Tainted cinnamon applesauce pouches that have sickened scores of children in the U.S. may have been purposefully contaminated with lead, according to FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones.
“We’re still in the midst of our investigation. But so far all of the signals we’re getting lead to an intentional act on the part of someone in the supply chain and we’re trying to sort of figure that out,” Jones said in an exclusive interview. The pouches found to be contaminated were sold under three brands — Weis, WanaBana and Schnucks — that are all linked to a manufacturing facility in Ecuador. The FDA says it’s conducting an inspection of that facility.
“My instinct is they didn’t think this product was going to end up in a country with a robust regulatory process,” Jones said. “They thought it was going to end up in places that did not have the ability to detect something like this.”
Well, if anybody is an expert on poisoned kid’s drinks it’s Jim Jones.
Right? I was gonna look it up to make sure that name is the one I was thinking of.
For others maybe not familiar, if you have ever heard the phrase “they drank the kool-aid” a cult leader also named Jim Jones ran a cult informally called JonesTown. If you have a strong stomach and a curiosity about how cult “life” can be, there is a pretty detailed Wikipedia article on it. Spoiler alert, the ending of the story is one of the worst parts. And also how we can be certain this is a different Jim Jones.
And also it was “flavor-aid”, but details don’t always make it into the memes.
Jim Jones is such a fascinating character because of how much good he did. He fought for social justice, championed racial equality and tried to help the poor. He was beloved by his community and civic leaders. But…behind the curtain he was an abusive megalomaniac that led hundreds of people to their death.
I am amazed what he got arrested for, how it didn’t work out, but mostly what he wasn’t arrested for. The Wikipedia article states that problems were mounting for at least a couple of years, and he was paranoid about being arrested (not without ground, surely) but why nothing was done until he relocated and ordered a massacre is beyond me
I think he had built so many bridges with so many people in his community and in politics that no one wanted to be the one that turned against him.
This is true far too often about people who are public goods (not the leading hundreds to their death part obviously).