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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.
China executed mfers when companies sold tainted baby milk powder.
I'm not a huge fan of China, but I'll admit they're doing at least one thing right.
Lead is sweet. That’s why kids eat paint chips.
Someone saved money on sugar and biocide.
The reason why I tacked this on after your comment is that you are on to something.
Sugar is way too cheap to use lead these days. 100 years ago this would have been plausible to me, but not today.
Lead is used as a plastic softener, and these packages were likely not rated for food usage and whoever bought them online hadn't checked for FDA approval for food safety before purchasing. It could have been something as simple as someone accidentally using the wrong materials in the factory too.
Makes me wonder how much lead will flow into humans now that lead fuel is forbidden everywhere but lead food packaging is on the rise
Leaded fuel is forbidden for ground vehicles. It is still legal in airplane fuel.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/20/aviation-lead-fuel-00081641
We have a lot more work to do.
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.
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
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.
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
We used to put fucking formaldehyde in milk for infants
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.
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.
"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.
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.