Ok. That title is a bit of hyperbole (you think?–ed.). No deaths have yet been reported from this:
This evening, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture announced that “an estimated 278 illnesses … reported in 18 states” have been caused by chicken contaminated with Salmonella Heidelberg and possibly produced by the firm Foster Farms.
The news and its context (and lots of links, now updated) comes from the invaluable Superbug blog written by the equally prized Maryn McKenna (known to her friends as the internet’s Scary Germ Girl, perhaps for books like this one.)*
That’s not the punch line, though. Something else makes this latest demonstration of the risks inhering to the US food supply system so infuriating and so scary — something with a distinctly GOP reek wafting through it:
[The Food Safety and Inspection Service] is unable to link the illnesses to a specific product and a specific production period,” the agency said in an emailed alert. “The outbreak is continuing.”
This is the exact situation that CDC and other about-to-be-furloughed federal personnel warned about last week.
As Maryn emphasizes: we are confronting a potentially deadly public health crisis with legally enforced ignorance:
At the CDC, which operates the national foodborne-detection services FoodNet and PulseNet, scientists couldn’t work on this if they wanted to; they have been locked out of their offices, lab and emails. (At a conference I attended last week, 10 percent of the speakers did not show up because they were CDC personnel and risked being fired if they traveled even voluntarily.)
To mix metaphors — when you have a political party determined to spin the cartridge on the whole country, eventually the hammer will find a loaded chamber.
Go read the whole of Maryn’s reporting. This isn’t skittles. It’s illness and misery, the possibility of life-long diminishment…and maybe deaths too, as always with the most vulnerable, kids and the elderly, squarely in the cross hairs.
Even if, as I deeply hope, the current outbreak passes with minimal harm to our fellow citizens, that just means we got lucky. As long as Republicans see the shut down as a game in which they must put “points on the board” we’re on the hook for the news we know will come.
To take it one step further: the dominant view within the modern Republican party is one that in essence denies the existence of society. In the Tea Party view — the one shaping the entire party’s vision — the US is and must be a nation of individuals, atoms; there is no concept that we might act in concert to ends other than those we can address one by one.
From that perspective deciding we don’t need food safety inspectors makes sense. It’s my job or yours to make sure we cook that chicken breast all the way through, that we sterilize our cutting boards, that we never forget to soap off our knives between cuts, that we never eat with friends less cautious than ourselves. (I’m following Maryn’s argument here, btw.)
One could choose to live that way. Kids would die from time to time and maybe grandpa too, gone before he needed to go. Such deaths would be the price of my freedom, a definition of liberty renders every other person around me a kind of ghost: there, but not so much so that I need act as if they are just as real as me.
That’s what’s at stake in the current impasse in Washington. I don’t want to live with ghosts. I want friends, I want colleagues, I want a society — civilization. Hell! I want chicken inspectors, and it’s a privilege, not a burden, to live within a system that’s figured out how to have them. That the Republicans don’t seem to get that is why the current version of the party (no longer) of Lincoln must be ground into the dust.
Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est.
UPDATE: Via blog friend Mike the Mad Biologist, this news:
A sweeping salmonella outbreak has become so serious that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called back 10 furloughed staff members to monitor this and other outbreaks.
Mike tells me that the recalled staff work on PulseNet.
*You can get the word directly from Maryn via my conversation with her on the Virtually Speaking Science podcast.
Image: Vincenzo Campi, Chicken Vendors, 1580.
srv
You can’t Live Free without some risks in life.
You liberals will never find enough ways to keep us safe and erode our precious freedoms.
Face
But but but but but….Bruce Jenner and Mom KarCrashian are getting divorced! Why cant you report the important shit?
jeffreyw
Live free, die young, leave a pox ravaged corpse.
kindness
The bad news? I like Foster Farms. They don’t use any hormones in growing their birds. More bad news? I used some this weekend when I did a stir fry. The good news? Tasted really yummy and no one has gotten sick so I guess my batch was OK (or cooked properly).
Tone in DC
@Face:
Just reading about reality TV may make me hurl today. I just read that Cornyn (R – InsaneInTheBrain) will not agree to allow back pay for federal workers. I am just literally sick of these g00pers.
On the subject, I truly hope that this strain of salmonella is reined in quickly. The CDC and food inspectors are on it. Thank Jeebus for their dedication.
Punchy
And to think all these likely Fox watchers were told that the slimdown had no consequences. Or not.
Amazing to watch all these fucktards suddenly aghast when their government doesn’t give them what they want. Turd sandwiches all around.
Trollhattan
Note to self: cook the holy hell out of any chicken, incinerate cutting board and knife, wear gloves.
Awww what the hell–steaks.
Knew a guy who went from county public health director to run the environmental program at Foster Farms. Wonder whether he’s still there…?
Villago Delenda Est
You mean like Death Race 2000?
Gex
Their beliefs about this kind of regulation are horrid enough. But under Shrub’s administration the FDA refused to sell the testing kits to a high end steak company that wanted to voluntarily test every last cow for mad-cow disease. No taxes spent on it. No government requirement for it. A company wanted to do a thing they thought would enhance their ability to sell the steaks in Japan.
It just shows that they don’t even really demand we all be free to do as we want. They demand that no on be able to do any better.
joes527
Does the “risked being fired if they traveled even voluntarily” bit get explained? Who is threatening firing for volunteering?
Trollhattan
@Punchy:
This “taker” was caught up in their shenanigans and the NIH closures.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/09/5805897/auburn-womans-quest-for-cancer.html
She’s in McClintock’s (R-Carpetbagville) district so will get zero help from him. He’d reach out in a second if she were having trouble buying a gun.
LanceThruster
Let those freeloaders take care of their own healthcare needs via the freemarket as the freemarket chicken unfettered by government tyranny makes them sick.
Win-win, bitches!
Villago Delenda Est
More Newsmax good news: Dick Morris: Oklahoma Suit May End Obamacare
This guy fights with Bill Kristol as the worst seer in contemporary America.
TAPX486
So as far as the GOP is concerned the shutdown is both a bug and a feature!!!!!
dmsilev
@Villago Delenda Est: Could be more like Battle Royale. As a bonus, think of all the pay-per-view revenue the government would get.
cleek
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gallup-gop-favorability-plunges-to-record-low
plunge, you fucking morons. plunge right into oblivion.
Roger Moore
Life Republican-style:
Hungry Joe
If some people get sick and die from salmonella, word will get out and no one will buy fish from that company anymore.
Restaurants and grocery stores don’t really want that to happen, so they’ll hire independent, for-profit food inspectors, then post their safety seals. Of course, it may be more profitable for private inspectors to do a lousy job and/or take bribes, in which case some more people will get sick and die. But we’ll find out, eventually, and in the long run the shady food-safety-inspection companies will be driven out of business.
Well, it may take us a while to find out, because there isn’t much in the way of journalism anymore. But sooner or later someone will start a local news source that reports on things like people dying from food poisoning, and it’ll turn a profit because … because … anyway, it’ll turn a profit, and we’ll all know about the shady food-inspection company and the outfit supplying the tainted food, and everything will be okay via the genius of the marketplace.
No tax dollars required for any of this. Freedom! It works!
? Martin
Look, nobody is really going to accept that the Tea Party has power until some people start dying at the hands of that power. I guarantee that this is being discussed with pride within the party right now.
Boehner’s whole attitude here is simple: Power unused is power lost.
scav
Keep infecting that chicken gentlemen.
? Martin
It is not truth that matters, but victory.
Chris
Only for the 99%. Reduce the poor, the working class, the middle class, heck even the only-kind-of-rich to an atomized society with all their mechanisms of association gone, and you just make it easier for the 1% to pick them off one at a time. The 1%, needless to say, will continue to collaborate in ways that screw the general public.
Pluky
@Hungry Joe: This has already been done. Ever hear of a book called “The Jungle?”
And what “local journalism” source is going to have the resources that the FDA and CDC have to trace back through a national, or worse global, food supply chain to locate the source of contamination?
gian
The more they talk that the debt ceiling doesn’t matter (but even though it doesn’t matter it’s critical leverage… cognitive dissonance anyone) and seem ready to just default, the more I start to wonder if they think they can “win” in a default in a “shock doctrine” attack on social security, as that trust fund is big into treasury bills.
Then I think a plan like that might require competence which is not in evidence
Hungry Joe
@Pluky: Hi, Pluky.
Re my lengthy comment (#18 on the Big Board) …
From the Urban Dictionary: SNARK (n) — Combination of “snide” and “remark”. Sarcastic comment(s).
cleek
@Pluky:
no amount of resources would matter, because no private firm will have the authority to inspect food processors, the way the FDA does. no journalist will be able to flash a badge and walk, with impunity, into a food processor or drug manufacturer to see what’s going on; nor would they have the technical background to know what to look for if they could get in.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Government shutdown feels a lot like the Bush years.
Chris T.
@Hungry Joe: Indeed, no tax dollars, just a lot of sick and dead people.
Pap Finn
Who would have thought that government by anti-empiricist sociopaths could lead to such outcomes?
McCanada
The NFL couldn’t work with replacement referees, imagine it with no referees…
Seanly
Tom – well said, sir. Especially the last 4 paragraphs.
@Roger Moore: What is that blockquote from?
Is the media going to pick up that the Republicans are in disarray? Some of their leading lights have dropped the ‘Obamacare’ defunding from their list of demans & now want more budget cuts. Nevermind that the CR would continue the sequesteration BS and that the budget is even less than the terrible Ryan plan.
I hope Obama can counter strong – if they’re now going to push for more budget cuts then demand that there be tax increases too. Make them take it back off the table.
I truly & deeply loathe Republican politicians and party leadership. I wouldn’t vote for an R even for dog catcher.
R-Jud
@Seanly:
Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes.
Mike E
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: …or like living in Pat McCrory’s NC.
raven
Ryan walking back his “not about Obamacare” stance.
Trollhattan
I keep hearing faint poppoing sounds. I suspect it’s wingnut head ‘splosions.
The tourism board will doubtless have a whole new angle to promote.
TAPX486
The six week extension plan is back on the table. For the life of me I can’t see why Obama and the democrats would agree to a 6 week extension, esp. on the debt limit. Does any one with an IQ greater than pond scrum (sorry scum) think they can work this out in 6 weeks? This has been going on since Jan. 2011 when the control of the House changed. We will be right back at the same spot with the same countdown clock come the end of November.
Now there was one suggestion that I think Obama should agree to an d that is John Boeher needs a fig leaf in order to compromise. I would suggest poison ivy as the leaf in question.
monkeyfister
So, we can add “Objectively Pro-Salmonella” to the long list of horrible things that Republicans objectively support. They are objectively pro-E.Coli, objectively pro-Cancer, objectively pro-rape, objectively pro-torture… and on and on.
I suspect that their life-expectancy as an effective political party is less than fours years at this point The 2014 elections will be the litmus, and it is not looking good for them at this point.
fuckwit
Um, have any of you had a look into the glibertarian cesspool that is the comment thread on that there Wired article?
Jeebus fuck. We’re in deep shit if those people vote.
TheF79
It’s probably also worth pointing out that having 300 million individuals engaging in food inspection is also inordinately costly! The entire Food Safety and Inspection Service budget for last year was 1 billion dollars, or 3 dollars per person in the US annually, or the equivalent of about 8 and a half minutes of work annually based on average per-capita income.
kc
there is no concept that we might act in concert to ends other than those we can address one by one.
From that perspective deciding we don’t need food safety inspectors makes sense. It’s my job or yours to make sure we cook that chicken breast all the way through, that we sterilize our cutting boards, that we never forget to soap off our knives between cuts
Also, if you die from eating tainted chicken, the producer will have lost a customer, so the market will ensure that no tainted chicken gets sold ever.
Hungry Joe
@Chris T.: ” Indeed, no tax dollars, just a lot of sick and dead people.”
Well, okay, yeah. Lamentable. But some VERY profitable quarters for the burgeoning private-food-inspection industry.
piratedan
@TAPX486: probably being pragmatic that the holidays are upon us and its better to buy six weeks for folks and return to the impasse if it means that he sits in a room and listens to them blather.
scav
The important thing is that foodstuffs be cheap and whenever possible patented (need to improve those margins). Edible, let alone healthy is a bonus — one reserved for those that can afford (cf. healthcare).
Botsplainer
@Trollhattan:
California is rocking it these days. I may start looking to move there.
Mike in NC
This is merely in keeping with the gospels of their heroines Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher.
scott (the other one)
@TAPX486:
Actually, here’s why I think it’s not a terrible idea—probable armageddon later is better than definite armageddon now. Also, because the GOP is losing EVERYONE. The Koch Bros, for pete’s sake, seem to be wanting the suicide party to back the hell off. So they sign a 6-week CR and there’s at least the possibility a long term CR can be quietly passed in a few weeks without as much sturm und drang and without losing so much face.
Likely? Not at all. Possible? Remotely.
Soonergrunt
“Die Sooner”?!?!
That’s a little too personal, don’t you think?
? Martin
@TAPX486:
Because not agreeing to it means they’re holding the government hostage. Of course nobody thinks it can be worked out in 6 weeks, but at least the country is working for those 6 weeks, and that alone is a victory.
Botsplainer
The Virgin Ben writes an article about how Paul Ryan went apostate – both Breitbart and FR commentors go nuts, throw him out of the GOP.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/09/Wall-Street-Journal-Paul-Ryan
Do they all go into the Hunger Games arena, or does it look more like Thunderdome?
TAPX486
@scott (the other one): Hope your right but what did the Super Committee produce – lots of hot air time on cable and no enough of a result to put on the cover of a matchbook. If there were talks going on and the two sides were and ‘3’ and 7′ and with some extra time they could get to ‘5’ then the extra 6 weeks would make sense. The GOP isn’t even using the same number system that the reality based world uses so I just don’t see any way it will work. The teaparty is already pissed at Paul Ryan because he didn’t mention Obamacare. For them if it was a choice of eternal; life and Obama care or repeal Obamacare and then getting the black death, they would opt for the plague.
Tom Levenson
@Soonergrunt: FTW….;-)
beltane
@Botsplainer:
Neither. From a distance it looks more like the toilet bowl of a salmonella victim.
Bill Arnold
@monkeyfister:
Don’t forget objectively pro-treason.
Roger Moore
@Hungry Joe:
And then go back into business under a different name and address to do exactly the same thing. Free Market, bitches!
Seanly
@TheF79:
Well, they feel we should all be informed consumers, We should all be licensing boards for doctors, lawyers, dentists, beauticians, etc. We should all inspect our meat, eggs & milk. We should all verify that the regulations, fire codes and building codes are followed for the construction & upkeep of our vehicle,s churches, hotels, apatments, houses and office buidlings. We should all inspect each truckload of concrete when a road is being built and make sure that the calculations for the seismic design of the bridge is done properly.
Oh, well, there won’t be any regulations, fire codes, building codes or bridge design codes. So no worries there!
Roger Moore
@scav:
I assume you mean that it should be cheap to produce, not cheap to buy. Also, too, addictive should be a highly desirable property, since it helps to increase sales volume.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
This, a thousand times this…..Whenever I debate right wing loons I always end up cornering them into admitting that they don’t want to live in a society (or at least a society that doesn’t reflect every belief they have the moment they have it, which a sane person knows is unreasonable).
It’s just unfathomable to me that a group of people could deny the benefits of people living in societies since our species has probably been doing it since before we became homo sapiens. Humans now gather together by instinct because they learned in very hard ways over tens of thousands of years that there is safety and important benefits in numbers. Perhaps they can’t and won’t accept that because modern life, particularly in the U.S., has given them the false impression that they don’t need the rest of us.
If only we could dump them on a deserted island and let them re-learn that important survival lesson, we’d all be better off.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
This idea intrigues me, mainly because I don’t think many of these dumbshits would return from the experiment.
Yes, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!
Roger Moore
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
Or not learn and die. I’m good either way, just so long as we get the “dump them on a deserted island” part. I’m thinking we should give them a couple of decades there to make sure the lessons really stick.
scav
@Roger Moore: ‘f course, and if they do so go far as to insist on the fresh stuff, sell it prepackaged and sliced to wring some more cash out of them.
Trollhattan
@Tom Levenson:
Besides, shouldn’t it be “Der Herr Sooner”? Where’s Amir?
Bob's Had Enough
Because it could be the fake success Republicans need to get out of the corner into which they’ve painted themselves.
RepReps can make a lot of noise about how they forced PBO to the negotiating table and how they are now going to win everything they’ve ever wanted. Their backers will cheer and throw their hats into the air, not because they believe they’ve won, but because it’s the role they need to play in an attempt to cover up their team’s loss.
RepReps are looking for a face-saver. Democrats lose nothing by giving them this one. We need to deal with budget issues anyway. This might actually cause RepReps to sit down and talk. Now that they’ve discovered they can’t extort their way to victory.
Waspuppet
@Hungry Joe: obviously the fact that Foster Farms is now unfettered by federal regulation means they immediately implemented this system. Therefore this outbreak did not happen.
mai naem
As Rand Paul says shit happens and as long as it’s not happening to him personally or somebody who is useful to him who is not easily expendable, he doesn’t care.
Matt McIrvin
@monkeyfister:
I think the Republicans are going to come out of this stronger than ever. Fear makes people conservative, and misery makes them hate whoever is in the White House. If the Republicans actually cause a default and the economy collapses again, they’ll probably sweep the midterm elections.
mai naem
@Bob’s Had Enough: The teabaggers are not going to sit at the table and negotiate. They really do think an economic collapse during an Obama admin. is going to be fantastic for the teabagger movement. I did an internship in college and spent a few days at the State Capitol. As a twenty year old, I was shocked at how truly stupid some of the State Reps and Senators I met came across. I wasn’t anywhere as politically involved as I am now and I truly wondered how people elected these guys. And I believe the teabaggers are at the same intellectual level. They were the dunces in grade school that other kids tittered at only because they were so dumb.
Bob's Had Enough
@mai naem: Agreed, most of the Republicans won’t negotiate like grownups. Certainly not the Baggers.
But I suspect something has been broken on the right. I think some of the RepReps now see the Baggers as people who aren’t going to lead them to victory. That they aren’t going to ride roughshod over PBO. And that the way for them to gain some of their goals is best found in talking and compromise.
I think it probably has dawned on some of them that they now stand a chance of losing control of the House next year and if they do they might not have a decent chance of getting it back until 2018. It might be time to make some gains.
I’m not saying that is what will happen. But it does seem that a few might have felt that dope slap they’ve been given and might decide to be politicians for a change.
boatboy_srq
@kindness: This is the new Teahadis jihad: holy war against undercooked foods.
Next up from the GOTea Free Market Machine: eliminating the maximum sawdust levels in sausages.