Monday, March 2, 2009

Food Safety Needs to be a Priority

In an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Bill Marler, a trial lawyer with Marler Clark in Seattle, said, "After a brief lull a few years ago, we're seeing a sweeping increase in outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli and other food-borne contaminants" and "there are many reasons for this ugly trend: businesses more focused on sales than safety, fragmented government agencies, inadequate inspection of foods, poorly educated food handlers and lack of consumer awareness, to name a few." He suggests some ideas on how to change the system, and concludes that "This may seem like a lot for a busy administration to chew on, but according to the CDC, every year nearly a quarter of our population is sickened, 350,000 hospitalized and 5,000 die, because of what they ate."

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