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Comment by RenThraysk | Hacker News Reader

No where in the article does it say allergens were added. If they were then the labelling could not possibly "misbranded".

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From the article:

> Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost.

So yes, to avoid having to prevent cross-contamination, they started intentionally introducing trace amounts of allergens.

Ah genuniely missed that line, though as the FDA states is legal.

That seems like the actions of a psychopath to be honest. I struggle to comprehend that someone would care that much about profit that they would intentionally introduce a "contamination", rather than ensuring a correct labeling and clean environment, making their product safe to consume to those with certain allergies.

Ensuring a "correct labeling and clean environment" is really expensive. I mean, really expensive. It's not going to be practical.

I quite frankly question if that is true. A family member is allergic to eggs, as in "he will die if eggs have been near food he consumes". Local bakers have absolutely no issue producing cakes and bread for events when he asks and the prices difference is negligible.

Because they aren't running a production line. And eggs don't make dust.

Produce an item, clean your utensils before the next time. Minimal cross-contamination issues.

A production line processing sesame will create a certain amount of sesame dust. Ensuring that dust gets nowhere near other production equipment is expensive.

It has nothing to do with profit, as it'll just increase the price of the goods to the consumer.

and lose profit. If they spend the money to run a safe production line and pass the cost on the the consumer they will loose market share to the company that runs an unsafe production line & keeps the price the same. It's also especially expensive if the do it quickly. It's been a few years, so fortunately some of them have actually gotten around to updating their production lines by now. T hey just did it slowly in the cheapest, least disruptive way possible.

Sociopathy is probably a more accurate diagnosis than psychopathy. And corporations are inherently sociopathic. By definition their primary motive is profit and there are often strong incentives on those in charge to ignore ethical considerations. It's probably the #1 reason we have consumer protection, and environmental protection laws.

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