How criminal is it to distribute tainted food? If you're in China and the food is infant formula, it's pretty damn serious (from the Times):

Chinese courts sentenced two men to death on Thursday for endangering public safety in a tainted-milk scandal that killed at least six children, according to state-run news media.

Three other defendants, including a top dairy company executive, were sentenced to life in prison. Another defendant received a suspended death sentence, and 15 others were given prison terms from 2 to 15 years.


LivingLiberally.org connects this with the recent peanut butter recall issue in the US. It's serious, we all know that, but I haven't heard of anyone so much as losing their job yet. The Peanut Corp of America still has their website up, and just yesterday posted another classic rhetoric-only release that included this gem:

PCA is second to nobody in its desire to know all the facts, and our team is working day and night to recall affected products and to complete its investigation.


That doesn't sound like a company preparing to go under. They might anyhow, but they don't seem to be planning on it.

Why is nobody preparing for a criminal trial? Why is nobody facing life in prison for poisoning the nation for a few more bucks? LivingLiberally.org (not that I'm holding them up as a bastion of journalistic integrity) suggests that if they'd so much as ridded their factory of rats, we wouldn't have had this issue.

My hyperbolic conclusion, as I'm against killing anybody here (though if you'd killed babies with tainted formula, all bets are off), follows. If cleanliness is next to godliness, the folks responsible at Peanut Corp of America should be headed to hell.