More on food safety

Kudos for emphasizing imported food safety in [in your May 21] editorial. However, I’d like to point out that more inspectors will not fix the problem. Sen. Susan Collins and the General Accounting Office are recommending that the Food and Drug Administration develop equivalency agreements that will put the burden for insuring safety on the exporting nation.

Although all the senators seemed supportive of the idea at last the recent hearing, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, who is recommending a single food agency, doesn’t think we can afford that level of safety.

Fortunately, Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate budget committee, spoke enthusiastically for the need for improved safety measures. I think the public is ready for changes as well.

When I returned to Maine after testifying on the consequences of food-borne illnesses at the hearing, I had several e-mail messages from consumers who had seen the hearing on C-SPAN. One woman’s daughter became deathly ill from imported salmonella-tainted cantaloupe. The child has chronic health problems as result of the infection.

I can relate to her situation: We want to feed our children healthy fruits and vegetables, but we can no longer be sure of their safety.

I am disturbed about two recent local stories with serious health consequences. The recent article about the success of the family selling raw milk shocked me. Unpasteurized milk is very dangerous. Although the Blanchards are very sincere in providing a good product, I don’t see how they can guarantee their milk’s safety. Most states do not permit the selling of raw milk at retail.

The story about the resistance of local crab pickers to federal safety regulations was ironic. The United States would not permit crab meat picked in foreign homes to be imported into our country, but it is OK to sell meat here processed in potentially unsanitary conditions.

I wouldn’t want to eat crab picked in a home where cats had free roam of the facility (i.e., kitchen) — toxoplasmosis is just as easily transmitted by food as by cleaning litter boxes. I wonder if these women are willing to risk one of their customers bearing a child with birth defects because they are unwilling to comply with safety requirements? Mary Ellen Camire Associate professor and chair University of Maine Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition Orono