[tioga]

What I would like to know is this: the US makes it dang near impossible to put new foods on the market due to the FDA......are foreign imports subject to needing FDA approval? If NOT, then why? Seems to me they are trying to make an end run around FDA approval by importing. What IS going on? We cannot even export foods that do not meet FDA approval, yet we are importing substandard garbage to feed our nation?

[JACKRUSSELL]

And who are the U.S. companies that are receiving and buying the illegal meat shipments, from China that are not seized upon arrival at the ports? What are they doing with that meat, what are they using it for?

"But that has not stopped Chinese meat exporters. In the past year, USDA teams have seized hundreds of thousands of pounds of prohibited poultry products from China and other Asian countries, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced in March. Some were shipped in crates labeled "dried lily flower," "prune slices" and "vegetables," according to news reports. It is unclear how much of the illegal meat slipped in undetected."

[sam_paine]

What IS going on?

It just sounds like, to me, the ________ you are describing is the natural result of a bunch of conflicted government bureaucracies handling something that individuals used to do for themselves.