You can read the whole story at
Wikinews (they point to other sources):
The American Food and Drug Administration has recalled operational rations (MREs) donated by Britain to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The majority of the 400,000 rations donated by Britian, at a cost of millions of pounds, are set to be destroyed at a plant in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The move has infuriated aid workers who hasten to point out that "Under Nato, American soldiers are also entitled to eat such rations, yet the starving of the American South will see them go up in smoke because of FDA red tape madness."
An FDA spokesman said the rations had not been inspected but were automatically deemed "unfit for human consumption" due to Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or colloquially "mad cow disease") fears. He observed that 70 pallets of vegetarian MREs were inspected and approved on September 13th. Aid workers claim that, today, BSE is much more of a problem in the U.S. than in Britian.
Food donations from Spain and Italy are also being held by the FDA due to similar concern, as well as thousands of gallons of pear juice from Israel.
Pear juice?
But anyway, this is crazy. Lets hope for mere incompetence at this stage, because this is much worse.
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