mechanic, and Cloud had landed the Nutrasweet
contract from Searle, so they needed to gear up pretty quick.
Six bucks an hour, so I was back to my 1968 wages.
But work is work, and moths must be fed.
You might recall that saccharin had become a no-no, and Searle
developed Nutrasweet. This is the place where the QC inspector
was a Reagan-fired ATC/Patco guy.
I'll take a second here to mention what a petty low down **** Reagan
was in never letting these guys go back to work in the trade they knew
and were trained for.
Retribution against defeated men, and kicking them when they're down
is as good a measure of a man's moral core as I know, and that's how I
measure Reagan.
Anyway, I packaged a lot of different items at Cloud, one being a beef
broth dry mix for the military. Nitrogen was used to eliminate oxygen
during packaging.
There was *always* an FDA inspector overlooking that packaging.
Was he needed?
I always felt it was a waste of fed money, but that's just how it was.
Seemed I was nearly always a step ahead of him in correcting something
that was off.
But maybe that's because he was there. Still not sure, but when
there's a fed inspector watching, you are probably more careful.
This peanut thing is different, since even plant cleanliness comes
into play, and there is business/gov collusion involved.
I mentioned my wife is a corporate cook, and even though she is
naturally a clean freak, company and county officials do frequent
workplace inspections.
Part of the stimulus money should go to hire Fed FDA staff to ensure
food safety.
We also need more IRS auditors, who shortly pay for themselves.
Those auditors would have saved Obama some embarrassment.

--Vic





From what I read, Georgia, like some other states, has a severe
shortaqe of inspectors and has had for some time. I wouldn't doubt the
collusion, especially in the south.

The Bush mis-administration never took federal food and drug inspections
seriously and in fact worked overtime to roll back standards and numbers
of inspectors. True also for OSHA in terms of inspectors and unannounced
inspections.

Hope this changes, but since the country is broke now...who knows.