Editorials / Opinion

Seattle Times letters to the editor

Beware the TPP

Merrill Behnke almost died after eating unpasteurized Italian ricotta cheese infected with Listeria. She testified in Washington D.C. Thursday at an FDA hearing on safety rules that would apply to imported foods for the first time.
[Mark Harrison, The Seattle Times]

I’m writing regarding the recent article about the woman who almost died from eating cheese infected with listeria. [“Near-fatal food poisoning spurs local woman to act,” page one, Sept. 19.]

If the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement goes through, any rules the Food and Drug Administration comes up with to protect us from unsafe foreign products will be subject to the lowest common denominator standards. These will be written by the corporations, without study by our Congress.

It would be too late to challenge agreed-upon standards.

Enid Havens, Seattle