– Does it sound like I’m picking on China? Well, I don’t mean to. They just happen to be the biggest example on the planet of how badly wrong things can go for people when governments, corporations and cultures put profits above people.
– The US certainly has nothing to smirk about in this regard. Among a thousand other stories, I remember one in particular about our own rapacious Capitalism. After the FDA decided that the levels of tar and nicotine in American cigarettes were too high and thus unhealthy for smokers and forced them to lower the levels in this country, the tobacco companies simply took their high tar and nicotine versions over to the Philippines and other countries which, because of their naivety and immaturity, hadn’t yet passed laws to protect their own people and we sold the hell out of them there. Cancer deaths? No problem – just look at those great profits! And then there was the baby formula we sold into South America and the pesticides we sell worldwide.
– And besides China, India can’t be far behind. Where as China has decided to supply the world’s cravings for ultra-cheap junk of every description, India has focused more on high tech. But, there are stories lurking in the sub continent as well. I recall a story on TV within the last year about the ship-breaking industry India runs along its Eastern Coast in Alang. It wasn’t pretty.
– So, read here, below, what it all comes to when profits are placed before people in food production industries. And ask yourself what the purpose of governments should be. To provide happy sandboxes for profit oriented corporations to play in this world or to look out for the health and welfare of their people? Then consider that the US is the only advanced industrialized western nation without national healthcare in spite of the fact that we are the world’s wealthiest nation – and ask yourself what’s going on.
– Now, on to fun with China and what you might be eating:
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In Four Months, FDA Refused 298 Shipments
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.
Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.
Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.
These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught — many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.
More… ➡
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– I’ve categorized this under Perfect Storm, Capitalism & Corporations and Culture – How not to do it because the preoccupation of Corporations for profit above all else is slowing mankind’s perceptions of the coming climatic dangers which contributes to the coming Perfect Storm. I’ve put it under Culture – How not to do it because cultures, like here in the US, which allow Capitalism and Corporations to free-run are cultures which are destructive to all of our futures.