Putting needles into strawberries

is not "vandalism". It is an attack on public safety, on public health - and on the livelihoods of those who grow them, distribute them and sell them.
For those of you in Upover and elsewhere unaware of the story let me tell you. A criminal idiot with no regard to public health and safety decided s/he would contaminate a punnet of strawberries by placing a sewing needle inside a strawberry. 
The repercussions have been immense. For reasons of public health and safety the matter had to be made public. There may have been more needles inside strawberries and failing to tell people would have been irresponsible in the extreme.
And that meant there have been more criminal idiots who have decided to do the same thing. There have been at least seven confirmed cases of contamination now. 
It doesn't sound like much does it? Just think about it for a moment.  The big buyers stopped buying from the first grower. I don't know what has happened to the first grower, the business, the people it employs. I hope they recover. Then the copycat attacks mean that other growers are under a cloud too. 
Thousands upon thousands of punnets of strawberries have been thrown out for fear of contamination. What a waste of food!
I went into the supermarket yesterday. I don't buy my fruit and vegetables there but I noticed they had removed all the strawberries. 
I went around to the greengrocer and saw they had also removed all their strawberries. Then one of the staff there pounced on me and said, "Cat, I hope you didn't use the strawberries you bought on Saturday. We'll replace them later."
No, I didn't. I had bought them on my way home from a meeting and intended to use them on Sunday. Then came the warning that there had been two needles found in that brand. Rather than risk anything at all I threw out what was probably a perfectly all right punnet of strawberries.  The Senior Cat is too old to handle that sort of potential trauma.  
I resented doing it. The strawberries were a very reasonable price. They looked very good quality. They were intended as a Sunday treat for us.  The thought of slicing them finely went through my mind but the Senior Cat looked so anxious I threw them in the bin - and found that our neighbours had done the same because they have small children. 
It is putting people off eating fruit - and we want people to eat more fruit and vegetables. 
Strawberry growing is a $100m industry in this state alone. A lot of it goes overseas. If the growers can't supply then their buyers will go elsewhere and more people will lose their jobs with all the effects that flow on from that.  
One "small" act of vandalism has caused millions of dollars worth of damage.  
I don't want the punnet I bought replaced. I want people to keep their jobs - and enjoy eating strawberries.