US Public Health: The hand that works the ladle

According to small government adherents, less regulation is more. Cutting red tape, abolishing behavior-mandating laws and stopping the micromanagement of businesses is always the way forward they will tell you.

No surprise then than Senator Thom Tillis has been advocating for the abolition of mandatory post-toilet hand-washing for food workers in restaurants and such. The North Carolina Republican (no surprise there either) is convinced that restaurants can self-regulate and that those that don't enforce such rules by themselves will eventually go out of business.

So what if in the process some few (thousands) people have their cob salad served with some urine-spiked dressing or their their chili con carne with a dash of stool? Surely most of them will never know, and some may even get a kick out of the "spiced up" flavors. And yes, some will get sick. But how else will the restaurant industry self-govern itself? You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. And to do that, as we all know, you have to get your hands dirty, literally.