Viruses to be added to foods to combat bacteria
Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea? Let’s see. To combat bacteria, such as listeria, in foods such as cold cuts, sausages and hot dogs, the FDA has approved the addition of viruses to these foods. So, theoretically, these viruses attack only bacteria, not plant or human material, but doesn’t anyone but me remember that viruses have a nasty habit of mutating? Sure, today, they only make your lunch meat “safe”, but tomorrow the government will be announcing the need to find a “lunch meat flu” vaccine before we all die from the “lunch meat flu” pandemic.
This is my favorite quote from the article. Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said .”They (the FDA) couldn’t approve this product if they had questions about its safety.” Oh, yeah, the FDA would NEVER approve anything that later turns out to kill people (cough, Vioxx…. cough, antidpresseants…. cough, NSAIDs… I don’t need to keep coughing, do I? You’ve gotten my point?).
If you think I’m overexaggerating, try the Yahoo search for FDA drugs that kill and the Google search for FDA drugs that kill. Ironically, the news story about viruses added to food is one of the news articles that comes up for this search.
Oh, and in case you think that you’ll just avoid the food products that have been treated… they’re not going to label the products that use this method. Yep, makes me glad I’m a vegetarian.
