A number of years ago, a friend of mine told me he and his roommates had been laid low by "food poisoning" after sharing some pizza. They all had been so sick they had not bothered to answer the phone or knocks on their door for three days. This was back in the 60's. Knowing these guys, they probably left the pizza sitting on the coffee table for a couple of days or found it in the fridge a few
I suffered a bout of this (though it lasted only a day) after stupidly eating some street vendor's sausages in Taiwan.
There is a salmonella outbreak underway today, it appears to have originated at Foster Farms in California. There is much in the news about the government shutdown and how it is hampering the handling of it. To read the stories, one would get the distinct impression that the outbreak happened because of the shutdown. This is not so. After much searching, I found an article which said the outbreak probably began in March of this year and that the CDC was made aware of it in July. The shutdown began on October 1.
Therefore, the outbreak was not caused by the shutdown. Yes, dealing with it has been affected by the shutdown, causing the CDC to recall 30 furloughed workers. I would like to know what was being done about it between July and October and why 30, apparently essential, workers were furloughed in the midst of it. I would also like to know why the media is not asking these questions. Because they do not appear to be.
As I said in the first paragraph, the problem appears to have originated at Foster Farms in California. An article on the NBC website says...
CDC officials originally said that the illnesses occurred mostly in July, but new data show reports of sickness started in March and continued through Sept. 24, though more recent cases might not yet be reported.
Why? Why wasn't the public notified of the problem before now? Why did the government wait to push this out into the open?
Why isn't the media asking these questions?
No comments:
Post a Comment