Everyone, especially Americans, should watch this. Reports of E.coli and salmonella outbreaks have become almost ubiquitous nowadays that we might have become inured to them. But the danger is real. The segment showing a baby dying from E.coli O157 is the most heartbreaking scene I've ever watched onscreen.
It's outrageous how food-producing companies seem to consider their products to be mere commodities, not thinking about how their products would affect consumers. Imagine faking the results of positive salmonella tests so they'd show negative results. Or ignoring complaints about undercooked hamburgers because cooking them more would toughen the meat. Or ignoring reports that processing facilities have live rats or bird crap. Or planting romaine lettuce close to livestock farms where animal waste contaminates the water used to irrigate the crops. These are criminal, causing consumers to get sick and even die. Why are executives of these companies given relatively light sentences considering the danger they've exposed people to?
Consumers, this is up to us. Nope, washing fruits and salad greens would not always do because pathogens that may get into crops from irrigation water contaminated with diseased animal waste need to be cooked to be killed. And cooking meat is not enough either because first, meat needs to be cooked to at least 140-degrees F for E.coli to be killed. Second, a pathogen-infested meat can easily contaminate the house if not handled extra extra extra carefully.
We need to make the government know we care about not getting comatose, having damaged liver or dying from pathogens in our food. Better yet, elect officials who care more for us consumers than their buddies, the executives/managers of food producing companies. Most of all, don't elect presidents who don't have enough sense not to appoint regulators whose research had been funded by the same companies they are regulating.
Europe can sell chicken products marked "pathogen-free". Why can't it be done in the US? Why can't we just do things that are right without putting politics in the middle? Politics would be the death of us. Truly.
