Regulating Industry - More Tort Reform Needed
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Next time you walk into the voting booth think twice about the wrong kind of tort reform. You're harmed more by tainted food that is voluntarily regulated then you ever could be by an injured person suing an insurance company for reasonable compensation. Look squarely at what is going on in California and you'll see what I mean.
The regulations governing farms in this central California region known as the nation's "Salad Bowl" remain much as they were when bacteria from a cattle ranch infected spinach that killed three people and sickened more than 200. AP's review of data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act found that federal officials inspect companies growing and processing salad greens an average of just once every 3.9 years. Some proposals in Congress would require such inspections at least four times a year.
In California, which grows three-quarters of the nation's greens, processors created a new inspection system but with voluntary guidelines that were unable to keep bagged spinach tainted with salmonella from reaching grocery shelves last month.
Despite widespread calls for spot-testing of processing plants handling leafy greens following last year's E. coli outbreak, California public health inspectors have not been given the authority to conduct such tests, so none have been done, the AP review found.
Understand how this affects you here in the Midwest. The same as it did 83-year old Betty Howard from Richland, Washington. She died as a result of E. coli-related complications. And the same as it did to a dead child. We have been too focused on tort reform in the wrong area. We need our politicians to focus on business tort reform. So the next time you hear a politician spout off about tort-deform ask him what the heck they are talking about and how come businesses get the a free ride on regulations that keep people safe. And if they don't' have an answer perhaps you should suggest some green vegetables' with their next meal.
California grows three-quarters of the nation's green vegetables. It took only one contaminated 50-acre parcel to poison 200 people across the nation. And the FDA since September 2006 has inspected only 29 of the hundreds of California farms that grow vegetables.
Huh? Maybe we need a government that actually works for the People, not against them. Our government needs to spend more time on tort reform of business practices and less working against those injured or killed.
For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Defective and Dangerous Products.