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.”

  • ExLisper@linux.community
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    11 months ago

    “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.

      • ExLisper@linux.community
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • test113@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          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.thelocal.es/20230818/why-are-the-basque-country-and-catalonia-so-rich-compared-to-the-rest-of-spain

          https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/10/14/catalonias-independence-movement

          • ExLisper@linux.community
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            11 months ago

            Well, you know wrong and your ‘arguments’ don’t make any sense. Every country has a region that’s an ‘economic powerhouse’. Do you believe each of those regions should become independent? You know why Catalonia is an economic powerhouse? Same reason as regions in other countries:

            • geography: this region is simply conveniently located to build industry there, has proper resources and good climate
            • politics: Spanish government purposefully moved a lot of industry from other regions to Catalonia. They didn’t simply build it, it was uprooted from other regions and moved there
            • migration: a lot of hardworking people migrated there after industry was moved and worked to build strong companies there
            • strong internal market: Catalonia is selling it’s products to Spain. Without a strong market in the rest of Spain they would not be able build their economy. Until Spain joined EU they would face tariffs and would have difficulties exporting.
            • investment: central government invested a lot of money to build roads, railways, port and airports in Catalonia.

            Obviously there are other regions that could be an ‘economic powerhouses’ of Spain. Without Catalonia Spain would simply invest in other regions and consolidated industry there. The idea that Catalonia grew in a vacuum and built it’s economy independently from Spain to later be invaded and exploited is simply a lie. It’s a integral region of Spain that have seen a lot of investment. Investment made by Spain with the cost of big national debt that Catalonia want’s to avoid paying now. That’s what it comes down to: Catalonia want’s to take the money and run away.

            Now to you ‘cultural and ethnological’ reasons. Historically (until 1990’) only bout 20% of Catalans considered themselves different country and wanted independence. That’s because till 1990’ the independence movement was based on cultural and ethnological values. It didn’t really worked, 80% of Catalans still felt they are Spanish. In 1990 Catalan leaders started talking about money. Their arguments shifted to “we are the economic powerhouse, we should keep all our money” (sounds familiar?). Suddenly support for independence grew to around 50%. It’s not because their culture changed, it’s because people there understood that disrupting Spanish politics and fighting for independence will give them money. That’s what it’s all about. This rhetoric also ignores the fact that 50% of Catalans still consider themselves Spanish citizens and want to live in Spain. They are being actively discriminated by Catalan government and in case Catalonia becomes independent will entirely lose protection given them by Spain. Supporting Catalan independence gives Catalan green light to discriminated half of their population. Keep that in mind next time you will promote Catalan propaganda.

          • chitak166@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Sounds like they don’t want to pay taxes to support workers that made them rich.

            If I had to guess, Catalonia is where the white collar jobs are and they want to distance themselves from where blue collar jobs are.

        • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          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.

          • Something_Complex@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Shhh it’s Spaniard logic also known by us Portuguese as: pure stupidity.

            Why do you think the inquisition did so well in Spain. They aren’t very intelligent

          • ExLisper@linux.community
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            11 months ago

            They can leave it they are willing to pay for the national infrastructure build there and take their fair share of national dept. Now take this offer to Catalans and see what they will say.

          • qdJzXuisAndVQb2@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            There is a high concentration of Spanish industry in the region, and a major cargo port in Barcelona. Madrid and Barcelona are, by far, the moat important cities in the country.

          • ExLisper@linux.community
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            11 months ago

            Some. They have big chemical industry so a lot of cleaning products and cosmetics come from there. But it’s always easy to find substitutes. Also because of their criminal behavior a lot of companies moved to other regions so it’s even easier to avoid them now.