Ten percent of schools weren't visited by health officials last year.....

      This article really caught my attention because I just could not believe that school cafeterias were not being inspected. Makes you wonder what else is being neglected in our schools!

     "Millions of children eat in school cafeterias that do not get the twice-yearly health inspections required by Congress to help prevent food poisoning.
      Schools are supposed to get two visits from health inspectors every year. But one in ten schools did not get inspected at all last year, according to Agriculture Department data obtained by The Associated Press. Thirty percent were visited only once."
      These are schools that we all entrust our children to go and expect them to be safe from harm. To me this would be equal to having patients attend unkept, unsanitary hospitals to have babies or surgery in. Why, in this day and age can nothing be done correctly? 
     "Do you want to go to a restaurant that has not been inspected?" asked Ken Kelly, attorney for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group that has studied cafeteria safety."
     "Inspections are meant to ensure cafeteria workers wash their hands properly and that they keep lunchtime staples like pizza hot or milk cold to prevent germs from growing"
     All well and good, but if the cafeteria, where food is in abundance is not clean, then what good are inspections?  If the inspecters are willing to look the other way, then what exactly are our children being exposed to? Could this be part of the reason there have been so many outbreaks of disease lately? When more children begin to become ill or contract food poisoning who will be held liable?

     "Mr. Kelly's group issued a report in January, 2007 that found the following:

              *Rhode Island schools were commonly
                cited for cross- contamination of
                utensils, improper holding temperatures
                and the presence of vermin.

               *Washington, D.C. schools had hot and
                 cold holding equipment that was in
                 need of repair.

                *Schools in Hartford, CT have been
                   cited for having dirty floors that needed
                   repair and inadequate hand washing
                   stations and sanitation.

     "Recent outbreaks of food poisoning in kid favorites like peanut butter - and not so favorite spinach - have renewed the focus on safety."
     "The inspection rules apply to all schools that participate in the federal school lunch program, which provides free and reduced price meals to low income children.