Food Regulations Quotes
What is fascinating about this quotation is that each year in the United States millions of Americans get sick from contaminated food. Well over 100,000 need to be hospitalized, and over 3000 Americans die from food borne illness. Yet this Congressman from an agricultural state can make such an absurd statement. The US is better than most counties in terms of food safety, and is much improved over the last decades. However, it is certainly not COMPLETELY safe. Ideologically, he was trying to ward off calls for increased Federal Regulation of the Food System which he believed could not be as successful at making the system more safe as if the food industry engaged in self regulation. But it is common in modern politics to completely depart from the truth if the truth might create public and political pressure for legislation that the Congressman was ideologically opposed to. The end of reducing Federal Regulation for him justified a blatant untruth which misled the public who believed him. Worse, Americans have less trust in anything their legislators say as more and more are exposed making statements like this.
The Ministry of Health had conducted inspections of Lebanese Restaurants, rarely done in the past, and found many with traces of human and animal feces in the food. Typically bribes would be paid to the inspectors but a new reform minister made honest inspections a high priority. Then when he made the results public and newspapers like this carried the message, most of the other government ministers were very upset as it held the country up to ridicule and greatly threatened the international reputation of the country for the finest food in the Middle East, and might further harm the Tourist business which their self-inflicted civil war had already damaged in the latter part of the 20th century and by the militarized standoff that had evolved since. See {642413} for the Health Minister’s statement triggering this headline.
