When Our Government is Oblivious

For the past three months, almost 1000 people have been ill while the cause is still in the mystery. First the government officials predicted that such pendemic was caused by raw tomatoes, tainted with a unique form of salmonella. As a result, aversion towards tomatoes has risen consistantly and subsequently, numerous tomatoe farmers and tomatoe related companies have suffered greatly. For example, the McDonals refused to add any tomatoes in their hamburgers, leaving devastating impacts to major tomatoe dealers, relying on the one of the largest fast food companies.

However, recently, the American health officials reversed their opinions of the cause of the one thousand people’s illness and started to show uncertainty about the fact that contaminated tomatoes have caused this national crisis. Now the government experts have raised concerns about jalapeno peppers, cilantro, and some types of salsa. It seems that new “suspects” will also be added on the list near future if the growing number of patients does not seem to be decreasing.

This is almost a national crisis of America. Although the number of patients are continuously increasing, the government is not even sure of the cause of such sickness. Although the number is only one thousand right now, we cannot guarantee that the number is going to stop from now on if we cannot find an apparent evidence to prove the source of the disease.

In the case of contaminated food crisis, the food tracking system is the most convienient and effective solution to point out the actual origin of the entire problem. However, current food tracking system of America is not well established enough for F.D.A to track the sources of vegetables or meat in the market. In other words, chances are, our supermarkets are probably still displaying the salmonella infected vegetables as no one can exactly tell which food source is contaminated.

From salmonella to mad cow disease, our food sources are threatened with numerous invasive diseases. Reliability of our food source is directly related to the health of the entire national population and this salmonella crisis of America is an evident proof of the stumble position of F.D.A to guarantee the safety of the people. The U.S government needs to take the situation very seriously and start working on with its establishment of dependable food source tracking system and it has to be the top priority of government project. What’s the use of any government policy if everyone in the country is ill?