Mexico shirks responsibility for illnesses

Mexico shirks responsibility for illnesses

The continuing folly of our government's "regulatory" agencies (who seem not to be able to regulate their way out of a paper bag) underscores what I've already told you about this whole salmonella fiasco.

According to the latest news, the FDA seems to have FINALLY tracked the source of the recent outbreak of salmonella. And guess what? The source was traced to irrigation water and a Serrano pepper from a farm in (where else?) Mexico. This "key breakthrough" finally brings to an end the massive hunt for ground zero in the recent spread of Salmonella Saintpaul that first started back in April.

This time, it's not U.S. producers that are at fault, but the questionable sanitary practices of farmers from the Third World that are the root cause of the latest outbreak of nastiness here in the U.S. Would someone please tell me when our government is going to wise up to the fact that Mexico is NOT Canada South? This place is rife with the kind of health and food problems that routinely plague other impoverished Third World nations. Mexico's proximity to the U.S. doesn't mean that what happens there is any different than what happens in the poorest countries in Africa or Asia.

In light of this recent outbreak, a moratorium of six months to a year on ALL Mexican produce wouldn't be out of line. But thanks to disasters like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that's never going to happen.

Naturally, Mexican officials are backpedaling, and have called the FDA's findings "premature." Enrique Sanchez, service director of Mexico's National Sanitation and Farm Food Quality, even sent a letter to the U.S. government "expressing our concern and most forceful complaint against this decision."

The unmitigated gall of the Mexican government never ceases to amaze me. It reminds me of when their president yelled at our president because we had the "nerve" to send the illegal immigrants from Mexico BACK to Mexico!

Sanchez said the FDA "has no scientific proof to make a decision that will harm Mexico enormously." Sanchez and the rest of the so-called Mexican government just don't get it: the FDA doesn't NEED to have any proof, scientific or otherwise, to issue a statement to protect the health of American citizens. Quite frankly, I don't care a whit for what kind of harm is done to Mexico! I'd rather see a dozen Mexican farms suffer than to have one American citizen be sickened by tainted Mexican produce.

Don't forget that when this outbreak first started, it was American tomato farmers who felt the brunt of FDA warnings - even though their product was not, ultimately, found to be at fault for the outbreak. If the U.S. government has the power to make its own farmers endure a crop ban, how can the Mexican government believe that their farms are somehow immune from this treatment?

The problem is that the Mexican government doesn't really take U.S. national sovereignty seriously. They figure that the U.S. and Mexico are essentially the same country, and that Mexican labor and goods should be able to flow freely over the border (in a northerly direction only, of course) with complete impunity. And Sanchez's outrageous assumption that the U.S. government needs to take into account what effect FDA safety measures will have on Mexico's economy just underscores this point.

Let's also remember that since the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak was detected, upwards of 1,200 people have been infected with the virus, across 43 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada. As many as 242 have been hospitalized as a result of the infection. According to the CDC, there are usually only about 25 reported cases of this strain of salmonella per year.

Hopefully now that the source of this outbreak has been found, it will put the brakes on this latest scourge from Mexico. This incident is yet another object lesson in the dangers of allowing elements of the Third World to creep into the U.S. and endanger the health and welfare of our people. We should be shutting our southern border not only to people, but to fruits and vegetables, too.

Never picking a peck of Mexican peppers,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

www.douglassreport.com

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Posted August 19, 2008 02:02 AM
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