So Bill Marler of the Marler Blog writes of a hypothetical situation in which someone (or some people) intentionally poisoned the cookie dough. He cites multiple instances in which food was purposely contaminated with disease and chemicals. You might think he is pessimistic and thinks ill of the human race, but he says:

The reason I bring this up is not to mark another anniversary of 9/11, not because I actually think that food terrorism really is the cause of this week’s E. coli cookie dough outbreak, but I wonder if it would have made any difference in our government’s ability to figure out there was an outbreak, to figure out the cause, and to stop it before it sickened so many.

He’s bringing up this issue to bring to the attention the lack of protection our government provides us when it comes to foodborne illnesses (something he believes can easily and very readily happen today):

The [Centers for Disease Control & Prevention] publicly admits that it manages to count and track only one of every forty foodborne illness victims, and that its inspectors miss key evidence as outbreaks begin.

I honestly think (and hope) that it was a carelessly looked over mistake. I’m not really sure who’s got it out there for adolescent girls (the majority of the raw cookie dough eaters out there) but the issue here is how much regulation there is when it comes to providing us with safe cookies and cookie dough. Granted, we’re not supposed to be eating raw cookie dough, but this is E. Coli which isn’t supposed to be found in raw cookie dough (salmonella, I can understand, due to the eggs. but E. Coli?) Even the NY Times has gotten in on this:

Coming after problems with tainted tomatoes, peanuts and pistachios, this is another warning about the weakness of the nation’s food safety system and why Congress needs to fix it. The House Energy and Commerce Committee recently approved an excellent bill that would strengthen the Food and Drug Administration’s powers. The full House and the Senate — with White House support — need to move this package forward.

Food contamination has been happening way too often recently. Tomatoes, peanut butter paste, now cookie dough? We need to have the ability to trust our current system and be able to eat what’s provided to us on the shelves. I’ve kind of lost faith in our governmental system to do anything right around all of their inefficiencies and sheer number of things they have to take care of. I can only hope that this influx of tainted foods will open food companies’ eyes to the dangers of lacking clean and well-maintained facilities. If anything [putting my business / marketing / corporate hat on], it looks really bad on the brand. So if it’s one thing to care about, and if it’s not my health, the brands should be worrying about themselves, their brand value, their market share, their customers, their pages on Facebook and their followers on Twitter. With the internet, information is largely free-flowing and companies in every industry have to be much more careful and aware of what they are doing.

*steps off the soapbox*

What do you think? Do you think food-borne illnesses are on terrorists’ minds? What do you think of how the Center for Disease Control & Prevention tries to prevent and handle situations like these?