"The agency took action after 145 diners in 16 states were sickened by tomatoes tainted with salmonella"

You didn't need to write the whole entry. The line above is disgusting enough.

Americans make very snide remarks about the Canadian "socialist" medical system but I lived in Vancouver, BC at the time of the green onion/HepA outbreak in PA. In PA 520 people were sickened and 3 died while the CDC tried to figure out what was happening and potential victims wondered what to do.

A similar outbreak occurred in Vancouver a couple weeks before. Guess who was one of the people exposed to it in a health food restaurant (do you love the irony?)? Anyway, BC Health had assessed the problem almost as soon as the first illness was treated. They mobilized gamma globulin clinics in every neighborhood in the city and had nonstop news stories notifying people of the source of the infection and directing them to the clinics. As an American I was not covered by BC Health but they treated me too -- lest I become a vector. Within the critical 10 days it was over. Over!

They had NO deaths and the single initial hospitalization. I watched the news in horror at the sick comedy playing out in PA over the course of anxious weeks.

Nationalized health means comprehensive data that isolates vectors at the earliest possible moment, contains the outbreak immediately and marshals the most effective, lowest-cost treatment under a complete network. I wish we had had it last year when spinach was the culprit and I wish we had it now when tomatoes are making most of us nervous and some people very ill and possibly critically ill.

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Hmmm... I wonder if you used manure in your organic garden from an animal that had this in their intestines, could it be transferred into the tomato? Even the non organic, big time guys use a lot of animal based fertilizers. No clue on my end, just a thought as this is the first time I've actually read anything about these tainted tomatoes (I've heard about it, but didn't really care to investigate, I suppose I figured it was just on the skin).

Oh well, doesn't bother me, people have been getting sick from foods forever. Seems that we just have "better" methods of reporting it. As for this somehow relating to nationalized health care... Well, sometimes I wish I had a way to take back the few seconds I spent reading something like that.

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Hey, Rainey. As a Canadian now residing in the U.S., I have lived under both medical systems. You'll hear no snide remarks from me about Canada's--though I can offer plenty about the fiasco we call health care in this country.

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