George Washington Carver Never Meant to Kill Anyone

Newcomer to the foodbourne illness posse-Peanut Butter, a family favorite for years, even popular with the health food types. Recent news has this tasty-pasty treat linked to one of our old favorites, Salmonella, you know, that cootie made popular and powerfully widespread by washing the chicken we are going to eat in fecal stew. So far I haven't sen or heard anything explaining how that particular bacteria ended up in a vegetable based food stuff, but I'm sure the explanation will be well thought out and acceptable (sarcasm).
Now if you're an avid reader of this here "publication", you'll likely remember the post "Stop Shitting in My Spinach" where I listed numerous outbreaks linked to spinach contaminated with E.Coli as well as other food contamination's and their related illness/death tolls. Well so far, the latest report that I have read stated that more than 470 people in 43 states have become ill, 90 of which needed to be hospitalized and there have been 6 deaths. SIX PEOPLE DIED FROM EATING PEANUT BUTTER! This may not seem strange to those who have a food allergy to peanuts, however, to those of us without over-reactive immune systems, this makes no damn sense.
That brings me to one of my favorite government agencies, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration, or as I call them Freakin Dumb Asses), they apparently may or may not have the "authority" to demand food recalls from companies that produce foods (or drugs), when there is a public health concern revolving around that companies product. What they DO instead of reacting in the public best interest is "request" that the company test their product and consider voluntary recalls. On top of that, the Health Officials are cited as saying that consumers that have purchased any of these products should throw them away. Um, did we pay money for this product? I think a better idea is that we return these products for a full refund and the stores we purchased them from will also receive a full compensation for their losses, to be paid by the producer, who should NOT be eligible for any government handouts to keep them from feeling the financial pain caused by their negligence. We live in an economic system that at least lately only seems to punish the middle and lower classes for making poor choices, whereas the already wealthy are able to obtain more money to try and fix their mismanaged businesses, but that's another problem all together.
We have an antiquated regulatory system in place, the FDA is impotent to prevent and react to the onslaught of foodbourne illnesses and contamination's that have begun to take over our multinational food system. We need to institute new ways of tracking foods from field to home and all steps in between if we ever hope to prevent even larger scale outbreaks, God forbid anyone try to "attack" us via our food supply chain, we could have serious problems in just a matter of days. Is processed food really an added convenience if it requires a trip to the ER or the morgue? It's not a pretty thought but I'm not here to blow smoke up your ass, just to help you eat that corn.
-g