[IP] food aid to Katrina victims being destroyed by FDA
Begin forwarded message:
From: docx@xxxxxx
Date: September 20, 2005 4:52:06 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: food aid to Katrina victims being destroyed by FDA
For IP if you deem appropriate. I can't come up with words to
express my
astonishment at this.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/
tm_objectid=16147117&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=exclusive--58--
up-in-flames-name_page.html
EXCLUSIVE: UP IN FLAMES
Tons of British aid donated to help Hurricane Katrina victims to be
BURNED by
Americans
From Ryan Parry, US Correspondent in New York
HUNDREDS of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving
Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.
US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.
Instead tons of the badly needed Nato ration packs, the same as
those eaten
by British troops in Iraq, has been condemned as unfit for human
consumption.
And unless the bureaucratic mess is cleared up soon it could be sent for
incineration.
One British aid worker last night called the move "sickening
senselessness" and said furious colleagues were "spitting blood".
The food, which cost British taxpayers millions, is sitting idle in a
huge
warehouse after the Food and Drug Agency recalled it when it had
already left
to be distributed.
Scores of lorries headed back to a warehouse in Little Rock,
Arkansas, to
dump it at an FDA incineration plant.
The Ministry of Defence in London said last night that 400,000
operational
ration packs had been shipped to the US.
But officials blamed the US Department of Agriculture, which
impounded the
shipment under regulations relating to the import and export of meat.
The aid worker, who would not be named, said: "This is the most
appalling act
of sickening senselessness while people starve.
"The FDA has recalled aid from Britain because it has been condemned
as unfit
for human consumption, despite the fact that these are Nato approved
rations
of exactly the same type fed to British soldiers in Iraq.
"Under Nato, American soldiers are also entitled to eat such rations,
yet the
starving of the American South will see them go up in smoke because
of FDA
red tape madness."
The worker added: "There will be a cloud of smoke above Little Rock
soon - of
burned food, of anger and of shame that the world's richest nation
couldn't
organise a p**s up in a brewery and lets Americans starve while they
arrogantly observe petty regulations.
"Everyone is revolted by the chaotic shambles the US is making of this
crisis. Guys from Unicef are walking around spitting blood.
"This is utter madness. People have worked their socks off to get
food into
the region.
"It is perfectly good Nato approved food of the type British
servicemen have.
Yet the FDA are saying that because there is a meat content and it
has come
from Britain it must be destroyed.
"If they are trying to argue there is a BSE reason then that is
ludicrously out of date. There is more BSE in the States than there
ever was
in Britain and UK meat has been safe for years."
The Ministry of Defence said: "We understand there was a glitch and
these
packs have been impounded by the US Department of Agriculture under
regulations relating to the import and export of meat.
"The situation is changing all the time and at our last meeting on
Friday we
were told progress was being made in relation to the release of
these packs.
The Americans certainly haven't indicated to us that there are any more
problems and they haven't asked us to take them back."
Food from Spain and Italy is also being held because it fails to meet US
standards and has been judged unfit for human consumption.
And Israeli relief agencies are furious that thousands of gallons of
pear
juice are to be destroyed because it has been judged unfit.
The FDA said: "We did inspect some MREs (meals ready to eat) on
September 13.
They are the only MREs we looked at. There were 70 huge pallets of
vegetarian
MREs.
"They were from a foreign nation. We inspected them and then released
them
for distribution."
--
Dylan Northrup - docx@xxxxxx - http://www.io.com/~docx/
"Harder to work, harder to strive, hard to be glad to be alive, but it's
really worth it if you give it a try." -- Cowboy Mouth, 'Easy'
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