Salmonella outbreak in 19 states

The AP has been covering a salmonella outbreak in 19 states, whose source has been difficult to determine. Yesterday's article by AP's Andrew Bridges (via Washington Post) reports that the outbreak appears to be subsiding. The previous day's article by Mike Stobbe had this interesting quotation from Thomas Nassif, a growers' trade association official, which addresses a theme that U.S. Food Policy has been discussing lately.

"It is not normal for a business to say, 'Please regulate us and enforce it if we don't do the right things,'" Nassif said. "But that, we believe, is essential to restore public confidence."

On many nutrition and food safety issues where voluntary disciplines have turned out to be a sham, I have been wondering if industry requests for sound regulation could establish better rules of the game while avoiding the worst economic shortcomings of ill-informed government intervention.