Because the government's role under "USDA-Style HACCP" includes the following:

1. Under HACCP, the government must assume a "Hands Off" non-involvement role.

2. Under HACCP, the government can no longer police the industry, but the industry is forced to police itself.

3. Under HACCP, the government willingly surrenders its previous command and control authority.

Well, the article above already describes what happens to an industry and its products when the above 3 conditions are met, which already exist in the egg industry with predictable results. Will we ever learn that when our government voluntarily acquiesces its authority to oversee the food industry, outbreaks are inevitable.

The egg industry doesn't need "USDA-Style HACCP". It already has it.

John Munsell

What if the party liable for your injury was the person or business that sold you the bad egg?

Do you think major grocers like Trader Joe's, Safeway, Kroger, Whole Foods, etc would demand and enforce regular inspection, laboratory testing and commercial certification of their suppliers?

Do you think small grocers would carefully select their distributors? Would insurance agreements be carefully constructed to move liability up the chain, and would insurers demand appropriate inspection, laboratory testing and commercial certification of their suppliers?

How many times do we need to see centralized government inspection FAIL SPECTACULARLY before we decide that central control is a failure, and that the responsibility must be distributed across the entire industry? The system fails because it has a single point of failure -- a government bureaucracy whose employees are, at best, apathetic veterans of the industry they claim to police, stripped of any real ability to put the offenders out of business. At worst, they are in the pockets of the industry they claim to policy.

A year ago it was Peanut Corporation of America, now this. PCA was inspected and cited dozens of times, but these controls were ineffective. The controls on Wright County Egg were ineffective. Insanity is leaving the same controls in place and expecting them to be effective in the future.

I cannot believe a company like this, responsible for so much food, can continue to be a source of food production accross our country. It's a true shame and the only way things can ever change is by getting the word out to as many people as possible and increase the knowledge and education about what is really going on.

Thanks for posting this information and I've referenced your article on my website too (www.HaveYouEverPickedACarrot.com), as we have been looking into local vs mass produced eggs.

Keep the spreading the knowledge and get to know your farmer!

J
www.haveyoueverpickedacarrot.com/2010/09/raw-eggsmmm.html