The end of the rainy season has brought the high temperatures and soaring humidity that typify Japanese summers everywhere except at mountain resorts or in Hokkaido. It also brings a risk most people seldom seem to consider: the very real danger of food poisoning.

People may feel less carefree this summer, in the wake of the Snow Brand Milk Products Co. scandal. With the total number of victims of the mass food-poisoning outbreak caused by substandard sanitation procedures at the firm's Osaka plant now standing at more than 14,700, it is clear that casual confidence in the safety of a brand-name food product can be misplaced. The subject may not appear to concern weekend crowds flocking to swimming pools, beaches and mountains -- or company employees heading for beer halls at the end of a long workday -- but there are plentiful signs that it should.

Some of the Snow Brand victims required hospitalization for their symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. One was an elderly woman whose death doctors attribute to the food-poisoning outbreak. Thoughtful people have serious reservations about the eagerness expressed by Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoichi Tani to give Snow Brand products full safety clearance "as swiftly as possible." This raises the specter of a too-rapid rush to return to full-scale business by a company whose careless disregard for the public's health is having continuing repercussions.