Bush Disaster #311: Harmful substances in food supply INCREASING

BaliBabyDoc

Lifer
Jan 20, 2001
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Serious question for Bush supporters . . .

How can you support a man that has made America LESS secure in fiscal, political, and real terms? Does it bother you that food safety inspections have lagged due to lack of funding ($100m or so), but Bush is about to ask for $100 BILLION for the Iraq Civil War?

CNN

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.
Here's the kicker . . . even if you assume Al Qaeda thinks attacking the food supply isn't spectacular enough. We NEED to protect our food supply from a variety of homegrown problems:
1) contamination in the field (poo, pesticides)
2) contamination during processing
3) improper processing . . . it's not the same as #2 . . . it's possible to do everything right and still have a problem
4) improper storage
The Bush administration's budget request for 2008 includes an additional $10.6 million for food safety at the FDA; the lobbying group said 10 times that increase is needed. Even though the FDA increased its overall spending on food between 2003 and 2006, those increases failed to keep pace with rising personnel costs.

"It's not just outsiders like us who have been watching it for a while. People who worked in the Bush administration are coming out and saying the agency is not working at its current resource levels. It just can't manage the job," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group.
Hmm, an actual problem that can be solved by throwing more money at it yet what does Bush want . . . bury cash in the desert.

The United States last year imported about $10 billion more in food, feed and beverages than it exported, according to Census figures. Even as imports grow in volume and diversity, the number of FDA inspections is shrinking: agency inspectors physically examined just 1.3 percent of food imports last year, about three-quarters as much as in 2003.
At that rate, why even bother?
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
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At this point we all know the Bush administration is an utter disaster, no one intellectually honest is under any other impression. But you don't have to rub it in. ;)
 

Siddhartha

Lifer
Oct 17, 1999
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Conservative maxim about the federal government is less is better.

An example of this is FDA inspectors enforcing food safety rules is a hinderance to business.

I think a couple more of incidences of a large number of people getting sick and dying will force the White House to do something about food safety.
 

WHAMPOM

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2006
7,628
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Originally posted by: Siddhartha
Conservative maxim about the federal government is less is better.

An example of this is FDA inspectors enforcing food safety rules is a hinderance to business.

I think a couple more of incidences of a large number of people getting sick and dying will force the White House to do something about food safety.

With past performance as a guide, food safety inspection would go from bad to worse.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
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The real questions are, why did the inspection drop75%. I doubt the FDA budget has dropped 75% since then. Actually I doubt it has dropped at all.

And has the reduced number of inspection had any effect real on food safety?
 

catnap1972

Platinum Member
Aug 10, 2000
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Originally posted by: charrison
The real questions are, why did the inspection drop75%. I doubt the FDA budget has dropped 75% since then. Actually I doubt it has dropped at all.

And has the reduced number of inspection had any effect real on food safety?

Hell, why not just do away with them altogether...if a couple thousand more people die, so what...plenty more people (with money) to take their place...not like they're going to be missed.

:roll:
 

catnap1972

Platinum Member
Aug 10, 2000
2,607
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Originally posted by: Siddhartha
Conservative maxim about the federal government is less is better.

An example of this is FDA inspectors enforcing food safety rules is a hinderance to business.

I think a couple more of incidences of a large number of people getting sick and dying will force the White House to do something about food safety.

Most likely they'll abolish the FDA inspectors altogether...
 

BaliBabyDoc

Lifer
Jan 20, 2001
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Originally posted by: charrison
The real questions are, why did the inspection drop75%. I doubt the FDA budget has dropped 75% since then. Actually I doubt it has dropped at all.

And has the reduced number of inspection had any effect real on food safety?

Some of the answers you seek are in the article. Overall, the FDA is under tremendous pressure from every front. Drug dealers (oops I mean drug companies) submit more and more products each year but licensing fees are not keeping pace with the staffing necessary to keep up. The US produces a lot of produce and processed food; more and more every year. The US imports more produce and processed food every year. Medical devices and biologics require a lot more work than pharmaceuticals, but Congress has not given the FDA sufficient funding for those products, either.

Food safety isn't the only area where it's clear FDA is falling down. General surveillance of postmarket adverse events from drugs (things going bad after a drug is approved) has been in the crapper since prior to Bush the Disaster. But they've gotten worse since he was crowned. Market withdrawals were higher between 2000-20006 than 1994-2000.

In sum, only the simple fail to realize it takes MORE money to do the same job from one year to the next. Only the fatally simple fail to realize it takes A LOT MORE money to do more tasks from one year to the next.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office said that most of the $1.7 billion the federal government allocates to food safety goes to the Agriculture Department, which is responsible for regulating about 20 percent of the food supply. The FDA, responsible for most of the other 80 percent, gets about 24 percent of the total.
 

piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
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Maybe this is because they are using too many Immigrants that are illegaly in the country that brought their diseases from Mexico or where ever the heck they came from. If immigration is not controlled, then who knows what kind of disease is walking accross the border into the USA.

Note: My wife is from Korea and she legally immigrated to the USA with me. I have lived in both Asia and Europe, and I know that there are many people attempting to legally immigrate that have some kind of disease that are blocked from immigrating to the USA. If we just let a lot of people illegally immigrate or walk accross our border we will be infested with whatever disease they are carrying.

So if we let some meat packing plant hire a bunch of illegals, then who is looking out for the safety and welfare of the rest of the country? Who is making sure illegals working in the food industry are disease free?
 

DealMonkey

Lifer
Nov 25, 2001
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What federal agency hasn't been de-funded and made less capable at their primary mission under Bush? FDA, EPA, FEMA, the list goes on . . .
 

BaliBabyDoc

Lifer
Jan 20, 2001
10,737
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Originally posted by: DealMonkey
What federal agency hasn't been de-funded and made less capable at their primary mission under Bush? FDA, EPA, FEMA, the list goes on . . .

I hear DOD has gotten loads of cash and are doing such a fantastic job they are going to get $100billion more to finish out the year.
 

DealMonkey

Lifer
Nov 25, 2001
13,136
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Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
Originally posted by: DealMonkey
What federal agency hasn't been de-funded and made less capable at their primary mission under Bush? FDA, EPA, FEMA, the list goes on . . .

I hear DOD has gotten loads of cash and are doing such a fantastic job they are going to get $100billion more to finish out the year.

So we're fighting the poopy food over there so we don't have to fight it here? ;) :p
 

dyna

Senior member
Oct 20, 2006
813
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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.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the FDA, at the urging of Congress, increased the number of food inspectors and inspections amid fears that the nation's food system was vulnerable to terrorists. Inspectors and inspections spiked in 2003, but now both have fallen enough to erase the gains

I think the underlying reason for the massive drop is most likely related to increased testing because of the fear of terrorism after 9/11 and the reduction because of a lower terrorist threat level.


 

spittledip

Diamond Member
Apr 23, 2005
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The FDA is always passing chemical crap as food additives that are bad for people. Somebody's money pushes this stuff through. It is sickening. Same thing with all those medications the phamaceuticals push through, making up all types of diagnosis just to peddle another pill.
 

BaliBabyDoc

Lifer
Jan 20, 2001
10,737
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The government?s finite food safety resources are not equitably split between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Bush Administration?s 2008 budget proposal makes matters worse, according to CSPI. USDA regulates 20 percent of the nation?s food supply, and the Administration proposes giving the department $270 million in new money for food safety and security. FDA regulates 80 percent of the food supply, including fresh vegetables like spinach and lettuce, but it will get only $10.6 million in new food safety money, despite being underfunded already.

Bush Junta logic at work.