FDA Can't Ensure Food Safety...

[phillyphilly]

Health Highlights:


FDA Can't Ensure Food Safety, Critics Say

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't have enough staff or funding to adequately inspect food imported into the United States or to keep the nation's food supply safe, critics warn.

"The public thinks the food supply is much more protected than it is. If people really knew how weak the FDA program is, they would be shocked," William Hubbard, a former associate commissioner at the agency, told The New York Times.

"With globalization, American food processors are turning to less-developed countries to get food ingredients because they can get them so much more cheaply," Hubbard noted.

In 2006, FDA inspectors sampled only 20,662 food shipments out of the more than 8.9 million that were unloaded at American ports, the Times reported. Of the 199,000 food shipments from China, less than two percent were sampled, according to former agency officials.

The agency is responsible for monitoring 80 percent of food in the United States, but inspects only about one percent of all food shipments that arrive at ports, according to federal government data.

The FDA has only about 1,750 food inspectors to cover the ports and food production plants in the United States. Most plants are checked by FDA inspectors only about once every five to 10 years, Hubbard told the Times. Food production plants in other countries are not regularly monitored by the FDA.

In related news, the FDA announced Tuesday the creation of the position of Assistant Commissioner for Food Protection, which will be filled by Dr. David Acheson, who is currently chief medical officer and director of the FDA's Office of Food Defense, Communication and Emergency Response.

In his new role, Acheson will provide advice to the FDA commissioner on food safety and food defense matters.

 

[dasmybikepunk]

For all those who visit this thread this is old news and thatz not saying the poster dosen't deserve propz for the info drop....


But for those business minded...do you know hoe much money can be made from your own certified hydroponics produce let alone the personal benefits for you and your family...

I'm not going to go into detail...but the next time you go into you local grocer look at the meat and the fruits/vegetables.....STRAIGHT GARBAGE...then check out the very limited hydroponic selections.....

Ever wonder why that anonomys farmer produce goes bad in your perfectly good refrig' after only a week???

Just a lil' FYI, some will agree and some will not care but had to put it out there...growing tomatoes now and they are looking sooooo good!

www.domainbidandbuy.com

 

[phillyphilly]

Info concerning hydroponics:

The term hydroponics is derived from Greek and literally means 'working water'. Many people use the term hydroponics to describe any methods of growing that does not use soil (although some scientist dispute this definition). Ancient peoples such as the Babylonians and Aztecs did use hydroponics in the sense that hydroponics is simply growing without soil. Although the mineral nutrient solutions used today for hydroponics were not developed until the 1800s, these peoples did grow plants without soil, although the nutrients were obtained from other sources.

 

[paradigm shifter]

Article in New York Newsday 4/24/07

Will China send us a calamity?
Pet food crisis is a warning about problems with that nation's low standards for handling food

BY PETER KOVACS
Peter Kovacs was president of NutraSweet Kelco Co. from 1994 to 1997. He is a management consultant to many large food ingredient companies. This is from The Washington Post.

Lost amid the anxiety surrounding the tainted U.S. pet food supply is this sobering reality: It's not just pet owners who should be worried. The uncontrolled distribution of low-quality imported food ingredients, mainly from China, poses a grave threat to public health worldwide.

Essential ingredients, such as vitamins used in many packaged foods, arrive at U.S. ports from China and, as recent news reports have underscored, are shipped without inspection to food and beverage distributors and manufacturers. Although they are used in relatively small quantities, these ingredients carry enormous risks for American consumers. One pound of tainted wheat gluten could, if undetected, contaminate as much as a thousand pounds of food.

Unlike imported beef, which is inspected at the point of processing by the U.S. Agriculture Department, few practical safeguards have been established to ensure the quality of food ingredients from China.

Often, U.S. officials don't know where or how such ingredients were produced. We know, however, that alarms have been raised about hygiene and labor standards at many Chinese manufacturing facilities. In China, municipal water used in the manufacturing process is often contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides and other chemicals. Food-ingredient production is particularly susceptible to environmental contamination.

Equally worrisome, U.S. officials often lack the ability to trace foreign-produced food ingredients to their source of manufacture. In theory, the Bioterrorism Prevention Act of 2001 provides some measure of traceability. In practice, the act is ineffective and was not designed for this challenge. Its enforcement also is shrouded in secrecy by the Department of Homeland Security.

Even if Food and Drug Administration regulators wanted to crack down on products emanating from the riskiest foreign facilities, they couldn't because they have no way of knowing which ingredients come from which plant. This is why officials have spent weeks searching for the original Chinese source of the contaminated wheat gluten that triggered the pet food crisis.

That it was pet food that got tainted - and that relatively few pets were harmed - is pure happenstance. Earlier this spring, Europe narrowly averted disaster when a batch of vitamin A from China was found to be contaminated with Enterobacter sakazakii, which causes infant deaths. The defective vitamin had not yet been incorporated into infant formula. Next time, we may not be so lucky.

Most of the world's vitamins are manufactured in China. Unable to compete, the last U.S. plant making vitamin C closed a year ago. One of Europe's largest citric acid plants shut last winter, and only one vitamin C manufacturer operates in the West. Given China's cheap labor, low prices and the unfair competitive climate it has foisted on the industry, few Western producers of food ingredients can survive much longer.

Western companies have had to invest heavily in Chinese facilities. These Western-owned plants follow strict standards and are better managed than their locally owned counterparts. Nevertheless, 80 percent of the world's vitamin C is now manufactured in China, much of it unregulated and some of questionable quality.

Europe is ahead of the United States in seeking greater accountability and traceability in food safety and importation. But even the European Union's "rapid-alert system" is imperfect. Additional action is required if the continent is to avoid catastrophes.

To protect consumers here, we must revise our regulatory approaches. The first option is to institute regulations, based on the European model, to ensure that all food ingredients are thoroughly traceable. We should impose strict liability on manufacturers that fail to enforce traceability standards.

A draconian alternative is to mount a program modeled on USDA beef inspection for all food ingredients coming into the country. Food safety is a bipartisan issue: Congress and the administration must work together and move aggressively to devise stricter standards. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, has deplored dangerous levels of lead in vitamin products from China. We must get to the bottom of this issue without self-defeating finger-pointing.

The United States is sitting on a powder keg with uncontrolled importation and the distribution of low-quality food ingredients. Before it explodes, putting more animals and people at risk, corrective steps must be taken.