Where's the terror

Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson dropped a bomb on the Bush administration by saying that the nation's food supply is an obvious target for terrorists. Bush promptly poo-pooed the notion, saying, not exactly in a reassuring way, that everything's a target, not just your morning Wheaties. I don't know whether there has ever been a large-scale attack on any country's food supply, but the possibility of such gives just one more reason for panic to an already over-stimulated public.

Consider this: approximately 5,000 to 7,000 people die in the United States each year from food poisioning. This page lists the food issues and alerts for the past 60 days. There's more than 35 alerts listing everything from milk scares to "undeclared eggs." Not that terrorist attacks on our food supply is anything to scoff at, but we've got a lot of work to do in ensuring that the food we produce at home isn't killing our own people.