May 2, 2007
Eat me?
The Fido-fodder scandal is spreading. Now it's tainted poultry in Indiana, chickens laced with melamine originally sold as pet food and "salvaged" as chicken feed. (Goldy of HorsesAss.org, who's really been on top of this, has more over at the Slog.)
Like the contaminated spinach scare last year, the story has everything, including a vague, ominous threat (adulterated food supplies), cute, innocent victims (Fido, Fluffy), and an amorphous, unknown villain (The Chinese? Greedy American capitalists? Our own government?)
RobertInSeattle added a great comment to Cornichon's original post a couple of days ago: don't automatically blame the Chinese, he says; consider the possibility that American buyers of contaminated feed were aware of what was going on.
So where's the FDA as this menace moves from dog dish in the general direction of our own dinner plates? Aren't they ones who are supposedly protecting the food supply? Well, they just got around to appointing a Food Safety Czar.
Dispatch calling all czars, this is dispatch, come in please: AIDS czar, Iraq war czar, drug czar, food czar ...
Whew, we feel a lot safer now.