POLITICS: NATO Rations Considered Unfit for Katrina Evacuees, Will Be Burned Instead: "In the midst of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, the United States has seen a significant outpouring of sympathy and pledges of aid from foreign countries. Britain alone dispatched over 400,000 NATO meal rations to help feed the thousands of evacuees and rescue personnel in the hurricane's aftermath. Unfortunately, it's probably going to be incinerated.

Hundreds of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.



US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.



Instead tons of the badly needed Nato ration packs, the same as those eaten by British troops in Iraq, has been condemned as unfit for human consumption.



And unless the bureaucratic mess is cleared up soon it could be sent for incineration.



One British aid worker last night called the move 'sickening senselessness' and said furious colleagues were 'spitting blood'.



The food, which cost British taxpayers millions, is sitting idle in a huge warehouse after the Food and Drug Agency recalled it when it had already left to be distributed.

The shipments of food were turned back and sent to an warehouse in Little Rock, Arkansas. Officials blamed the Department of Agriculture, who confiscated the rations because of restrictions on imports of meat. This may signal a latent worry over BSE infections in British cattle, a stigma which haunted the British beef industry for years. However, there hasn't been a case of BSE in Britain in many years. And if the food is good enough for our troops, why is it considered by the FDA to be 'unfit for human consumption'?

[An] aid worker, who would not be named, said: 'This is the most appalling act of sickening senselessness while people starve.



'The FDA has recalled aid from Britain because it has been condemned as unfit for human consumption, despite the fact that these are Nato approved rations of exactly the same type fed to British soldiers in Iraq.



'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.'

(Written by: aegies)

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(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)