In the past one year, due to tainted food, some three people have died and more than 1,000 have fallen. Not only humans’ tainted food has killed thousands of pets too.
The Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. agency for ensuring food safety of 80 percent of the food supply for the nation, has failed to do so. It not only lacks manpower and money for this critical job, but also doesn’t have sufficient authority to deal with. It gets only about a quarter of all federal funding for food safety.
Over the past decade there has been a fivefold increase in the imports of food shipments but FDA’s budget hasn’t increased with that much pace. The agency is now able to inspect only about 1 percent of food shipments from abroad. Not only this, it even lacks the required power to seize tainted food or order recalls of products. For recalls, it depends on the companies and on special permissions for inspections of foreign plants making food for U.S.
As compared to the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in comparison, gets more in the budgets to protect the rest of food supply. It ensures safety of the left 20 percent that includes eggs, meat and poultry. It even has more manpower and a lot greater authority. The system of working of FDA needs to be checked and revised, in order to ensure more safe products and an end to recalls.
Source: Orlandosentinel
