The Food and Drug Administration has now exonerated tomatoes in the recent E. Coli outbreaks, without even saying "sorry" to the hundreds of aggrieved farmers, processors, shippers and retailers who have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the phony scare.
No reparations are available, no ability to sue the federal government for besmirching their name and product, not even an apology or even an "oops, we screwed up." It shows the crushing power of Big Government when it runs amuck and goes after innocent products and producers.
Cattlemen and beef processors know all too well about the sloppy way the feds point the finger, driving people out of business willy nilly, according to the hunches and whims of its "civil servants."
I always order sliced tomatoes in place of potatoes at breakfast, and when the waitress who knows me asked if I still wanted tomatoes, I said "Yes, I'll stare death right in the face."
Unfortunately, a large slice of the public doesn't react this way, and a huge economic dislocation results. Apple growers never have fully recovered from the testimony in Congress a few years ago from that distinguished scientist and botanist Meryl Streep about alar in apples. Alar was exonerated, Street was shown to be a naive fool, but its still the apple growers, who have trouble to this day selling their product.
Agriculture is a victim, and deserves compensation. Fat chance.
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