It's really easy to take for granted since most of us have never known any different.
It's really easy to take for granted since most of us have never known any different.
144 comments
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From the wiki: "By the 1930s, muckraking journalists, consumer protection organizations, and federal regulators began mounting a campaign for stronger regulatory authority by publicizing a list of injurious products which had been ruled permissible under the 1906 law, including radioactive beverages, the mascara Lash lure, which caused blindness, and worthless "cures" for diabetes and tuberculosis. The resulting proposed law was unable to get through Congress for five years, but was rapidly enacted into law following the public outcry over the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, in which over 100 people died after using a drug formulated with a toxic, untested solvent."
I believe I've heard that the FDA was actually beneficial for capitalism as consumers would entirely avoid certain products out of fear, making it difficult to sell even legitimate goods.
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That's not true:
They exist because pure unadulterated capitalism WILL kill you, not would.
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It wasn't chalk, it was borax. And that was because it neutralised the sour taste of turned milk.
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Safety regulations are written in the blood of those who died from unsafe practices.
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Look up Harvey Washington Wileyand and his poison squad for the fun story.
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What Conservatives would like us to forget is that many regulations are written in blood.
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Someone somewhere recently pointed out that fascism tends to rear its ugly head every 100 years because everyone that experienced it last time has to be dead before it can happen again.
Americans specifically have had it generally good for so long that anyone incapable of picking up and absorbing information from a history book, which is most Americans, simply don't know how bad it used to be. So they fucking sleepwalk into fascism or allowing regulations to be rolled back.
You'd think that having a written language to chronicle all our mistakes would ensure that we moved forward without repeatedly making those mistakes, but the catch is the majority of people have to read the fucking words for that to matter.
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Hence, the defunding of education, and specifically critical thinking. That is by design. You can’t easily control the population when they can read and think for themselves.
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Exactly. Critical Thinking is the literally the most imoportant skill you cn learn. Critical Thinking is what allows people to recognize nonsensical propaganda immediately upon hearing it, and reject it.
It worked for me back in the late 80s, when Rush Limbaugh got started. He had a very entertaining delivery, but I was easily rejecting his unsourced bullshit and blatant lies, while people were calling in praising him for "opening their eyes." Dude, he's entertaining, I get that, but that doesn't mean he isn’t lying to you.
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When I told my parents how we got things like the 40 hour work week they were fucking mortified. Something seemingly so inconsequential, many people died for.
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Yup.
People died to give workers rights and now we're electing anti-worker presidents and giving those rights away. It's sickening.
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I think it would help to have history-oriented comics and manga in schools. I learned to enjoy history, in no small part on account of Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe series. Making things approachable is how people progress from knowing nothing to being a college graduate.
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but the catch is the majority of people have to read the fucking words for that to matter.
Hell, I'd even settle for more people watching classic movies and TV shows. People need to maintain some link to the past to see the mindset of those who lived through fascism, wars, etc. and absorb what a society that rejects those ideas looks like.
Culture is a big part of our collective memory, and a society that can't look back will just reinvent the same problems.
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Vote with your dollar! If tainted baby formula kills your kid, simply refuse to buy that brand anymore!
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This, so much this..
I tire of people saying "VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET", when the problem is far more systemic than a "couple bad actors greedy for the green"
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3 stars. I dislike that it killed my baby, but shipping was really fast!
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review found under a pack of rechargeable batteries
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At least they're not american. At this point I'm not sure if I wouldn't rather buy Nestlé just to make sure Trump doesn't get any tax dollars.
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there's like four companies in america. Soon to be 1 no doubt.
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My favorite "we had to regulate this" is coal mining. You see, the larger a coal mine tunnel, the more work and time it takes. So smaller tunnels will be more profitable. So in some places they preferred smaller women and children, so they could make make smaller, easier tunnels. This one I only ever found one source on, but supposedly one mine owner noticed that snags on clothing were slowing things down in the narrow tunnels so he insisted on sending them in nude. Nothing more capitalist than naked coal mining children.
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I realy would like to fact check you on this, but i will definitely not search for "naked coal mining children". "Trust me bro" will have to do it for this one.
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That miners often worked naked or partially naked is definitely true. That children, men and women worked together in mines is also true. If it's legally allowed, then it's going to happen basically.
That there were owners who preferred children/women over men, is probably false. They will have tended to do different jobs in the mines, but I can't recall having ever read anything about a mine that preferred to not employ any male miners.
That the workers worked naked because of owner mandates is also going to be false, because those miners used to be paid according to how much they extracted, so there was no reason for the owner to have such a mandate. Instead it was the workers their own choice: some clothes hinder them in their work (heat, snagging, dust) + the job eats up clothes + they have to pay for their own clothes = they're not going to be wearing many clothes at work.
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The fact that these fucks were not regularly dragged from their mansions and beaten to death blows my mind
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You're not dragging Trump out and beating him to death. So why expect of your ancestors what you can't do today?
I'm not shaming nor advocating btw, just explaining.
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That's because you view things like this as isolated acts done by a few people. But don't forget, only 1/3 of US voters tried to stop a man who openly declared himself a fascist, had already had a direct hand in the spread of a world wide plague that killed millions.
The "they didn't know what they were getting into" excuse is no longer valid. And yet 2/3 of voters were fine with him being reelected . The reason those people weren't dragged from their mansions and beaten to death was because of all the other monsters who were protecting them. The people who weren't committing atrocities themselves, but benefited from it enough to help it keep happening. -
as humans, our arguably greatest trait is the ability to adapt to almost any circumstance. unfortunately that also often makes us accept unacceptable living conditions because changing them involves too high of a personal cost.
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Welcome to The Jungle, we play dirty games.
Food safety costs a lot, so fuck the FDA
-Food companies, basically.
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Fun fact:
The precursor to the FDA was created during Theodore Roosevelt's administration. After the book was published, Roosevelt sent federal investigators to the Chicago slaughterhouses to validate the conditions detailed in the story.
The investigators reported that the conditions were worse than described in the book. And that was after the slaughterhouse owners got wind that the feds were coming and had everything cleaned from top to bottom.
Hard to imagine what "worse" looks like because the conditions detailed in the book are truly appalling.
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Additional fun fact, The Jungle was meant to highlight the poor working conditions in slaughter houses, but the outrage was related entirely to the poor consideration for the meat that the public was eating.
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Not sure if you intended this, but you can absolutely get what you wrote to work with the timing (and same rhyme sounds/pattern, basically) of the first few lyrics of Guns N Roses 'Welcome to the Jungle', with minor modifications.
Welcome to the Jungle,
where we play dirty games.
Food safety sure costs a lot,
so fuck the FDA.
We are the people who hate fines,
Whatever they may be.
If you got no money, honey,
We got your disease.
etc.
(Wonderful that some of the lyrics don't have to change at all, nor really the chorus, yay internal bleeding.)
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Love the cover:
[Incidentally and entirely off-topic, it reminds me of the book(s) I'm reading right now: Josiah Bancroft's Tower of Babel tetralogy - urban steampunk jungle, vertically]
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The book cover has the same vibe as the album cover for Pink Floyd's "Animals", which also happens to be a scathing critique of capitalism.
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I loved that series, enjoy!
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if Upton Sinclair was alive today he would flip his lid
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such a good read. should be required by all.
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Good ole Bubbly creek https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbly_Creek
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they used to put brick dust in chocolate bars, and sawdust in bread
edit: heck, they just caught someone recently intentionally putting lead in
applesaucecinnamon that was used in applesauce, which has been used off and on as a sweetener since at least ancient rome, where a bunch of people went crazy and died from consuming a sweetener made by boiling grapes in lead pots-
Copper sulfate used to be added to canned peas because it turns green when it oxidizes, making them look greener.
Copper sulphate is straight up poisonous, enough will kill a passion and low amounts will hurt them.
Anyone who wants to learn more about this history, there is a great episode of the “ridiculous history” podcast that goes into the story that finally got food regulations in the US. A team of people who volunteered to be poisoned to help prove that certain things are unsafe to put in food.
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enough will kill a passion
Those poor, poor passions!
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Wasn't there lead found in other spices, too? Like tumeric or something?
Yep!
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It's also HEAVY, so something light sold by weight just needs a liiiiittle lead to be a lot cheaper to make
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This is what caused that pet food scare back in the 00's. Some Chinese manufacturer realized that they were being paid by weight, not volume, so they added heavy metals to their cat food and it poisoned a few cats here in the US.
China executed that guy btw.
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recently
My wife loves apple sauce, who did this to her
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WanaBana Apple Cinnamon Fruit Puree pouches, Schnucks cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches and variety pack and Weis cinnamon applesauce pouches were recalled
it was actually the cinnamon in the applesauce being cut with lead to significantly increase it's weight, thus it's value. It was an Ecuadoran cinnamon processor called Carlos Aguilera
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/24/nx-s1-5119336/cinnamon-lead-fda-recall-what-we-know
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Good ole
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Omg is this the joke? Chalk in milk? So it took me 30 years to actually understand this Simpsons joke?
The golden years writers were so genius.
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And that’s why the Americans (Trump) are deleting regulations. Because regulations will cost the Oligarchs money. They’re sending innocent people to El Salvador. They’re stopping food regulations, they are spreading lies about inoculations that save lives. What is the point? They’re decreasing the population. Why are they doing this? There’s going to be no one left. (I’ve had one too many martinis)
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Same logic with antivax people.
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1000% my first thought. These nutjobs who say “just get some fresh air” are coasting upon the millions of dead and buried who paid the price for us to have longer healthier lives. Strict stringent food safety. Mandatory vaccines without exemptions.
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"Measles doesn't kill anyone!"
No you fuck, measles doesn't kill anyone TODAY. That can change real fast.
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Eventually we Canadians won't even have to boycott American agricultural products, they just won't be able to sell them to us because they won't pass our safety requirements.
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This is already happening a lot. Take poultry for example.
In the USA, you can chemically rinse chicken (usually in acids, but in the past in chlorine) so that it won't have any Salmonella or Campylobacter bateria on it.
The EU, you're not allowed to do that, but you're also not allowed to have those bacteria. That means you have to raise the chickens in a MUCH cleaner environment. The same goes for eggs, which you can't wash, so they have to be clean from the farm.
As a result, you can't export US chicken to the EU, because it doesn't meet the safety standards. And that's about to get worse. You can absolutely export EU chicken to the US, but it likely won't be competitively priced.
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I already subscribe to y'alls government emails about recalls, I suggest other Americans do too because many products are sold in both places, and hopefully it would be too expensive to set up two production lines, one for lower or nonexistant US standards and one for Canada. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en for 'muricans who are curious
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You've heard of their eggs and their chickens right ?
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Everyone who wants to remove food regulations should just be shot. I'm so tired of these absolute fools that slept through 10th grade history trying to take us back to the gilded age.
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As someone who works in materials/workplace safety, I can absolutely vouch that there are stupid regulations that should be scrapped. I have no doubt there are stupid regulations in food-safety, because there are stupid regulations everywhere. Recently here in the Netherlands we changed regulations for toxic residu in soil to distinguish between "Things that are bad for plants and animals" and "Things that are bad for humans". That made things more complex, but it also means you don't have to wear a hazmat suit to protect yourself from a dose of zink that's roughly equal to a multivitamin a day (which, funfact, will absolutely murder fish).
But you know who shouldn't get to decide which regulations are stupid? The people who stand to make money off of scrapping regulations.
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Just give them a state, ship them all there and build a wall around it. Like some sort of big libertarian hunger games.
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It wasn't even just 10th grade... I learned about this shit in grade school, then again in civics class in Jr. High. Then again in American History in high school. Anyone who doesn't understand the risks here shouldn't be allowed outside by themselves.
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Damn, just five minutes ago I saw this link shared in another thread:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swill_milk_scandal
🤢🤮
It took us well over a century to establish some sort of framework that makes such horrors almost impossible, but no, regulations are bad 🙄
Same for workers btw. And cows. It's not just about food security. That's just easier to sell to a thoroughly egoistic constituency.
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Gone in <100 days
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There were no regulations that couldn't ever n made unrefrigerated raw milk safe in cities at the time. You either sold milk from cows raised in the city itself(which means cramped quarters and disease) or carted it in on a wagon (which means unrefrigerated milk sitting for hours). Adding formalin likely made it safer, it was so dangerous. The scandal thing played like it was what they were feeding cows (we feed cows high protein spent grains today and it's considered high quality feed), but the reality was milk in cities was always insane.
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safety rules and regulations are usually 'written in blood'.
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it seems they need to be rewritten in blood ... because people are so contrarian and formed social relationships based on questioning the basics and not understanding the answers.
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But RandLover1988 on YouTube told me businesses have to sell good things otherwise competitors will come in and they'll go bankrupt, unless there are too many regulations and too much socialism, which is why he got banned for saying the N-word on YouTube. /s
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It was so much worse than just chalk. Additives included plaster of Paris, lead, cow brain, and fucking formaldehyde
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Formaldehyde is natural, or bodies make some of it so it's fine /s
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Anthrax and asbestos are also natural!
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Whenever a corporation does something good (for example, make a charitable donation) rest assured it’s been calculated that the positive PR will make it financially worthwhile.
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And it reduces its tax burden.
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It decreases your tax burden in the same way that giving away all of your money to charity decreases your tax burden.
And in case people need it cleared up: Donating at a register during checkout also does not help the company on their taxes. Its the same as you donating individually except they get the PR for it.
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That's a wild misrepresentation of how write-offs work.
If your tax rate is 30% and you make write off a charitable donation of $100, your tax bill goes down $30. Spending 100 dollars to save 30 isn't the key to riches.
There's no way to save money through charitable donations.
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My favourite was hot dog and sausage vendors in big US cities, especially New York, in the early 1900s ..... they would take semi rancid meat, mix it with lye or some chemical to reduce the stench and bacteria, then mix it with red food colouring .... a good batch was known as a mix that didn't make that many people sick.
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Sausage-inna-bun. CMOT Dibbler would be proud, no one else would.
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This is why I've been trying to point out that the ground swell around raw milk seems to have less to do with any critiques of pasteurization (there are no good critiques) and more to do with the fact that if pasteurization isn't mandated as the only way to make milk safe to drink, corporations will seek cheaper options, like mixing raw milk with formaldehyde...
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But if no one FDA checking anything don't we have to worry about getting milk that says its pasteurized, but actually has an emulsifier and some poison in it?
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I feel like there's at least one country who is going to learn this shit the hard way.
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China has learned it multiple times. The plastic additives in baby formula causing infant deaths…
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Have they learnt it yet though?
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Sure unbridled capitalism is the way to go as there has never been starvation under capitalism.
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Welcome to Uptown Sinclair's Jungle. You're going to die.
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For more fun stuff on why the FDA should exist, but also some of their bad stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1UD3qjA5A
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We used to add formaldehyde to milk too. Seems worse than chalk to me.
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One thing people forget is that it was Big Food that wanted regulations.
After the book came out, it was almost impossible for American companies to sell their products overseas. Teddy knew that slapping a government label attesting to quality would mean that American companies would be able to make big profits.
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The U.S. won’t need regulations once the last of its trade partners gives up on it. We’ll be free to eat all the domestic lead and asbestos our dear masters deem necessary to feed us.
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So wait, are you telling me regulations actually help companies, too?
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Well, it could in the long ago past, but we've outgrown the need for things like regulations, Unions, privacy...
No /s, because that's what MAGats are already saying.
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This is why I am hoping Canadian and Mexican food standards may save us yet
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The capitalism we have NOW is actually killing people.
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The death and exploitation of the majority is inherent in Capitalism. For the few benefits of such a heinous system of greed as Capitalism to outweigh the overwhelming harm of the system, a strict regulatory system is essential, with real penalties exacted for violating them.
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So what’s killing us now? Because last I heard life expectancy is dropping.
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heart disease, cancer, COVID-19 and drug-overdose.
Infant mortality is steady,
under 25 mortality increased very slightly.
over 65 went up by 20%, that's where you find most of the heart disease and covid deaths, and it doesn't decrease the life expectancy that much, since they're already old.The big problem is in the 25-55 bracket, because they're dying from overdoses a LOT, and that's hugely decreasing life expectancy. There's alcohol consumption too, which increases cancer risks and deaths. Cancer screenings have dropped off in this bracket too, thanks to cost, so "preventable" cancers like breast-, lung- and colon cancers are killing more people.
It seems to be less of a direct regulation issue, and more of a "life sucks, so people do drugs". Which one can (and SHOULD) argue is also a regulation issue, just less directly.
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Quality of medical care being driven down, and its price being driven up, by insurance middlemen.
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Deregulation has been going on for a while. It's been a major policy of the last several Rep. Presidents.
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Also, sedentary life styles are far more common, then there are the more wild card things, like the microplastics epidemic, and many other things.
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That's gonna make the cows mad. And mad cows will make US mad.
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I GUESS
we l l d o n e
Meat is back on the menu boys!
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Well done meat can counter a number of contamination issues, but can't undo toxins already created by bacteria in meat that wasn't kept to a safe temp or a lot of really dangerous stuff like mad cow disease.
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144 comments