E. coli conservatives (5): hearings

(Click here to learn why we call them "E. coli conservatives.")

I'm watching the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearings on food safety.

A witness, Terri Marshall, tells the story of her mother-in-law, who went to the hospital after presenting symptoms of salmonella. At the hospital, she was able to enjoy a favorite snack--Peter Pan peanut butter. An ineffectual U.S. Department of Agriculture and FDA had not been able to identify it as the very product that had made her sick, in a nationwide outbreak.

Chairman Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, brings up the subject of carbon monoxide. Here is what progress means in the world of the E. coli conservatives: the FDA now allows meat producers to treat their product with carbon monoxide. They use it because it makes the meat look fresher. Incidentally, it also increases the likelihood of E. coli contamination.

A baby-faced young father, Michael Armstrong, tries manfully to testify as his angelic little girls climb over the hearing room furniture, knocking the microphones about with their stuffed animals. Unable to receive government help, Armstrong had personally traced the bag of spinach that had poisoned his girls back down the supply chain back to a Salinas, California batch that had already tested positive for E. coli. He says that protecting his girls from harm is the focus of his entire life.

His eyes soften: "The one thing I know is that I can't protect them from...spinach."

His eyes narrow. He's addressing the Congressmen now: "Only you can."

Ronald Reagan, at his first inaugural, disagreed: "Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem." A Republican congressman gave a demonstration of what that means to the 2007 model E. coli conservative. Smiling cloyingly, he thanks the witnesses for all they had done to fight this scourge on their own. It's something I'll be writing about in the future: how, on questions like food safety, the conservative message has become that we're all on our own. Wash our food better, the FDA says (though the Dole spinach bag the Armstrong family opened already read "Triple Washed And Ready To Eat"). The Republican still smiling as he delivers the E. coli conservative talking point: "No product is going to be 100 percent safe. It's incumbent upon all of us to be vigilant."

Guess upon whom it's not incumbent to be vigilant? The Food and Drug Administration. "Only answer direct questions," Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky reads from instructions to FDA officials. "Never volunteer information."

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