You want [cough] fries with that?

Tainted ingredients from a typically sloppy communist Chinese supplier put the nation's pet owners in a panic as several widely used brands of dog and cat food began killing pets. But when the quality controls of food imported from one of America's greatest enemies were implemented even more dangers were discovered, dangers that most Asians were well aware of, but ignored.

But a new problem has emerged.

The stringent rules our own government places on the growth, harvesting, processing and production of food has maintained a safe food supply in the past. But an emerging factor puts third-world hygiene in the food production chain, exposing millions of Americans to disease, illness and possibly death.

From the Greenville (South Carolina) Gazette...

State health officials tested 286 employees at a Greenville poultry-processing plant for tuberculosis after a case of TB was reported there, and nearly half had a positive skin test....

[Thom] Berry [spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control] said investigators were not surprised by the number of positive skin tests because so many of the employees are foreign-born. People born in other countries are nearly nine times more likely to have TB than those born in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We suspect many may have been infected in their home countries before they came to the U.S.," he said.

We all watched, horrified as a man with an incurable form of tuberculosis flew to Europe and back, ignoring the danger he was putting fellow passengers in. We shuddered to think how easily that could have been us sitting in front of him as he breathed tuberculin laden air in to the enclosed atmosphere of an airplane cabin. We breathed a sigh of relief that we weren't there. But how many of us then walked to our fridge, pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables that unbeknownst to us had been coughed on by a tuberculosis-infected food processing plant worker, who, since he was illegal anyway, never had any sort of health testing or training.

Far fetched?

In California a Pizza Parlor owner was discovered to have been using illegal aliens in his restaurant.

[cough]

A Portland, Oregon Del Monte food processing plant was raided and 165 illegal aliens were discovered, working there, preparing your food.

[cough]

Eighty-one illegal immigrants arrested in Pennsylvania at a factory that makes plastic tubes used for cosmetics. The London Telegraph, today, has a report saying, "Women who use make-up on a daily basis are absorbing almost 5lb of chemicals a year into their bodies..." Do you have tuberculin-laced lipstick?

[cough]

Three illegal immigrants arrested at a Connecticut delicatessen.

[cough]

And those are all within the past month or so.

Also remember tuberculosis is only one of a number of diseases that can be transmitted by unsafe food handling, many being fecaly transmitted, meaning the food handler used the toilet, didn't wash his hands, then transmitted miniscule amounts of his own feces on the food which then comes to your dinner plate.

It still comes back to the same thing: They want to come to America because America offers a quality life. America offers quality because we set high standards. But illegals enjoy the benefits of those standards while ignoring them, and thus lower the overall quality for everyone.

Another thing to consider, especially as we hear Liberals defend the companies that hire illegals—if they are willing to bend the rules to hire illegals, what other rules are they willing to bend?  There are health rules governing the way in which food is processed that keep our families safe. How many of those are being ignored by the plants that hire illegals? There are work safety rules that are there to provide a safe workplace. If a company ignores the law to hire illegals, why would they then obey the law to make the workplace safe. I'm familiar with many of those OSHA rules, and they can seem fairly petty and most business owners find them an annoyance and a burden.

How confident can we be that our food is safe, when the processing plants and restaurants seem so willing to ignore the law and hire illegals, who themselves are often from cultures that haven't the slightest concept of cleanliness.

I'll finish with this anecdotal story you can think about the next trip you take to a restaurant or grocery stores...

I was working my way through college with several jobs, one of which was in the college cafeteria and snack bar. Manning the cafeteria line one dinner was my friend Basit, from Pakistan, and me. We wore those clear, plastic, disposable gloves so we could handle the food and not spread germs. Suddenly Basit sneezed, violently, into his hands. Then stood waiting for the next batch of students. He'd sneezed into his plastic gloves.

I waited and then asked, "Basit, aren't you going to change gloves?"

"Why?" he asked, puzzled.

"Because you sneezed into them," I replied, shocked.

"So?" he responded, confused.

In total amazement I said, "Basit, you'll spread germs if you use those gloves."

He rolled his eyes and grudgingly pulled off his gloves and put on a new pair, obviously thinking, "These stupid Americans and their silly rules."

I was left pondering the fact that while I only worked the line occasionally, Basit had been working that same cafeteria line for most of the year.

Posted by Danny Carlton at June 22, 2007 8:00 AM