The Great Debate

Sickness and death are no way to regulate food

– Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. The views expressed are her own. —

The discovery of the salmonella-tainted peanut butter produced and sold by the Peanut Corporation of America at one of its plants, at Blakely, GA, raises a vital question for all Americans.  Does the Food and Drug Administration have the resources to ensure the safety of America’s domestic and imported food supply?

The Agriculture Department does a good job of inspecting animal-based products such as meat, poultry, and dairy, but the remaining part of the food supply that falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA is a different kettle of fish.  The FDA is failing to oversee adequately its share of food and cannot guarantee the safety of foreign food imports.

Former FDA Deputy Commissioner William Hubbard, now of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA, testified before the Senate Committee on Agriculture earlier this month that the FDA’s responsibilities have grown as its resources have diminished.  In the 1970s the FDA performed 35,000 inspections a year, with 70,000 food processing plants subject to regulation.  Today, the FDA conducts only 7,000 inspections a year, yet the number of plants has grown to 150,000.

Inspection of imported food is worse.  The FDA inspects only a fraction of one percent of the 216,000 foreign facilities exporting food into America.

What can be done?  The FDA could persuade Congress to give it more authority to mandate, money and staff.  Congress has not even granted the FDA permission to block entry of food from foreign firms that refuse to allow overseas inspection by FDA officials. Nor has it allowed the FDA to mandate preventive controls to hinder terrorists, such as locks on tankers carrying juice or trucks parked at rest stops.

If another $500 million were allocated to inspections, then spending on food would once more equal half the FDA’s budget, the same as it was in the 1970s.  American taxpayers and consumers would gain by avoiding illness, thereby increasing productivity at work, school, and home.