The link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17349427/wid/11915773?GT1=9033
The headline: Risks of tainted food rise as inspections drop, Amid high-profile scares, FDA safety testing has fallen by half since 2003...
Holy shit, the Bush administration and Republican controlled Congress really let us down these last three years, huh? Let's prattle on and on about how sweeping and dangerous the cuts are. Until...
“After the Sept. 11 attacks, the FDA, at the urging of Congress, increased the number of food inspectors and inspections amid fears that the nation’s food system was vulnerable to terrorists. Inspectors and inspections spiked in 2003, but now both have fallen enough to erase the gains.”
Whoops. Should have left that part out, alarmists. Or am I supposed to believe that OBL is pooping on my spinach, and the normal level of inspections isn't stopping it? This article is intent on slamming the Bush administration for monitoring food at the same levels we have in the past. If Rush Limbaugh did this sort of trick (and he does all the time), the left would screech about what a spinmeister he is. And they'd be right. Why can't they admit it when they do it?
More fun...
“Members of Congress also have renewed the focus on the safety of the nation’s food supply amid highly publicized recalls sparked by food poisoning, including last year when E. coli was found to taint fresh spinach sold coast to coast. That outbreak killed three people and sickened nearly 200.”
The fact is, even in America, people have been dying from e coli and other foodborne pathogens for as long as we've been here. The only change is the “highly publicized.” Anything bad that happens is the Bush administration's fault. They should spend another $90 million a year to prevent one American in 100 million from dying from something they were already dying from before Bush was born.
They whine and cry about how Bush and Cheney are trying to terrify them into supporting the war on terror, and then they write stories like this, trying to make the nation believe that not even the food is wholesome now that Bush is in office.
But wait, let's have more fun with this link...
United States. E. coli O157:H7 infection, cases
; 1,420 in 1994; 2,139 in 1995; 2,741 in 1996; 2,555 in 1997; 3,161 in 1998; 4,513 in 1999; 4,528 in 2000; 3,291 in 2001; 3,840 in 2002; 2,671 in 2003; 2,544 in 2004; 2,621 in 2005
Wow. Things are really bad under Bush, huh? Except that the worst years were Clinton's last two in office, and then a decline during the first years of the Bush administration. I sometimes wonder if the left doesn't warp the very fabric of spacetime with their need to be totally fucking wrong about everything. Like, I half wonder if cases of e coli poisoning weren't up under Bush, right until this article was written, and history actually changed, Back to the Future-like, in order to accommodate the sheer lying idiocy of the American left.
So, let's recap: People have always died in small numbers from foodborne pathogens, and they continue to do so. The Bush administration briefly increased the amount of inspection work done to prevent such problems, but then allowed it to return to normal levels. Somehow we are now at grave risk, and Bush is to blame.
If that's manufacturing a story, despite the actual facts, I don't know what is.