One Brick Short

Five people have died and 500 have been sickened from salmonella poisoning passed on through industrial peanut butter and paste made in Georgia by a Lynchburg company and distributed through an Ohio firm and we won’t do anything about it.

I know we won’t because every year a few people die and hundreds are sickened by E. Coli spread in poorly processed and packed beef, spinach and other food stuffs. It’s become some commonplace that no one really pays attention anymore.

Our food chain is weak and our punishment is weaker. Not so in China. OK, that’s wrong, the Chinese food chain may be weak and even deadly, but the punishment is just as deadly.

Milk formula, laced with the industrial chemical melamine, has been blamed for causing the deaths of at least six infants and sickening nearly 300,000 others with kidney stones and other problems. In response, China courts handed out long prison sentences to 19 people and two death sentences.

Yup, if you screw up big time in China and kill a few people with an inferior product, they may just take you out of the food chain completely. On the other hand, if you’re a victim, you’re pretty much out of luck.

There were 22 dairies that processed the milk that made the formula that had the chemical that killed the kids. The dairies have put up a fund of $160 million to pay the parents. Parents of kids killed would get $29,000 for their loss. Kids who had kidney stones and dialysis and may have another decade to live before complete kidney failure, would get $4,380 for their pain. Kids who were just miserable, sick and recovered with possible long-term effects, would get $290.

Compare that to the settlements we get out of courts in this country and gasp.

Investigations showed that middlemen who sold milk to dairy companies were watering down raw milk, and then mixing in melamine to make it appear to have higher protein content.

One of those middlemen was sentenced to death. Also condemned was a man who ran a workshop that produced melamine-tainted powder branded as protein powder. The official who oversaw the dairies received a life sentence.

The official who oversaw the production of peanut butter in Georgia will suffer horrible punishment fate American-style: He’ll probably miss out on his merit raise, lose his primo parking place and forfeit his bonus.