In a recent "Catch The Buzz" newsflash:
http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2007.11.06.08.43.archive.html
It said:
"The American Beekeeping Federation is one of
87 farm organizations that are calling for the
quarantine and inspection functions now at the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to
be returned to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In a letter to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman
Tom Harkin and ranking Republican committee member
Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia they say the 2003
transfer of inspectors previously dedicated to
agricultural threats has proven to be unsuccessful."
This would be a good move, if they can make it.
So, despite attempts to position any questioning of
the bee import process as being the "sole opinion
of Jim Fischer", "jim's imagination", and "phony
baseless misinformed BC articles", it appears that
one need look no further than yesterday's e-mail
to neatly and completely refute these claims and
personal attacks.
The American Beekeeping Federation is very much on
board with what another tries to dismiss as merely
my "imagination". So are 86 OTHER farm organizations.
And what, other than APHIS inspections as they relate
to pests and diseases of bees, could the ABF be
concerned about? Well honey is not inspected by APHIS,
honey is the FDA's job. The concern has to be "pests
and diseases" of bees.
So, let's read on...
"The letter says that despite many assurances that
performance will improve, the problems continue
and lead the groups to conclude that improvement
is not possible in the current structure."
Gosh, with a statement like "improvement is not possible",
it looks like AFB has joined a chorus of voices calling
for "new management" over APHIS, specifically, the old
USDA management, rather than Homeland Security, who've
been running the show since BEFORE the first bee imports.
Long story short, Homeland Security has pretty much
ignored the APHIS side of inspections while they
focused on looking for "dirty bombs", cargo containers
containing suicide commando teams, and sharks with
friggin' laser beams on their heads. (Kinda funny that
with all these concerns about something nasty slipping
in, the DHS guys never realized that thousands of
stinging insects would be the perfect "cover" for
just about any contraband.)
And Congress had hearings on this, with extensive
testimony:
http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=920&ck=6D0F846348A856321
729A2F36734D1A7
Note the headline - "Congressional hearing triggers alarm
over lax pest inspections"
And even the General Accounting Office agrees that
APHIS just hasn't been able to do its job under DHS:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06644.pdf
Contrast all that with my modest proposal, offered
since 2002, where I simply pointed out that bees
are under the "Plant" side of APHIS, rather than
the "Animal" side, which is just plain stupid,
and that an agency called "Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service" should not need to be begged
to consider doing some actual health inspections
for a change. Looks like it only took 5 years
for everyone else to do their homework and
begin to share my point of view.
So, the small and prudent practice of taking some
samples from the packages imported on the US end
would be a quick and easy task with zero downside,
so anyone opposed would have to be asked what their
actual agenda was.
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