Skin-whitener and Mexican Cheese

I'm on this list from NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and get some of the most interesting emails from it. A few weeks ago, it was a warning about skin-whitening products. I scanned their notice and the referenced article closely, keenly interested in whether the crazy obsession with skin-color that consumes so many South Asians would finally be outed in a broader discussion about skin-whitening products (a whole category of personal hygiene, as I gathered from the reference material I'd perused in my search), but was eventually disappointed. Apparently, the offending products were labeled as such more for the Mercury content of some varieties found in the Dominican community than the mercurial flocking of so many of our brown brothers and sisters who have been programmed to think that white is beautiful.

Anyway - this time around, it is a warning about certain kinds of Mexican cheese, as stated in the press release excerpted below (blue emphasis is mine):

"Several types of cheese imported from Mexico may be contaminated with Mycobacterium bovis, which causes tuberculosis, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). The types of cheese, including queso fresco, may be unpasteurized and may also be illegally imported from Mexico and sold without approval by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

The Health Department has identified 35 cases of tuberculosis caused by M. bovis in city residents between 2001 and 2004. In one of those cases, a 15-month-old child who died in March 2004 was later determined to have died from complications due to M. bovis infection. As a rule, people should not eat food products that are unlabeled or not labeled in English, as is required by law, said DOHMH Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden. Illegally imported food products are not manufactured or packaged in compliance with the FDA's strict regulations; consuming these products may endanger your health...

The Health Department is currently working with the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on an investigation to determine the source of products associated with this illness in New York City in particular, targeting stores that serve the city's Latin American communities, and Mexicans in particular. Unlabeled or improperly labeled cheese has been obtained for testing from Mexican grocers in Brooklyn and Queens, as well as directly from Mexico through a courier.

I just feel so much safer that the city is cracking down on those damn Mexican cheeses. I wonder if they'll be paying as much attention to the Russian-only labels that are as much a part of the landscape of a Brooklyn culinary adventure as Spanish is in Queens. Is this the risk that we're trying to reduce with draconian border-control methodology? Kudos to the Department of Homeland Security! I'm sure that the powerful dairy lobby in the U.S. is very pleased with this development.