Tainted cinnamon applesauce pouches that have sickened scores of children in the U.S. may have been purposefully contaminated with lead, according to FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones.
“We’re still in the midst of our investigation. But so far all of the signals we’re getting lead to an intentional act on the part of someone in the supply chain and we’re trying to sort of figure that out,” Jones said in an exclusive interview. The pouches found to be contaminated were sold under three brands — Weis, WanaBana and Schnucks — that are all linked to a manufacturing facility in Ecuador. The FDA says it’s conducting an inspection of that facility.
“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,” Jones said. “They thought it was going to end up in places that did not have the ability to detect something like this.”
It happens in all the poorer Asian countries with turmeric too, https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/11/02/bangladesh-strikes-a-blow-against-lead-poisoning – classic capitalism, if they can make a couple of dollars more they won’t even lose a night’s sleep over poisoning millions of people.
We really do need to fund food safety organisations well, these regulations and authorities the right wing keep trying to get rid of are incredibly important to our safety and wellbeing.
Absolutely. The US Conservative jerk-off about ‘regulation harming the economy’ is one of their most ridiculous and disingenuous/ignorant positions. It’s easy to see what happens with lack of regulation - people all the way from seniors to infants get poisoned by lazy and greedy business owners.