Grassley seeks answers to USDA's role at egg farms

Grassley seeks answers to USDA's role at egg farms; Associated Press

Sen. Charles Grassley has asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to address accusations that federal workers ignored complaints about conditions at an Iowa farm involved in a recall of salmonella-tainted eggs.


Grassley sent a letter to Vilsack on Tuesday, asking whether the U.S. Department of Agriculture had received complaints and was what done to investigate the concerns. He also asked Vilsack whether there is a system in place for farm and USDA employees to report problems.


"The recent egg recalls ... have troubled consumers and weakened confidence in our nation's food supply," Grassley wrote in the letter. "When Americans visit their local grocery store, they should be able to trust that the food they are purchasing to feed their family is safe to consume."

This is where the point of failure is located, which is mentioned in the last part of the article:

Those two farms recalled about 550 million eggs that were linked to about 1,400 illnesses nationwide.

About five weeks before the recall was announced, the FDA imposed new egg safety rules that call for increased monitoring and inspections at egg farms across the U.S.

Comment: When you have extreme centralization of any system, business or government, radical or extreme failure will occur.

We have literally put "all our eggs into one basket." If on the other hand had we had a diffusion of business, not a consolidation, the issue would be minimal. Yet at every turn the entire body politic in Washington, the statists, continue to push for more centralization of power and authority in the federal and national government over the states and local governments, and the individual through corporatism.

The USDA, CDC, HHS, DHS and the FDA will never be able to protect us from every food borne illness, only the market place. Moreover, this is why S. 510 will be a failure for food safety, boom for the statist agenda, and less freedom for us.

Remember folks, animals aren't people, but Soylent Green was!