Tainted cinnamon applesauce pouches that have sickened scores of children in the U.S. may have been purposefully contaminated with lead, according to FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones.
“We’re still in the midst of our investigation. But so far all of the signals we’re getting lead to an intentional act on the part of someone in the supply chain and we’re trying to sort of figure that out,” Jones said in an exclusive interview. The pouches found to be contaminated were sold under three brands — Weis, WanaBana and Schnucks — that are all linked to a manufacturing facility in Ecuador. The FDA says it’s conducting an inspection of that facility.
“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,” Jones said. “They thought it was going to end up in places that did not have the ability to detect something like this.”
The source of contamination is possibly a production facility in Ecuador, possibly due to using a cheaper cinnamon alternative. I thought I should post this because comments are wrongly asserting (I think) that a person in a U.S. production supply chain did this. It seems less malicious and more cost-savings oriented, which is why regulations and policies help save people from bottomline focused tendencies.
The FDA continues to investigate a number of theories for how the pouches became contaminated, and has not drawn any conclusions about the way the lead was added, why or by whom. The FDA says it currently believes the adulteration is “economically motivated.” That generally refers to ingredients being altered in order to make products appear higher in value, often so companies can produce a cheaper item and sell it at an elevated price.
Humans are really fucked. No wonder all these billionaires don’t want to help anyone but themselves.
This is sad indeed and this person is a wretch, but most of humanity is perfectly fine. There are some awful people and they make the news and are talked about cus we love gossip.
But have faith in humanity. Most of it is just like you and wants things to be good and tons of them go out there and do good, we just rarely talk about them or encourage others to do good for their community.
When you read these stories just remember the leaders who profit off these products are shielded from their cost saving decisions. Late stage capitalism y’all.
What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t think socialist and communist countries with factories run by psychos poisoning people are profiting from these products without repercussions?
They don’t, because these tankies have never lived in a communist hell hole. They think everyone will be holding hands and working hard labor for the same pay as them while they play and do nothing all day.
“Robust regulatory processes” my fucking ass dude. Food recalls happen ALL THE TIME in the US (AFTER all the kids get sick and die, mind you) and this fucking clown wants to talk about how great our FDA is? What a joke! And youll think well, maybe its just the cheaper brands and you would be wrong. Name brands and off brands all get contaminated I swear I see it at least once a month. Just google food recalls in the past year. Not only that, a lot of the literal poison they put in our food is illegal everywhere else. UK just seized thousands of pounds of candy from us because of “illegal ingredients” What fucking deception to say that our FDA is even remotely competent. If I didnt live here, I would NEVER eat the food from here
Isn’t the high amount of recalls the evidence of the processes working?
This feels like saying “our border is insecure! Look at all the drugs we confiscated!”
A “robust regulatory process” wouldnt have 10 million plus jars of peanut butter with E Coli contamination make it to the store shelves and take months to figure out about, AFTER some people die. That happened like 1 to 2 years ago. Now a bunch of kids get lead poisoning from Applesauce pouches so we take them off the shelves and act like we have some amazing system. How about those cancer causing dyes that california is banning andNOW the FDA is talking about, PERHAPS banning them nationwide. Our FDA is trash.
So do you want them to do more or less? It seems you’re arguing both sides to just complain.
as much as having overwhelmed hospitals is an indication of a thriving healthcare system… it would be better to have less recalls and better regulation of products to market, and similarly better to have affordable preventative healthcare to keep people out of hospitals in the first place.
Ah, so you would want the FDA to have broader powers and scope to reach into companies to do more preventative maintenance. Yeah, that would probably help.
“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,”
Is this guy serious? It wasn’t detected before kids got sick, they still don’t know what happened and he’s talking about ‘robust regulatory process’? Here in EU I always check where products come from (not to buy something from Catalonia by accident) and all the food is made in EU. It’s because there are strict regulations on food safety, workplace safety, monitoring and so on. Countries that do now meet those requirements have tariffs put on their food and there’s extra requirements and check on imports (ask the UK). That’s why I keep hearing about cases here where they recall some food before anyone gets sick. But yeah, bringing food from Ecuador, waiting for kids to get sick and then trying to figure out what happened is ‘robust regulatory process’. Amazing.
Because they are stealing money from the rest of Spain and work to worsen the lives of people in other regions for their own benefit. I’m not gong to support that by giving them money.
The most prosperous region of Spain, which is actively trying to get independence, is stealing money from the rest of the country?
It seems to me, that “cutting” off Catalonia’s supposed theft, would be as easy as letting them leave.
As far as I know, it is the other way around. Catalonia wants to separate from Spain because they are the economic powerhouse region of Spain, in addition to cultural and ethnological reasons.
There are reasons to boycott some Spanish production, significant water problems in certain regions due to unfavorable water contracts for the population, labor issues, etc., but definitely not like this. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20345071
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/10/14/catalonias-independence-movement
