A New Day For The FDA

(Posting will be questionable for the foreseeable future, by the way – maybe tonight, but we’ll see).

This CNN story from Tuesday tells us the following (in light of the recent e coli outbreak)…

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top Obama administration officials outlined several new initiatives to safeguard the country's food supply Tuesday, saying the recent spate of food-borne illnesses is unacceptable.

The FDA intends to issue new guidance over the next three months regarding steps the entire food industry can take to more quickly detect contamination sources and remove the unsafe products from stores.

A new position at the agency -- deputy commissioner for foods -- will be created for the sole purpose of overseeing food protection. The commissioner will be part of a "unified incident command system" established to address contamination outbreaks and facilitate responses at the federal, state, and local levels, officials said.

In addition, they said, food safety information will be more effectively communicated to the public through a revamped Web site: www.foodsafety.gov.

The announcement was made near the White House by Vice President Joe Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

…

J.D. Hanson, a policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, called the initiatives a good first step. "They are the kinds of things we have been calling on previous administrations to do, and we're glad this administration is moving fairly quickly on these issues," he told CNN.

Hanson praised the creation of the position of deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, saying it should have happened long ago. "You'd think an agency called 'Food and Drug' would have made food a priority a long time ago. They didn't until today."

But he said the government still isn't tough enough with the food industry. "Their goal of 90 percent compliance with their new guidelines is not good enough. It needs to be very close to 100 percent compliance."

And he said bureaucracy stands in the way of improvement. "Right now there are 13 federal agencies that deal with food safety. We would pull all of those functions into one agency."

And that explains why both HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made the announcement along with Biden.

Also, this tells us about H.R. 2749, the Food Safety and Enhancement Act of 2009 sponsored by U.S. House Dem John Dingell, a bill that, if enacted, would provide a pretty comprehensive overhaul of much of our food management, dealing with registration of food facilities, adherence to performance standards, enabling a public notification and advisory system (don’t worry, though – I don’t think we’ll see a “color-coded” alert for foods like Tom Ridge’s notorious alert system at DHS), quarantine authority for foods, and civil and criminal penalties in the event of noncompliance, among many other aspects (a similar bill was introduced by Rep. Rose DeLauro in 2007, though I don’t have any update on that – could have expired at the end of the session).

However, as noted here about the Dingell bill…

(H.R. 2749) quickly passed out of a House subcommittee, but not before it was weakened by deal-making. Instead of phasing in a system that would track the origins of ingredients in processed foods, the measure now orders the FDA to study the issue. The mingling of foods from sources around the world is a significant factor in the magnitude of recent salmonella outbreaks, because a small amount of tainted food from one source can contaminate much more. This is why it was so difficult to trace the source of the salmonella in a 2008 case involving salsa that sickened more than 1,300 people.

Congress should restore the tracking provision to a bill that otherwise contains many of the elements for meaningful reform. The bill would tighten food oversight by requiring companies to develop safety plans and by funding more frequent FDA inspections through a fee on food producers. Before consumers get too excited, they should know that "more frequent" means once every four years instead of once a decade, and as often as once every 18 months for foods considered most at risk for contamination. The bill also would enable the FDA to issue recalls, a provision so obviously overdue that most Americans think the agency already has that authority.

Yep, I have to admit that I thought that also, though I suppose our lawmakers were no doubt influenced by right-wing pabulum on this subject such as the following (from here)…

Most of this food--whether produced at home or imported from abroad--is perfectly safe. Market competition and consumer choice provide the incentives that drive producers to supply high-quality products in return for market share and profits. While markets are the best defense against tainted food, there is still some risk that unsafe products may reach America's kitchens--accidents can happen.

Thus, as a complement to the market, govern¬ments implement food standards, testing require¬ments, and inspection procedures in an attempt to reduce the risk of harm to zero. The U.S. government may be able to do more to catch the occasional tainted product by restricting and controlling the market with costly regulations, but only at great expense to con¬sumers and companies. High food prices and less food will not bolster America's food security.

Instead, government should take a balanced approach to food safety by keeping markets free and limiting the scope and cost of government intervention to establishing minimum accepted quality stan¬dards and implementing science-based methods of detecting tainted domestic and foreign products before they reach U.S. consumers. Even though the focus of legislative reform is currently on import safety, domestic food sources should face compara¬ble government scrutiny.

So…our government is supposed to let “the markets” make decisions on food safety absent those “costly government regulations”…but somehow provide scrutiny of our foods while “limiting the scope and cost of government intervention”?

I have to admit that I’m a bit curious to find out how much these Heritage flunkies are compensated for concocting this doubletalk.

Even though the Dingell bill could use some work, we should be grateful for the steps taken by the Obama Administration to protect our food supply particularly because of the sad record of former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History on this score in particular (this tells us of FDA scientists intimidated by the prior regime during a tainted tomato scare – hence the pic – this also tells us that there was no requirement under Bushco to notify us in the event of a recall of genetically modified foods, this confirms once more that the Repugs are “the party of unregulated meat and poultry,” and this tells us, among other things, that Bushco’s FDA operated under a $135 million shortfall in 2006).

And given all of that, I’m not sure what would turn my stomach more thoroughly – an ingestion of tainted food, or the thought that we could still be in the dark days of Bushco noncompliance with even the most basic food protection measures (and I emphasize that I don’t plan to find out any time soon).