"I don't think we have to wait for a deadly outbreak of disease!" said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), holding aloft a bottle of Coca-Cola's Dasani water. Stupak, chairman of the House commerce subcommittee that held yesterday's hearing, titled "Regulation of Bottled Water," called in the deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and others to talk about the terrible threat posed by H2O: "Just because it comes in a bottle, we assume it's healthier," he said, "but it's not the case."That's your Congress for you: a hearing in search of a problem that doesn't exist.
Stupak had found the enemy, and it is Evian. And Poland Spring, and Aquafina and the rest. He even banished from the hearing room the bottles of Deer Park that are usually provided for members and witnesses, in favor of pitchers of iced tap water.
But is it true about this liquid scourge? Or is the chairman all wet? This much is clear, crisp and refreshing: Bottled water has not killed anybody, and it's not even clear that it has made anybody sick. And, as the committee learned, it is already regulated more strictly than other foods.
"With all the life-threatening health priorities facing the FDA, including numerous foodborne-illness outbreaks, complications with acetaminophen and the swine flu pandemic, this issue does to me seem a little secondary," chided Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.), the ranking Republican on the panel.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) joined in the complaint that "today's hearing doesn't rank on the top of the list" of serious issues. "It shows when you look on your side how much support there is," Barton said, beckoning to the Democrats' seats, empty except for Stupak's.
....Finally, a lone Democrat, Del. Donna M. Christian-Christensen from the Virgin Islands, arrived and came to Stupak's defense. She announced that she "may never" drink a bottle of Evian or Fiji water again.
Patiently, the man from the FDA explained anew that, while the regulations for tap and bottled water are slightly different, bottled water isn't held to a lesser standard. In fact, he said, there is "definitely more" regulation of bottled water than of bottled soft drinks.
This was not going well. A congressional staffer in the audience started to play BrickBreaker on his phone. A small dog escaped from the Democratic staff room and made its way to the witness table before being apprehended. Stupak took a sip from his glass of iced D.C. water.
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Friday, July 10, 2009
Having solved all our other problems....
We might not have time to hold extensive hearings on the effects of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on TARP, stimulus spending, cap and trade, or funding public health insurance for everyone, but Democratic congressman Representative Bart Sestak of Michigan has held a hearing on the dread dangers facing our country by the proliferation of bottled water.
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7 comments:
When did the John Birch Society infiltrate and take over the Democrats? Did Brig Gen Ripper testify? It's the fluoride, dude!
Well, I generally turn down bottled water whenever someone offers it to me and just get a drink out of the fountain. "But I don't like the way it tastes", they whine to me.
That's when I remind them that this is almost certainly the largest country in the world in which you can open up ANY tap, take a drink, and not get sick. Every time I drink a glass of tap water, no matter what the taste, I celebrate being an American.
We take clean water so much for granted and most countries can't even produce that basic necessity of life.
I particularly love it when some ecofreak offers me bottled water. I ask him what the carbon footprint of delivering that water was.
Including the carbon footprint the the plastic bottle.
I wonder what the financial interest is that has poked this? Is someone expecting to collect some kind of rent off of the bottled water companies?
Well, that is the left for you...
FDA making sure our food and water is safe - good.
Politicians pontificating on what they do not understand - not so good.
I think there's a lot we do need from government, like making sure that companies that sell us food and drink aren't poisoning us and protecting us from internal and external bad guys.
But it seems like there are more important things than someone with little to no knowledge second-guessing the FDA.
Then again, I don't like the way fountain water tastes either. I use a filter.
I wonder with the proliferation of bottled water what the dental scene will look like in twenty years. I think a lot of people are going to wish they kept drinking that floridated water.
I now realize that Rep Stupak was aloready in the early stages of a disease, foot-in-mouth, that he blames on bottled water.
I grew up in an area that still was producing oil by drilling and the water, though potable from the MWD and the local aquifer, had an odor, a slightly yellow tinge and brewed tea that looked like an oil being drained from an engine. My parents used bottled drinking water as early as I can remember, flouridated, of course. My dad insisted on the latter as the area he grew up had an over abundance of gap toothed Appalachian-Americans (see how polite that was) mainly due to poor dental hygiene and the absence of fluoride in the drinking water.
The area I live in now still drills for oil but the tap water has no odor but I still use bottled for my tea.
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