Lax Regulation In Peanut Factories

(CBS)  Through no fault of its own, Lance Crackers faces a crisis.

CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports that many Americans no longer trust the peanut butter on its crackers.

"Consumers don't realize our products are safe," said David Singer, President and CEO of Lance. "We get this guilt by association."

All America's peanut industry feels it - overall sales of peanut products are down almost 25 percent.

At Lance crackers, the loss is about $1 million dollars a month. And yet this plant's food safety record is spotless: no food contamination in 37 years. To keep it that way, Plant Food Analyst Carla McCarter takes hundreds of swab samples every week, doing routine Salmonella checks on their peanut butter.

In terms of a threat to public safety, the real issue isn't peanut butter. Strassmann reports that it's quality control, from the planting field to the factory floor to the store shelf - and how to best police all the endless steps in between.

Since 1973, the number of America's food plants has nearly doubled. But with budget cutbacks, FDA inspections keep dropping. The job is mostly left to state inspectors. But staffing, standards and training vary wildly.

Georgia has had two major salmonella outbreaks in two years: a ConAgra plant two years ago, and now the Peanut Corporation of America.

"If the state is not there, the FDA is not there, the consumer is largely on his own," said William Hubbard, a retired FDA associate commissioner.

Lance is fighting back. In newspaper advertisements and Internet videos reminding that its peanut butter has nothing to do with PCA.

"It's hard to believe that a company that small would have so many broad tentacles," Singer said.

But, Strassmann reports, it has, in a food safety system more suspect than ever.

[hetup-2009]

There, got it, what you have to do for free speech

[hetup-2009]

The three stars edited out about how the church *** is another word for rape, unwanted ***, a donkin'', etc.

[hetup-2009]

There are enough rules, regulations, laws. It''s the morality you have problems with as evidenced with banks, credit card company execs, and wall street. The churches have been *** you to death for centuries and you are too dumb to figure that out too. The company execs of the peanut companies have murdered the people who used those products. Prosecute them for murder. Do it.

[solarwin-2009]

Everyone thank George Bush for cutting the FDA Inspectors!

"Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

That''s not all that''s dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues. "

[bm6005]

We just need to get rid of all the pesky inspectors and rely on the owners to do the right thing like we know they will!