Editorial

An editorial from the Washington Post discusses the "oxymoronic" effect of food safety which has been practiced by the government insufficiently since back in 2006. Over the last few years, there have been contamination and salmonella breakouts in foods such as peanuts, peppers, tomatoes, and spinach. Although the government has said it will be taken care of, nothing has been done until now when President Obama created a Food Safety Working Group - "to upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century." Most of the time, companies are warned when a federal inspection will be conducted, only sometimes they are scheduled randomly. At those random inspections, companies fail to rid of unsanitary conditions such as rat droppings, and dead rodents or bugs. With Obama's new group, there will be an increased number of federal inspectors and frequent random visits in nearly 150,000 food facilities across the country. When companies don't clean up after themselves and take care of their work places properly, it's a huge hazard to everyone. There need to be laws regarding what happens to companies/factories with contaminated food, and all that food should be recalled with consequences. Congress is certain to work as sufficiently as they can to confirm the candidates for the positions of the Food Safety Working Group and begin progress of cleaning up the food factories in the United States.