05/16/07 Pork Okay & Immigration Fly-In

Pork Okay & Immigration Fly-In. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. The USDA yesterday confirmed that pork contaminated with melamine is safe for human consumption. USDA's Dr. David Acheson explained that someone would have to eat a lot of pork to be harmful. ACHESON: If you translate this into a 130 pound adult, they would have to eat more than 800 pounds of melamine contaminated product in a day to reach that level. Clearly an impossible situation. The USDA along with the FDA continues their investigation of the issue. It sounds like an air show for non-Americans but in reality it's a day when ag industry officials fly in to Washington D.C to try and get politicians attention on the labor crisis. Bruce Grim with the Washington Apple Growers Marketing Association explains. GRIM: We know going back one year to '06 it was not fixable in an election year; it will not be fixable in '08 another election year so if we don't get something done now we're looking at 2009 before this issue can possibly come back before the Congress with a chance of passage. We have significant undocumented people in the country, we have border security issues, we have labor issues that impact our economy and we have to address these things. It isn't going to get better by putting it off, it won't get any easier. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. The number of dogs and cats that have died from traces of melamine in the Chinese wheat gluten is now reported to be around 4000. 4000, then there are the hundreds of US chickens that have been "culled", killed because they ate contaminated feed. Have we received any apology or a plan from China in dealing with this crisis? Are the Chinese offering US pet owners, chicken or pork farmers affected by their shoddy practices a cash settlement? No, in typical fashion their state-controlled news sources have said little about the deaths. Now Hong Kong is reporting that China is covering up an epidemic that is killing pigs in the same province that was under fire for concealing information about SARS virus. The outbreak is swine is especially frightening given the fact pigs and people can pass many of the same diseases. The World Health Organization is in a fury over the secrecy and Hong Kong television has run shocking pictures of pigs bleeding profusely while reporting that in some regions up to 80 percent of Chinese's pigs have died. The time is ripe to unite globally and pressure China into accountability. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.