Poisoning the Well at FDA

Food fights and overindulged bureaucrats are the level of service the American public is getting from the Food and Drug Administration. Hearings opened this morning that have been called by Representative Stupak after continuing incompetence at the FDA.

WASHINGTON - A Food and Drug Administration plan to close half its laboratories is an assault on food safety that probably would expose more Americans to harm from unsafe food, lawmakers charged Tuesday.

The FDA's ability to police the nation's food supply has come under withering criticism from Congress amid a string of high-profile cases of foodborne illness, including E. coli-tainted spinach and salmonella-contaminated snack foods. The FDA, meanwhile, says it's streamlining its operations, including through a plan to consolidate the labs where it tests foods.
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An ongoing Energy and Commerce Committee investigation found the FDA has little ability to police imports. In San Francisco, for example, the FDA's staff can only conduct a cursory review of imports, generally dedicating just 30 seconds to each shipment as it flashes by on a computer screen, according to investigators.
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Some potentially problematic seafood imports are being steered to enter the country in Las Vegas to avoid the scrutiny they might receive in San Francisco and other West Coast seaports, according to House investigators.

The problems go beyond food. In Puerto Rico, investigators learned importers were getting around the FDA's blocking of imports of Chinese-made toothpaste made with an antifreeze ingredient by co-packaging them with toothbrushes. Once labeled in import records simply as "toothbrushes," the packages were able to slip past the FDA until the agency caught on, senior investigator David Nelson said. Examples of the tainted toothpaste included a Crest knockoff called "Crust," Nelson said.

Really, really crusty bureaucrats, these.

The state that our protective government agencies have declined to under GoPervert administration is a ghastly pit, and that the Democratic 110th is having to call them on the carpet constantly is hardly the 'waste of time' that the GoP's are trying to call it. It is a huge waste of public monies, that we have an FDA so ineffective that constant outbreaks of food poisoning are occurring ever more often, while FDA salaries are being raised. The cutbacks at FDA are being made in inspections staffs, while administrators' salaries are unconscionably elevated.

The public and its treasury is not safe while these criminals are in office.