• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Major Changes Needed In Import Inspections

A

Anonymous

Guest
5/4/2007 7:45:00 AM


Jolley: Our Food Inspection System Is In Crisis - We Need To Act Now



"Simply put, our food safety system is broken…The reality is that there currently is no mandate, no leadership, no resources, nor scientific research base for [creation] of food safety systems." David Kessler



David Kessler is the former FDA commissioner and a man who should know. He was talking to the members of the House Oversight Committee about a rapidly growing crisis. Although he was referring to just the problems most recently evident with the FDA, it’s our entire food inspection system that’s failing miserably.



Here’s the most pressing recent problem: Monitoring the quality of imported ingredients to be used in animal or human food processing has proven itself to be the modern day equivalent of taming the wild and wooly West. Importers get an (almost) free pass to do as they please. For years, now, shady traders could ship anything into the U.S., safe in the knowledge that less than 1% of their shipments would receive even the most cursory inspection. Take that, Homeland Security! No holes in that safety net!



A few months ago, uninspected melamine-spiked wheat gluten from China found its way into pet food. By all reports, it’s a long-standing practice among many Chinese traders. The FDA assumed the crisis was handled after tons of product were recalled and thousands of pets died. Were the recalls the price of running a food business driven solely by least cost formulations? And would that make the resulting deaths merely collateral damage?



The crisis jumped ship, though. A Chinese rice protein concentrate, contaminated with melamine and melamine-related compounds, was fed to pigs and chickens. Federal investigators are looking into contaminated hog feed in six states - California, Kansas, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah.



The problem was traced back to feed produced in March. The belated discovery allowed hundreds of thousands of chickens and an unknown quantity of pork to reach the corner supermarket. Was that March incident a one-time thing? Maybe not. The inspection problem and Chinese chicanery stretches back for years. If we’re to follow truth in labeling laws, we should call it the first discovered incident.



FDA officials then attempted a CYA maneuver when they said we shouldn’t worry about the product that had already found its way into the nation’s human food supply.
The melamine content was too dispersed to worry about, they said. But, to be safe, they’re requiring the destruction of thousands of animals that haven’t been converted to packaged product. Legally, FDA spokesmen say, it’s all they can do because they don’t have the authority to do more. They also claim it’s a scientifically sound decision, but it doesn’t pass the consumer’s sniff test which is the ultimate arbiter of what’s acceptable.


If the consumer thinks it stinks, it stinks. End of story. Also, end of commerce for the stinker. “Science” be damned!



I keep thinking about the assurances that the British government handed out to a gullible public in the earliest days of the BSE panic. “Don’t worry, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” doesn’t necessarily cut it, anymore. Maybe the FDA should check with the UK Food Standards Agency for instructions on how to (mis)handle a food inspection crisis.



Simply put, the critical government agencies don’t have the manpower, money or political clout to do their job. The sweep of twenty-first century world commerce has overwhelmed the capacity of the USDA and the FDA. Both agencies are standing in the muddy backwaters of the mid-twentieth century, trying to figure out where undiscoverable and unknowable modern-day problems might be lurking.



Here’s the heart of the problem: Too many food (and feed) processors looked for the cheapest ingredients and found them in severely under-regulated foreign ports-of-call that the FDA and the USDA couldn’t touch. Processors didn’t understand the truth behind the Reagan dictum, “Trust, but verify.” They trusted their new foreign trading partner’s promises to deliver products equivalent to the more expensive (because they’re highly regulated) products they used to buy from North American suppliers. They weren’t able to verify those promises, though, and the true price of cheaper ingredients is now being paid by both the “control-costs-at-all-costs” processor and the consumer.



Washington needs to summon the political will to act now, even if they are a day late and a dollar short. A combined and better-funded USDA and FDA is the only answer to improved inspection of a much more complex food chain that’s been truly international for decades. Borders to our food supply simply do not exist and our responsible federal agencies haven’t been properly equipped to handle that kind of world.



Source: Chuck Jolley
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Jolly;Here’s the most pressing recent problem: Monitoring the quality of imported ingredients to be used in animal or human food processing has proven itself to be the modern day equivalent of taming the wild and wooly West.
You Only get these verified records with www.ScoringContainers.com as this Computer technology tracks every compound from source to finished product and its handlers in real time.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Food safety comes into sharp focus
After contamination scares, Congress examines ways to improve regulation, protection
By Jonathan D. Rockoff
Sun Reporter
Originally published May 10, 2007
WASHINGTON // After months of revelations about deadly contamination of produce, peanut butter and pet food, and with consumer confidence in what they're eating falling to an 18-year low, Washington is suddenly turning its attention to the problem of food safety.

Whether higher visibility will translate into major changes in the way the government protects the nation's food supply is less clear, however.

"There is a greater intensity and depth of interest than I've seen in 30 years," said Carol Tucker Foreman, who worked on food issues in the administration of President Jimmy Carter and as an industry consultant, and is now director of the Consumer Federation of America's Food Policy Institute.

Members of Congress are looking for ways to plug gaps in the nation's food safety system. Aides say leaders in both houses are scouring for more funding as a way of providing better regulation and additional protection.

"We don't need to wait until animals start dying or, God forbid, people," Rep. Randy Neugebauer, a Texas Republican, said yesterday during the second congressional hearing on food safety in as many weeks.

Congress is talking about revamping the food safety system after years of largely ignoring the warnings of its watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, which issued a report in February designating the area a high risk.

Bacterial outbreaks in bagged spinach, Taco Bell lettuce and Peter Pan peanut butter have heightened concerns about food safety. Fears intensified when cats and dogs died in March after eating tainted pet food. Investigators think Chinese producers contaminated pet food ingredients with industrial chemicals.

"I hope this incident will send something of a clarion call for better food inspections," said Rep. Bob Etheridge, a North Carolina Democrat.

An online Harris survey released this week by the Food Marketing Institute found that the percentage of shoppers who were confident about the safety of supermarket food had fallen to 66 percent, a decline of 16 percentage points since last year and the lowest since 1989. Because of such concerns, 38 percent said, they had stopped buying certain foods during the previous year.


China has reportedly begun cracking down, requiring food exporters to meet international standards and detaining managers from the two companies that shipped tainted and mislabeled wheat gluten to North American makers of pet food.

China's ambassador to the United States told the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, that the Chinese government would strengthen its inspections.

Some members of Congress have pointed to China's role in the pet food scare as they call for protectionist curbs on imports and for bolstering American farmers and food producers.

Dr. David W.K. Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's new food safety czar, reminded lawmakers at the hearing that previous outbreaks involved domestic food and that Americans' appetite for a year-round supply of fruit, fish and vegetables depends on a steady supply of imports.

Acheson said he was studying what new powers and additional resources the FDA might need to prevent additional problems with homegrown products and to closely monitor imports.

Congressional debate has focused on expanding the FDA's power to inspect and recall products, improving the detection of food-related illnesses and labeling products with country of origin.

The Senate passed yesterday a measure that would improve safety surveillance of food for humans and pets, require food-makers to keep better records and establish national labeling standards.

Some Democrats are pressing for a more radical overhaul that would consolidate into one department food safety responsibilities that are spread among 15 federal agencies.


"What is most building support for our effort is the collapse of our food safety system," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who oversees a committee that funds food agencies, said this week.

Support for the proposals varies among trade associations, consumer groups and government officials. The FDA's Acheson told a House agriculture panel that consolidation wouldn't improve food protection.

The FDA's food budget has not kept up with inflation during the past four years. Consumer and industry groups have been lobbying Congress for more funding.

"It's quite hypocritical to have Congress be upset about the lack of work FDA and USDA are doing when Congress doesn't give them the money to do the work they are supposed to be doing," said Susan M. Stout, vice president of federal affairs at the Grocery Manufacturers Association/Food Products Association.

Two Democratic leaders, Durbin and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, are hoping to secure more FDA funding, their aides said.

[email protected]
 
Top