> By the time the outbreak had ended, the agency documented 61 cases in 19 states. Sixty of the victims were hospitalized.
> Ten people died.
[…]
> Information released by the FSIS in response to multiple Freedom of Information Requests revealed that the agency had been aware of major deficiencies at the Boar’s Head production facility since October 2022, but had taken no action to suspend production or order a clean-up. These deficiences were described as posing an “imminent threat to product” in a Food Safety Assessment conducted in September/October 2022.
I guess if the FDA was aware of this, the company must have been as well, right? Hospital bills are quite expensive nowadays, is there any caselaw on trying to recover the costs of medical bills incurred by the sanitation policies of Boar’s Head?
Has it actually come out why "imminent threat to product" for over a year didn't result in a shut down?
I know this is a popular topic to blame Trump on for some reason (happening 2 years into the next admin), but surely the fda still has the ability to shut down locations some times.
My gut is it just got lost in the bureaucracy of the agency, but I'd love to see an actual explanation.
I have no idea, it seems quite weird that they weren’t made to shut down.
What’s Trump have to do with? I don’t like him or his policies, but I don’t think we need to trace all bad decisions back to him or anything like that.
Exposing food manufacturers to widespread civil suits like this would surely depress domestic production of food just as opening up fabric manufacturers to fire-related civil suits (e.g. Chapman v Brown) destroyed domestic fabric production. Even if the manufacturer wins 99% of the time, the proliferation of suits like this is sufficiently costly to force production overseas. You still end up with the same (or greater) risks, but the system routes around the legal friction by reducing production in the costly legal regime.
I think there is a way to distinguish between blanket liability any time someone gets sick eating your product, and suing Boar's Head for continuing to operate with deficiencies that were documented in a report and known to the company. It is regrettable that the FSIS did not enforce harder, but I think someone who's family died because of this should be able to sue.
Your understanding of how liability works is flawed.
Manufacturing products overseas doesn't exempt you from liability for selling t-shirts that are too flammable. I can still sue The Gap for selling me a dangerous item that they made in Bangladesh as easily as I can sue them for selling me a dangerous item that they made in San Francisco.
If you produce food without meeting the bare minimum standard of don't make people sick then your operation absolutely should get, as you say, depressed.
> Exposing food manufacturers to widespread civil suits like this would surely depress domestic production of food just as opening up fabric manufacturers to fire-related civil suits destroyed domestic fabric production.
"Requiring safe standards is bad for business" is possibly true (at least in the short term), but I'm not sure that the alternative is better.
EDIT: I inadvertently read the parent post uncharitably, as suggesting that there should be no enforcement at all. gizmodo (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42452514) points out that arguing against civil liability is not arguing against effective regulation and enforcement.
It seems much harder to move meat production overseas. You can use destructively high tariffs to prevent it. You can also require imports to follow the same standards including domestic inspection.
Any suits that fail 99% of the time are frivilous and the normal method of dealing with same is punishing claimants who should have known better by fining and disbarring lawyers and making claimant bear costs.
Ways exist to distinguish between a frivilous and non case in this category.
-Has responsible party exhibited a pattern of failures of their normal duty of care according to testimony and evidence that would be collected by the government as part of reasonable investigations and inspection
-Is it more likely than not that present issue is related.
It seems unreasonable that we must either open up bobs meats to lawsuits with every sandwich or ignore the fact that Bob killed dozens because he has been known to be a filthy pig for years.
I think it would be really hard to show causation there; I’d expect, at least, that higher wages and higher regulation would be pretty correlated (more well off populations might be less willing to sacrifice lives to industry). Maybe the fabric industry moved out because American workers weren’t cost-competitive.
A data point on this: post-Brexit the UK Government has been doing their best to agree trade deals with countries around the globe. There is (for obvious reasons) significant interest in a trade deal with the United States, but a big fear (often mentioned when this topic crops up) is that the UK would be forced to accept apparently substandard quality US beef as part of the deal.
Previously, TX Gov GWB instituted self reporting for air pollution, followed up by POTUS GWB creating OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program to do the same for labor and safety.
> Information released by the FSIS in response to multiple Freedom of Information Requests revealed that the agency had been aware of major deficiencies at the Boar’s Head production facility since October 2022, but had taken no action to suspend production or order a clean-up. These deficiences [sic] were described as posing an “imminent threat to product” in a Food Safety Assessment conducted in September/October 2022
What's somewhat disturbing is that there are politicians that think that it should work that way all the time.
I don't remember the specific states, but remember reading that some state legislatures were upset that county health officials had been able to close in-person dining at restaurants during the height of the pandemic and had changed their laws so that county health officials could no longer close a restaurant for health code violations unless the health officials could demonstrate someone had actually been seriously sickened by the violation.
I thought the issue was deregulation? Something like Trump rolled back some rules about oversight and then Biden never put them back into place? Does the USDA even have the power to fix this?
Anyways, having a pregnant wife right now, it's worrying that listeria is on the rise. We're already avoiding stuff like deli meat but when there's listeria in the frozen waffles, mushrooms, and vegetables you have to wonder what's really going on.
The USDA created the problem through regulating industry consolidation. The 'fix' is to reconfigure the economy to price in unpriced negative externalities and create sustainable industries. This of course won't happen.
Yes and: IIRC, USDA lost their roster of experienced food inspectors (et al) when their headquarters moved from Metro DC to Kansas City. Below are the top hits via perplexity.
FWIW, While I'm generally in favor of (geographical) decentralization, I'm against abrupt changes to essential services. Obviously, a nice orderly transition would have been better. Plenty of staff, esp youngsters wanting a house and family, would relocate over time.
tl;dr No barn doors were actually locked. A series of protocol changes are suggested to specifically address listeria bacteria in food processing plants.
Also, conjecture: Closing a barn door would likely not solve any actual food safety issues, but it might keep the livestock in place.
I might be missing a joke, but if not, there is a saying ‘closing/shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted’. It’s used in a context where someone has acted too late.
Readit News
> Ten people died.
[…]
> Information released by the FSIS in response to multiple Freedom of Information Requests revealed that the agency had been aware of major deficiencies at the Boar’s Head production facility since October 2022, but had taken no action to suspend production or order a clean-up. These deficiences were described as posing an “imminent threat to product” in a Food Safety Assessment conducted in September/October 2022.
I guess if the FDA was aware of this, the company must have been as well, right? Hospital bills are quite expensive nowadays, is there any caselaw on trying to recover the costs of medical bills incurred by the sanitation policies of Boar’s Head?
I know this is a popular topic to blame Trump on for some reason (happening 2 years into the next admin), but surely the fda still has the ability to shut down locations some times.
My gut is it just got lost in the bureaucracy of the agency, but I'd love to see an actual explanation.
What’s Trump have to do with? I don’t like him or his policies, but I don’t think we need to trace all bad decisions back to him or anything like that.
Manufacturing products overseas doesn't exempt you from liability for selling t-shirts that are too flammable. I can still sue The Gap for selling me a dangerous item that they made in Bangladesh as easily as I can sue them for selling me a dangerous item that they made in San Francisco.
"Requiring safe standards is bad for business" is possibly true (at least in the short term), but I'm not sure that the alternative is better.
EDIT: I inadvertently read the parent post uncharitably, as suggesting that there should be no enforcement at all. gizmodo (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42452514) points out that arguing against civil liability is not arguing against effective regulation and enforcement.
Any suits that fail 99% of the time are frivilous and the normal method of dealing with same is punishing claimants who should have known better by fining and disbarring lawyers and making claimant bear costs.
Ways exist to distinguish between a frivilous and non case in this category.
-Has responsible party exhibited a pattern of failures of their normal duty of care according to testimony and evidence that would be collected by the government as part of reasonable investigations and inspection
-Is it more likely than not that present issue is related.
It seems unreasonable that we must either open up bobs meats to lawsuits with every sandwich or ignore the fact that Bob killed dozens because he has been known to be a filthy pig for years.
Perhaps putting all liability on the importer, distributor, or retailer for imported goods.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
https://www.usda.gov/article/usda-announces-proposed-rule-mo...
This is just the natural result of these policies. Did they really expect the companies to actually self-report all the deficiencies?
It played out as you'd expect.
What's somewhat disturbing is that there are politicians that think that it should work that way all the time.
I don't remember the specific states, but remember reading that some state legislatures were upset that county health officials had been able to close in-person dining at restaurants during the height of the pandemic and had changed their laws so that county health officials could no longer close a restaurant for health code violations unless the health officials could demonstrate someone had actually been seriously sickened by the violation.
Anyways, having a pregnant wife right now, it's worrying that listeria is on the rise. We're already avoiding stuff like deli meat but when there's listeria in the frozen waffles, mushrooms, and vegetables you have to wonder what's really going on.
What was such a reconfiguration of the economy actually mean in real terms?
FWIW, While I'm generally in favor of (geographical) decentralization, I'm against abrupt changes to essential services. Obviously, a nice orderly transition would have been better. Plenty of staff, esp youngsters wanting a house and family, would relocate over time.
---
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963207129/usda-research-agenc...
https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2023/01/although-usda-agen...
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104709
Also, conjecture: Closing a barn door would likely not solve any actual food safety issues, but it might keep the livestock in place.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/104948/english-p...
Dead Comment