Applesauce pouches may have been contaminated on purpose, FDA foods chief says
Applesauce pouches may have been contaminated on purpose, FDA foods chief says
The food safety agency continues to investigate dozens of incidents of lead poisoning in U.S. children linked to three brands of cinnamon applesauce pouches.
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.”
This is where those US based companies should get absolutely reamed. Want to profit off cheap labor and raw materials from developing countries with “lax” controls? Then you should face all consequences and lost profits. No “blaming” some other supplier.
How about jailing responsible execs? Money wrist slaps notoriously don't do shit
Keep increasing the penalty until it actually has an effect.
Even if it never changes their behavior, all the free money can be used for other things until they go out of business.
There should be a tiered system, too. First offenders just have to pay a certain amount to cover all expenses and then some. Subsequent offenders should have to pay more, probably double at the minimum.
Just like how insurers increase rates when we use their services, taxpayers should increase rates for businesses that use their services.
Miniscule fine incoming...
Price of business
When you read these stories just remember the leaders who profit off these products are shielded from their cost saving decisions. Late stage capitalism y'all.
What the fuck are you talking about? You don't think socialist and communist countries with factories run by psychos poisoning people are profiting from these products without repercussions?
These two are not opposing viewpoints, you understand that right?
Yeah, what about communism ?
we’re trying to sort of figure that out
Well that inspires confidence.
I think it's just a literal quote of how he spoke, and not an attempt at waffling around an answer. The guy seems to have a goal in mind in the article.
“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,”
Is this guy serious? It wasn't detected before kids got sick, they still don't know what happened and he's talking about 'robust regulatory process'? Here in EU I always check where products come from (not to buy something from Catalonia by accident) and all the food is made in EU. It's because there are strict regulations on food safety, workplace safety, monitoring and so on. Countries that do now meet those requirements have tariffs put on their food and there's extra requirements and check on imports (ask the UK). That's why I keep hearing about cases here where they recall some food before anyone gets sick. But yeah, bringing food from Ecuador, waiting for kids to get sick and then trying to figure out what happened is 'robust regulatory process'. Amazing.
What the fuck
Why does child food need to be produced thousands of miles away?
It’s perfectly fine to do that because it increases economic prosperity across the globe, as long as we have regulatory controls. I don’t know, but I think finding this out and being able to find the source of contamination is a win for the FDA, and shows that some part of the process in place does work.
I read the article. Is this because lead has a sweet, appealing flavor? I remember reading this was a huge problem at certain times and places.
That would be similar to that fucked up thing that happened in China where some corrupt companies were putting a plastic resin in milk to cheat protein level tests.
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.
Ancient Romans used it to sweeten wine. Also why kids used to be fond of eating lead paint chips. Slightly sweet.
So this was driving me nuts, so I had to look it up. I thought I dreamed it.
Apparently, this continued for centuries, and may have contributed to Beethoven's illness and death.
I think I actually read about it in a thread here on Lemmy.
Yeah, this wasn't someone with a grudge against children poisoning their food, this was an willfully negligent decision made by the producers to make the product more profitable
Lead(II,IV) Oxide (aka red lead) is sometimes used to color low-quality cinnamon to look better. Much like yellow led is sometimes used to color turmeric. Toxic, of course, but profitable!
Is there a way that someone can test for this at home? It seems troubling that children had to be poisoned before any action was taken.
All these say no sugar added. Lead tastes sweet. So I guess that counts as an alternative sweetener?
hol up. gonna try this out
TBF the Romans used to use lead as a sweetener all the time. While it can't have done them much good it can't have been immediately fatal or they'd have stopped. If it was intended as a sweetener in this case someone must have seriously fucked up the dosage. And I'd have thought they'd go for cheaper and easier ways to make the product taste sweeter, like aspartame or saccharine.
Humans are really fucked. No wonder all these billionaires don't want to help anyone but themselves.
This is sad indeed and this person is a wretch, but most of humanity is perfectly fine. There are some awful people and they make the news and are talked about cus we love gossip.
But have faith in humanity. Most of it is just like you and wants things to be good and tons of them go out there and do good, we just rarely talk about them or encourage others to do good for their community.
It only takes a tiny percentage of people being fucked up to cause a lot of damage
It's true but like... Not all of us are a fucking waste of air... Most of us, sure, but not all of us.
The source of contamination is possibly a production facility in Ecuador, possibly due to using a cheaper cinnamon alternative. I thought I should post this because comments are wrongly asserting (I think) that a person in a U.S. production supply chain did this. It seems less malicious and more cost-savings oriented, which is why regulations and policies help save people from bottomline focused tendencies.
The FDA continues to investigate a number of theories for how the pouches became contaminated, and has not drawn any conclusions about the way the lead was added, why or by whom. The FDA says it currently believes the adulteration is “economically motivated.” That generally refers to ingredients being altered in order to make products appear higher in value, often so companies can produce a cheaper item and sell it at an elevated price.
which is why regulations and policies help save people from bottomline focused tendencies.
But the free market!
"Robust regulatory processes" my fucking ass dude. Food recalls happen ALL THE TIME in the US (AFTER all the kids get sick and die, mind you) and this fucking clown wants to talk about how great our FDA is? What a joke! And youll think well, maybe its just the cheaper brands and you would be wrong. Name brands and off brands all get contaminated I swear I see it at least once a month. Just google food recalls in the past year. Not only that, a lot of the literal poison they put in our food is illegal everywhere else. UK just seized thousands of pounds of candy from us because of "illegal ingredients" What fucking deception to say that our FDA is even remotely competent. If I didnt live here, I would NEVER eat the food from here
Isn't the high amount of recalls the evidence of the processes working?
This feels like saying "our border is insecure! Look at all the drugs we confiscated!"
A "robust regulatory process" wouldnt have 10 million plus jars of peanut butter with E Coli contamination make it to the store shelves and take months to figure out about, AFTER some people die. That happened like 1 to 2 years ago. Now a bunch of kids get lead poisoning from Applesauce pouches so we take them off the shelves and act like we have some amazing system. How about those cancer causing dyes that california is banning andNOW the FDA is talking about, PERHAPS banning them nationwide. Our FDA is trash.
Well, if anybody is an expert on poisoned kid's drinks it's Jim Jones.
Right? I was gonna look it up to make sure that name is the one I was thinking of.
For others maybe not familiar, if you have ever heard the phrase "they drank the kool-aid" a cult leader also named Jim Jones ran a cult informally called JonesTown. If you have a strong stomach and a curiosity about how cult "life" can be, there is a pretty detailed Wikipedia article on it. Spoiler alert, the ending of the story is one of the worst parts. And also how we can be certain this is a different Jim Jones.
And also it was "flavor-aid", but details don't always make it into the memes.
Jim Jones is such a fascinating character because of how much good he did. He fought for social justice, championed racial equality and tried to help the poor. He was beloved by his community and civic leaders. But...behind the curtain he was an abusive megalomaniac that led hundreds of people to their death.
Just another reason to avoid anything processed. I turned away from processed foods a decade or so ago and my health has never been better. Yes…all those additives are generally recognized as safe, but when you dig into it, no…no they are not especially on your gut health. That is aside from contamination risks like this situation. Why put your health in the hands of a corporation when you can eat whole foods that are much harder to tamper with.
I just tell my toddler if he wants applesauce he'll have to make it from scratch. I'd make it for him but who has the time these days, you know? Anyway, once I've turned on the blender and stove for him he's good to go. Nothing but whole foods for my little one.
There is a point where some fruits are more dangerous than others to give a toddler, such as grapes.
But you can bulk make a lot of purees with a hand mixer. On the weekend I would batch cook and bulk freeze a lot of different purees before they could have solid food. There's these silicone trays a little larger than ice trays you can use to freeze the purees, then put them on a ziplock bag and pull one or two out to defrost in the microwave real quick.
You don't have to use everything fresh, you can use frozen fruits/veggies and even do Passata - Strained Tomatoes no salt added, with spaghetti, or Mac n cheese. We had concerns about the level of salt in premade foods so we made our own on the weekend and froze it all. Low sodium lentil soups are ok too.
It ended up being a lot cheaper just to spend an hour on the weekend batch cooking for the kid and batch cooking for lunches to take to work too.
Finally I got a little plastic masher and used that, as soon as they were old enough do it themselves. They wouldn't eat anything they mashed at first but they loved playing with it.
Now they just grab apples and other fruit straight from the fridge.
Our doctor said not to give them juice or fruit packs at all. The doctor did say chocolate milk mixed with regular milk is a good treat that's safe and hydrating tho.
It's honestly saved me time and money just to put in an hours work on the weekends instead of buying premade.
Wow. Eat organic and local I guess?
I can't believe any parent would walk right past the organic/local section at the dollar store and pick up lead pouches instead, but here we are.