John Block Reports from Washington

We are at such risk every day it is a wonder that we don't just stay in

bed and pull the covers over our head.

The threats are everywhere. Mad cow disease is just a hamburger away. Now bird flu has invaded Delaware and is threatening to spread down the East Coast. Last month a science magazine tells us that salmon is laced with PCB's. What are we to eat?

There are some people and organizations that can't understand why the

public doesn't get concerned about these grave threats to public safety.

I'll tell you why. Because every day, every week, every month headlines arescreaming about a new threat. We don't listen to "Chicken Little" anymore because the "sky is not falling". Because we have come to realize that there are interest groups that will hype these fears for their own personal gain nothing to do with public safety.

Take BSE (Mad Cow disease) for example. Only 150 people in the whole world have died from the disease. How many people are in the world? Billions! We're not going to get mad cow dise~We might get run over by a truck but we're not going to get mad cow. And now Japan won't import our chickens. Never mind the fact that the bird flu that we have in Delaware is not the dangerous strain they have in Asia. It doesn't infect people. No, you won't get Asian influenza, or bird flue either.

The alarm bells went off last month. Salmon raised on farms in the US and Europe has higher levels of pollutants that salmon raised in the wild. That sounds kind of fishy to me. When you read the fine print the amount of pollutants is easily within safety guidelines. They just want to scare us. Go ahead and eat farm raised salmon. It's good for your heart.

The bottom line -- people in USA don't wake up in the morning worrying if they can find any safe food to eat. We have the safest food in the world.

Until next week. I am John Block from Washington.