More news on the melamine tainted food scandals

The safety of Chinese imports is a still developing story. The latest round of items contains a quite disturbing story. The former regulator of the Chinese food and drug agency has been sentenced to death after he was found guilty of accepting bribes to the tune of over $850,000. His harsh sentence isn’t nearly as disturbing as the vulnerability of Chinese regulators are to bribery. If the head regulator can be bribed to look the other way for such a relatively paltry sum, with not only his own life but the lives of innocents at stake, there is no way we can guarantee that local inspectors cannot be bribed as well. This of course deepens the concern we should have over any food, hygiene or health related product that is imported from China.

Chinese government officials have now stated on the record that US producers who get their raw materials from China should be cautious, “U.S. companies doing business with Chinese companies must also be very clear about the standards they need, and don't just look for a cheap price," says Yuan Changxiang, a deputy director in the ministry charged with inspecting imports and experts, in a USA Today report.

More melamine is still showing up in new dog food on the shelves of stores. Either this was caused by a factory not cleaning all of the tainted gluten from their food processing equipment, an unknown bag of contaminated gluten still being in their stockpile or an entirely new lot of gluten was used that is still showing signs of contamination. The bottom line is that the contaminated gluten is still showing up in the food supply several months after the story first broke.

The American Meat Institute thinks we should all just shut up and eat what ever they damn well want to give us. In a letter sent to Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Herb Kohl, who both chair Agriculture subcommittees at the Food and Drug Administration, the AMI states, “"Unfortunately, some groups have public policy positions supporting mandatory county-of-origin labeling for red meat that are solely for the purpose of erecting trade barriers, especially directed at Canada and Mexico - our two largest export markets for red meat."

"The claims made in that letter are irresponsible at worst and at best misleading - with respect to the handling and inspection of imported meat products," said Boyle. "To assert that any country-of-origin labeling regime would have an impact on food safety or the integrity of a food product is absurd."

So, we once again see an instance where a special interest group that works for big business really doesn’t give a damn about the safety and health of their customers. Screw you, AMI. It’s groups like yours that make me realize I made the right decision when I became a vegetarian 10 years ago.

We are slowly being poisoned, have been for decades, by big agri-business. The purpose of this mass murder is profit, culling of the human race and the maintenance of control over the masses (you and me).