Two Dead - A Bad Year For Cantaloupe!!!

Two Dead - A Bad Year For Cantaloupe!!!

Several farms in Southeastern Indiana have stopped shipping cantaloupe while the FDA is investigating to find out which farm has the melons that are infected with salmonella. As a precautionary measure, Walmart has taken all cantaloupe from southeastern Indiana off their shelves.

So far, two people are dead, 31 have been hospitalized, and 141 people have been reported as being infected. Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin have reported cases. More cases are expected.

The California Cantaloupe Growers put out a statement that California cantaloupe have never been responsible for any outbreak of foodborne pathogens. In fact, most growers are doing a good job of keeping us safe. But a few growers are making people sick, which hurts the whole industry because people shy away from cantaloupe.

There are 167,033 Registered Domestic Facilities that the FDA has to inspect. Of these they have personally inspected 11,007 facilities this year. The FDA is critically underfunded. The FDA's funding is through the USDA; the USDA keeps 80 % of the money and gives 20 % to the FDA.

The FDA needs to be funded by the Department of Health rather than by an agency that is in the business of promoting agriculture. This way we could improve the safety of the products we eat.