U.S. food safety inspections languishing. Food & Drug Administration just like FEMA. Gutted.

[spanone]

Bush* doesn't give a shit about AMERICANS. If ANYONE is curious why we've had FOOD PROBLEMS?????

PEOPLE ARE DYING FROM THIS!

~ SNIP ~

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal agency that's been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.

"We have a food safety crisis on the horizon," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. (Paging Dr. Gupta blog: Who's leading the food safety charge? )

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

That's not all that's dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

• There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.

• Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency's own statistics.

more...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/26/food.safety.ap/index.html

[Ian David]

1. Fire the food inspectors and just say Grace before you eat? n/t

[spanone]

2. Problem solved.....slap head!!!

:woohoo:

[ellenfl]

3. one of my co-workers said the recalls show that the

private sector is effectively policing itself. i asked her how many people had to die before the recalls happened. every time i hear of another recall, i drill this into anyone who will listen. the private sector is NOT policing itself. it is calculating how many people have to get sick or die before it has to fess up.

i guess we have to learn the hard way . . . again.

ellen fl

[spanone]

4. There WAS a reason we instituted the FDA.

To protect us from ourselves.

[ellenfl]

10. that's exactly my point

when i said we have to learn again, the hard way.

ellen fl

[Jcrowley]

5. As planned

[spanone]

6. drown it in a bathtub 'along with it's citizens'

[Divernan]

7. Plus, the plants are often given a headsup warning that they'll be inspected.

Easy enough to clean up TEMPORARILY!

[Horse with no Name]

8. Actually I did a little independent research on this once

and found the results astounding. Of course...there is always those here that call you an idiot when you point out the obvious...but basically under Clinton the cases of e-coli in our food supply were pretty high--in the hundreds every month. When Bush took over, that number dropped to single to low double digit. It didn't make me think that our food was safer...just made me think it wasn't being reported. If I can find the post, I will edit and add it.

[Shallah Kali]

9. Didn't they announce that the FDA was closing half their labs in spite of food and biological threat

I can't recall where I read it sorry. This is utterly unacceptable for this, like just about everything else under the bush administration, to keep occuring.