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FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food
Outbreaks Were Not Preventable, Officials Say

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 23, 2007; Page A01

The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.

Overwhelmed by huge growth in the number of food processors and imports, however, the agency took only limited steps to address the problems and relied on producers to police themselves, according to agency documents.

...

etc, here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

the interesting part for me is this:

"This administration does not like regulation, this administration does not like spending money, and it has a hostility toward government. The poisonous result is that a program like the FDA is going to suffer at every turn of the road," said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the full House committee. Dingell is considering introducing legislation to boost the agency's accountability, regulatory authority and budget.

^^ do you agree with that michigan person or do you not? and why?

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my take: sure this is the market taking care of itself, but it shouldn't be at the cost of people's lives, should it? without regulation too many scams and fly-by-night operations would flood the food market. got a crop of rotten wheat? no problem! make promotional cookies with it! -- i say regulate the bastards.

[noumenal]

bump

[Пятхъдесят Шест]

Another grim example of infrastructure and accountability going to the dogs.

[floatingslowly]

although I typically loathe saying we need the government to do ANYTHING more than they are doing, there are some things you can't escape. I'm more afraid of e. coli than I am Big Brother.

[nature scene]

I'm more moderate in my libertarianism than the nutcases, but i'll give this one a go:

The very existence of the Food and Drug Administration has the unintended consequence of lulling people into a false sense of security about the safety of the food they eat and the drugs they take. Government failure is just as, if not more, widespread than market failure, so why should we trust the FDA?

The FDA claims to be underfunded and unable to carry out it's mission. Yet recent years' examples of the FDA in action include regulating a laser light show in Las Vegas (laser count as medical devices, even when used for entertainment), attempting to block home drug testing by parents for fears that it would cause "family discord," and most importantly it holds back medications that may be able to save people's lives now.

The incentive structure is wrong for the FDA, if they approve something and one person dies they get the blame, but if they don't approve a drug and hundreds of people die because that drug could have saved their lives, no one notices.

Instead of relying of the FDAs regulatory power, why can't the FDA act as an "information clearinghouse" of public information concerning the effects and possible concerns associated with the food and drugs people ingest. Better yet, why not leave information distribution totally to private watchdog organizations?



Do I totally agree with this? NO. I see where the hardcore libertarian argument is coming from, but that's the thing -- it's the extreme view. Now I suppose some people see libertarianism itself as extreme, but I think that there are degrees of it just as there are degrees of conservatism or liberalism. Very few people's political views fit the mold perfectly.

I do think that the FDA could be improved. If it was unable to do its job because of funding problems that's one thing, but the FDAs track record indicates that it could use some help in the accountability department. In fact, accountability is key. People might not despise the government so much if they could actually hold it responsible for the things it does.

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ah nature scene i was hoping you'd show up

i thought of the watchdog groups but then any company could deny entry to its facilities citing trade secrets or some other such bullshit. ("the secret to our taste is cockroach powder"). ha ha.

now, i know that's not your point of view.

and yeah the fda can be a fuckup (i opposed vitamin regulation as prescription-only), but i concur with floatingslowly that e. coli is scarier than big brother.

more funding actually could help with streamlining drug testing as well.

holding the fda responsible could be done; but the way the bushiites have gutted the institution (and don't get me started about the EPA) the next 9/11 is not going to come in airplanes but through the food supply. (maybe this is a paranoid scenario but the recent pet food disaster has been in my mind quite a bit, as i have a cat).

[nature scene]

yeah, the watchdog thing can really only work if courts uphold their right to obtain information.

But seriously, the FDA said it couldn't have done anything to close the factories or whatnot? Why could it have not just made it public information that either there were documented instances of problems or that companies were refusing to disclose that information? That doesn't seem like too much work to me.

This is a case of bureaucratic half-assedness as much as it is Bush's fault for stripping the FDA down. I can get on board with regulations, as long as they are presented sensibly and are accountable to the public - the FDA seems to be one of those cases in where government regulation does make sense. In today's world, it's politically impossible to get rid of the FDA even if we wanted to. At the same time we should realize that there are ways to improve government effectiveness without just throwing money at it.

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well sure. government is conspicuously inefficient, but some times it's the only recourse. hiring lobbyists as regulators isn't a way to improve the agency though.

[nature scene]

True - an efficient government is a dangerous one. And regulatory capture seems to be the history of regulation doesn't it? Going back to 1887, the ICC was intended to regulate railroads, yet the only ones who knew enough about the railroad industry were members of that industry -- so they became the regulators.

We should try to stop regulatory capture, but it's a difficult job. Also, regulation tends to make the most sense when it is over activities that produce externalities - like pollution. Even though these can be framed as a property rights problem, the practicable course of action is to implement regulations that provide cost-effective solutions to problems and allow for flexibility - not in meeting goals but in how to meet goals.

Even if I think government should do something, I never trust that it will do it right.

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Originally Posted by nature scene

True - an efficient government is a dangerous one. And regulatory capture seems to be the history of regulation doesn't it? Going back to 1887, the ICC was intended to regulate railroads, yet the only ones who knew enough about the railroad industry were members of that industry -- so they became the regulators.

We should try to stop regulatory capture, but it's a difficult job. Also, regulation tends to make the most sense when it is over activities that produce externalities - like pollution. Even though these can be framed as a property rights problem, the practicable course of action is to implement regulations that provide cost-effective solutions to problems and allow for flexibility - not in meeting goals but in how to meet goals.

man i hope you are some day elected for something. you're one of the most reasonable & knowledgeable people here discussing government matters. of course that probably will make you highly unelectable. damn tv politics!

[nature scene]

Haha thanks. Sorry to disappoint, but I have no plans to enter politics in the future.

However, I am getting my master's degree in natural resource management and will probably be a public servant at some time in my life - which of course begs the question of my libertarian merits.