THE UNIVERSITY DAILY GANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2009
NEWS
5A
CONCEAL (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
pants and address each as needed." Bailey said.
Eric Stein, Tpeka senior, is the state leader for SCCC. The state federation of SCCC represents students at all six state universities and two community colleges.
The state group was endorsed in June by the Kansas State Rifle Association. Stein said the group had more than 500 members in Kansas and more than 19,000 nationally.
"We're growing every day, just little by little." Stain said.
In 2006, the Kansas Legislature passed the Personal and Family Protection Act, which allowed 11-
censed individuals to carry concealed firearms.
The law also saiings could post signs on entrances and ban the carrying of weapons.
In April of 2008, one year and one day after the campus shooting at Virginia Tech, the Kennesaw Band
Kansas Board
Kip Peterson, spokesperson for the Kansas Board of Regents, said the state concealed carry law
"I, for one, don't want to be sitting in class and wonder if someone next to me has a gun."
of Regents passed a motion declaring the six state universities "weapon-free."
GINA BURROWS
VP of Young Democrats
allowed certain institutions, such as churches and schools to opt out and not allow the weapons.
The Kansas Board of Regents chose to opt out, Peterson said.
This choice by the Regents bans weapons on all university including, buildings
properties including buildings, outdoors, and in parking garages.
Stein said the group would take
the issue up with the state legislature, which originally passed the law allowing for the concealed carrying of weapons.
"The Kansas Board of Regents has made it pretty clear that they're not going to budge on this issue," Stein said, "so we have to go to the legislatures."
Gina Burrows, vice president of Young Democrats, said she agreed with the Regents' policy banning weapons on campus.
Burrows, Salt Lake City junior, said she supported people's constitutional right to carry weapons, but didn't think it was appropriate on college campuses.
"I, for one, don't want to be sitting in class and wonder if someone next to me has a gun," Burrows said.
Miller said he didn't think people would feel uncomfortable with weapons on campus because the weapons were concealed, and no one would see them.
"I can guarantee you that the last time you went to the movies, someone was carrying a concealed weapon," Miller said. "That's the beauty of it—you would never know"
— Edited by Andrew Wiebe
DEBATE (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
information about the election.
"I think it's a good opportunity for students to really know not only that there's an election going on, but they have an important role to play in it." Heilman said.
Tutu Lee, Manhattan senior and Free State presidential candidate, said he was not especially excited for the Student Senate debate.
Candidates from Envision, Free State, Students of Liberty and United Students will participate in the debate.
— Edited by Andrew Wiebe
NATIONAL
Unrequired testing headed off pistachio problem in U.S.
Lack of national food testing regulations places responsibility on manufacturers
GARANCE BURKE Associated Press
TERRA BELLA, Calif. — The reason it didn't take dozens of illnesses for federal regulators to learn about salmonella-tainted pistachios has nothing to do with federal regulations.
Routine but unrequired testing by a manufacturer for Kraft Foods Inc. first detected the contamination almost two weeks ago, when workers at a plant in Illinois decided to check roasted nuts going into huge vats of trail mix.
Private auditors hired by Kraft later found problems they think caused the contamination at a supplier's processing facility in central California.
If Kraft had not chosen to prioritize testing, 2 million pounds of pistachios that touched off government warnings and a nationwide salmonella scare this week probably would still be on the market. Neither the Food and Drug
state laws require food manufacturers to test the safety of their products.
"We're relying on companies to find the contaminated foods on their own, and since there's no national standards
for this, some companies don't bother to test at all," said Rep. Diana DeGete, D-Colo., a critic of the nation's food safety system.
"What if these nuts had been distributed by a company that doesn't test? We wouldn't have found out until people got sick."
DeGette and numerous other lawmakers are calling for the FDA to develop testing regulations for every segment of the food industry, and want companies to be required to release test results.
which has recalled more than 2 million pounds of its roasted pistachios.
"They're not required to tell us, they did and we're moving on it."
The investigation of tainted pistachios contrasts sharply with that of this year's salmonella outbreak involving peanuts, the subject of a criminal investigation and thousands of recalls.
The contamination was not traced to peanuts until hundreds of people around the country got sick. The company involved, Peanut Corp. of America, had tested its products, but inspection records show that in some cases it shipped peanuts it knew were probably tainted.
"You can call it a fluke, you can call it good luck, or you can call it good judgment on the part of Kraft," said Dr. David Acheson, FDA's assistant commissioner for
Federal health officials warned people this week to avoid eating all pistachios and products containing them while they determine which products may be contaminated.
DAVID ACHESON
FDA Assistant
Commissioner
Private industry reported the pistachio problem immediately, rather than waiting for public health officials to intervene. And as of Wednesday, authorities had not confirmed any illnesses.
The nuts Kraft manufacturer Georgia Nut Co. tested on March 20 came from Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., the second-largest pistachio processor in the nation,
food safety. "They're not required to tell us, they did and we're moving on it."
Acheson said the FDA does not mandate testing so companies are free to decide whether to take that step before distributing food products to stores.
Officials with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, an industry group that represents major food manufacturers, say Kraft has one of the most aggressive food safety systems in the business.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
But they say getting the government to require testing of all foods is not the answer, since different foods are at risk of becoming contaminated at very different steps in the manufacturing process.
"You don't want to do testing just for the sake of doing testing," said the association's chief science officer, Robert Brackett. "That tends to be this one-size-fits all situation where it may work really well for some products and not for others. What we really focus on is for companies to build the safety into their programs in the first place."
Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc. is a processing plant in Terra Bella, Calif. The company, which is at the center of a nationwide pistachio recall, says it believes the salmonella contamination is likely not from a human or animal source inside its plant.
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