by Cheryl Rofer
The FDA and other federal and state agencies are trying to figure out how the salmonella got into the tomatoes. The salmonella strain seems to be distinctive, so that should help the detective work.
I'm wondering if the salmonella is in or on the tomatoes. If it's in, that's a real problem that tomato growers and processors will need to address in the future.
The bigger problem, of course, is how these things keep happening. Big farming, big processing of produce leads to this sort of thing, but that is what government agencies are for. Of course, if the main object of government is to reduce taxes, then of course you have to cut services. But the kindly free enterprise system will of course step in and regulate those who sell tainted tomatoes. All of the tomato producers may have to let their crop rot in the field, but the malefactors will be hurt too.
Meanwhile, the South Korean government nearly fell yesterday because they wanted to open their market to beef from the US. That same FDA system that gave us salmonella in our tomatoes is the problem here, too. Less regulation of beef entering the marketplace, some YouTubes of falling cattle that will become hamburger, and that's not so appetizing to customers.
The South Korean government has other problems, too, but it seems as though all these reverberations of that free and unregulated market in tainted food suggest that there might be a better way to do it.