April 10, 2009 Marion Nestle fix for the FDA

http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/10/FDG516RMSG.DTL

Full plate for Obama's new FDA administrator
Marion Nestle
Friday, April 10, 2009

The FDA desperately needs fixing. This agency oversees the safety of drugs, medical devices, and food for animals as well as people. This is a large order, but the FDA faces particular hurdles. The industries it regulates do not like being regulated. They prefer self-regulation, and they let Congress know it. ...

The safety scandals of the past few years - spinach, pet food, peanut butter, and now pistachios - revealed profound weaknesses in the ability of the FDA to protect public health. Polls say nearly 75 percent of Americans are more afraid of food than they are of terrorists.

Fixing the FDA
The FDA's own science board says it needs more money, better morale, stronger leadership, and greater scientific capacity. Dr. Hamburg will have to persuade Congress to empower her agency to do its job, starting with better inspection capacity. ...

Unbelievable but true, the FDA has no right to order companies producing unsafe food to recall their products. ...

She also must convince Congress to order the FDA to require - and to enforce - the production of all foods under science-based food safety procedures. Currently, the FDA only requires such procedures for sprouts, seafood, eggs and fresh juices. Everybody else is supposed to follow less rigorous "good manufacturing practices." ...

And the FDA needs major structural changes. A new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation addresses this point. The FDA, it says, should concentrate its resources on the highest risks, enforce existing rules (what a concept), and appoint someone with authority over all the agency's food safety programs, animal as well as human.

The report goes on to suggest that the FDA work with Congress to establish a Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This last idea sounds like an alternative approach to the food safety problem. Forget trying to fix the FDA. Instead, fix the entire food safety system. ...

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