It's painfully difficult to monitor food safety, including the quality of food coming from around the world, when an organization has been shredded. How many times are we going to watch this scene play out, where the GOP complains about a federal organization, slashes its budget and then sits back and says "see, it's not working" which then leads to talk of privatizing. The FDA under this administration only cares about the flow of business, never once giving a damn on the consequences of introducing dangerous food.
The FDA and the USDA have adopted a "risk-based" inspection philosophy, focusing on specific foods, sources or producers that they believe represent the largest potential risk to the public's health.With this level of lax oversight, how does a consumer - and everyone has to eat in order to survive - make proper decisions? If this administration cares so much about life, they should start doing something about it and offer serious food safety.
"The public at large is not at any increased risk," said Craig Henry, senior vice president and chief operating officer for scientific and regulatory affairs of the Grocery Manufacturers-Food Products Association, an industry group.
Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, countered that "risk-based" is just shorthand for "reduced resources."
"Whenever they say 'risk-based approach,' it often means they don't have enough staff to actually do the job. They're doing triage. They're trying to hit what's most important to inspect but they're missing a lot," DeWaal said.
Groups lobbying to increase the FDA's budget say its spending on food safety has languished, despite the agency's outsized role in ensuring the safety of the nation's food supply.
