Risks of tainted food rise as inspections drop

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17349427/

The federal agency that’s been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.

“We have a food safety crisis on the horizon,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

<snip>

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.

[Hosnon]

1. Let the free market deal with it.

If bad spinach kills several hundred people, the company will go out of business.

:sarcasm:

[Jack from Charlotte]

2. And those dead people's living relatives won't buy spinich from....

the company that killed their relatives. So, yes, the free market would help those companies that don't kill people......... unless the owners of the killer spinich outfits just reopens under different names.

[MikeNearMcChord]

3. Yep that is how the libertarians frame it.

until it is the libertarian or one of his relatives.

[guitar man]

7. I'm pretty libertarian myself

...but I'm moderate and practical enough in my views to realize that there are necessary areas of government oversight and this is definetly one of those areas.

For fuck's sake, can't these asshats ever get their priorities straight?

I guess not, gay marriage, flag burning and, oh yeah, their never ending war-for-profit have to take precedence. For shame!!

[kestrel91316]

4. IIRC, the FDA hires inspectors with college degrees in

science of some sort. So it makes perfect sense for the ANTI-SCIENCE fascists in charge to get rid of them.

If people want safe food they will just have to be content with saying grace before they eat. And they better be prayin' to JAYSUS.

[AlinPA]

5. You nailed it. Prayer should take care of everything. Who needs science?

Praise the lawd..uh.

[Beetwasher]

6. Gov't Is Bad For You

See, they can't even inspect meat properly. :eyes:

These people are such scum.

[rocktivity]

8. Candidate for this month's "You Call This NEWS?" award

Deregulation KILLS.

:headbang:
rocknation

[depakid]

9. They're also closing labs.

FDA to announce lab closure details

More than half of the 13 field labs, which inspect food and drugs, could be shuttered



Details of the plan have not yet been revealed to employees or the public. But based on information PEER pieced together from FDA memos and briefings, Ruch said, it seems likely that six labs -- located in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Jefferson (Arkansas), Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle -- will remain open. He said the remaining seven facilities, in Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Juan (Puerto Rico), and Winchester (Massachusetts), could be closed.

"The FDA plans are sort of a black box," Ruch told The Scientist. "We don't know what they're evolving toward and why they'll be a better organization for it."

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/52876/

------------

Not only are Republicans sick fucks- but they want to ensure that other people get sick- and that some kids will die.

This yet another reason why, aside from some limited contact with a few family members, I actively avoid allowing Republicans into any aspect of my life.

(Note: the article comes from a British publication. Where's the American corporate media? Stupid question, I guess).