FDA Approves Viruses on Food

[Sassy]

The FDA approved the first use of viruses as a food additive   :-/

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30E15FB3E5A0C7A8DDDA10894DE404482

[CREATIVE1]

I guess these guys haven't read any of that science fiction where we tamper with nature and all hell breaks loose?  

[Amanda_931]

But Sassy, they grew those viruses only on the stuff they are supposed to take out--listeria, isn't it.

So there's no way they could mutate or be contaminated by something else that could hurt us.



(the treehugger post to this said that they thought that sanitation trumped viruses as a way of keeping listeria away from us, because that is what the virus spray is supposed to replace--plain old keeping the work area clean)

I've been reading a book called Backfire by Loren Baritz--about why we fought the way we did in Viet-Nam.  One of the author's big points is that we've become convinced that technology has all the answers (as in, but we had fine technology, we couldn't have lost).  Since I started the book, I've run into more and more situations where we depend on technology at the expense of logic experience reason and good common sense.  The "dumb blonde" joke about the blonde who, when the office was running out of fax paper asked the office supply place to fax it to them may not be so much of a blonde joke as a technology-addicted one.

[benevolance]

I guess they forgot the old saying...

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Which leads us back to the point of if you keep the food clean, you do not need to unleash viruses on the food....

An ounce of prevention....

What this means in English is that it is cheaper and faster to spray the virus on the food than it is to keep it clean from Bacteria

This is not merely about what is healthier, or safer...It has come down to what is more cost efficient...What will allow us to make more money...

Which is sad to think our health and well being can be quantified by the FDA in terms of dollars and cents.

[Sassy]

You are right, Benevolance - it is whatever is expedient, what will make the big bucks... and in one way or another, we are all participants... I was joking with Glenn today - we drove to Tahoe - on the way we stopped at the shopping center in Placerville he had erected the steel on... I said - "without these big corporations you wouldn't have a job"   so in one way or another we can either be considered parasites, just trying to get by or helping each other out...  :-/ it is all very complex.

The book you are reading about how technology trumps, many times against common sense - in many ways it is the same way in health care.  We have lots of guidelines, which are good, but sometimes they get in the way of common sense.  There is a 10 minute benchmark that we have to meet when it comes to any patient even remotely having the possibility of chest pain... we have to rush & do an EKG (reading of the heart), get an intraveneous line in & draw blood for labs & place the patient on the heart monitor & oxygen within 10 minutes.  Even if the patient wasn't really having some chest pain, all of us rushing around him, trying to get all these things done within 10 minutes would cause him to have a heart attack - probably scares the patient to death  :-/ !  Last month we only got 75% - that's because they only checked 4 charts, all but one met the guidelines, the one that didn't missed it by one minute!  Now, isn't that stupid?  So instead of focusing on the patient, the guideline forces us to focus more on getting the particular technilogical "tasks" done within an arbitrary time frame.  So much for good intentions...

[glenn-k]

I consider that food tampering which is a crime if I remember right.

[benevolance]

Glenn

Surely you jest, Thinking back to laws, rules and regulations does not apply if there is profit to be made.

Think your rights have been violated, the law has been broke....You must be mistaken

Sadly you must be mistaken :-/

[benevolance]

Sassy

I hope nobody dies or suffers but if someone does have a problem and someone higher up asks a stupid question like...Why didn;t you save this man's life...I would not hesitate to throw it directly back at their face with..."I couldn't save their life; Ihad to get the EKG recorded first"....Something that referenced back to the 10 minute time frame.

Make it sound like Saving their life would break their so called precious "protocall"

But yeah they have their head so far up their collective arse...So worried about getting sued that they forgot what the original objective was and still should be....Help save lives.... Period

[Sassy]

N.Y. Times Cites Consumers Union & OCA--Nanotech Food is Ten Times Scarier Than Genetically Engineered

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_3112.cfm