New research has uncovered an item found in many homes that causes many more deaths each year than assault weapons. What is this terrible item? The answer is surprising: grocery bags that are reused. That's right, those cloth bags that environmentalists are encouraging people to use are responsible for more people dying each year in America than the assault weapons which are so much in the news these days.
Ramesh Ponnuru, writing at Bloomberg, explains the new research, but, in a nutshell, it is this: the rate of food poisoning in San Francisco (which bans plastic bags and encourages cloth ones) was compared to the rate in the surrounding counties. The level of poisoning was so much higher in San Francisco, that the death rate from this malady was much higher than in the nearby communities that allowed the plastic bags. Apparently, shoppers re-use their bags (as is to be expected), and bacteria builds up on the cloth and gets on the food.
Anyone who shops at Whole Foods knows that the store actually gives people a discount for reusing shopping bags and that it sells the cloth bags as well. With this latest study, how long will it be before some enterprising attorney brings a class action against Whole Foods for negligent promotion of unsanitary practices leading to disease and death for some of the customers? It seems that once again, a simple idea designed to save the environment has turned out to be more simple minded than simple.
Ramesh Ponnuru, writing at Bloomberg, explains the new research, but, in a nutshell, it is this: the rate of food poisoning in San Francisco (which bans plastic bags and encourages cloth ones) was compared to the rate in the surrounding counties. The level of poisoning was so much higher in San Francisco, that the death rate from this malady was much higher than in the nearby communities that allowed the plastic bags. Apparently, shoppers re-use their bags (as is to be expected), and bacteria builds up on the cloth and gets on the food.
Anyone who shops at Whole Foods knows that the store actually gives people a discount for reusing shopping bags and that it sells the cloth bags as well. With this latest study, how long will it be before some enterprising attorney brings a class action against Whole Foods for negligent promotion of unsanitary practices leading to disease and death for some of the customers? It seems that once again, a simple idea designed to save the environment has turned out to be more simple minded than simple.
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