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.

        • 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.

          • 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.