FDA in Crisis? I thought the EPA was bad enough.
Friday, April 4th, 2008I’ve complained about an unscrupulous EPA before, showing that some of its exiting hierarchy was tied to the oil industry. I’ve also tried to get the point across that the Bush administration has dismantled the federal government in small increments handing out contracts to for-profit corporations to do the work our agencies used to do, while cutting the budget drastically in many departments across the board. Sound alright? A lot of people think so—less spending. But do we know who is doing the work instead, how the contract was awarded, who is responsible if something goes wrong, or how much the contractor was actually paid for the job?
Cuts are going to happen. We must pay for the war. But we just don’t know all the things that have been cut, until it’s too late that is. Just last year around this time, the Bush administration planned to cut some $500 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and was met with fierce opposition in congress. The complaint was that it would shortchange vital environmental programs and was unacceptable. Do ya think?
Now it’s the FDA. The cover of the April 2008 Reader’s Digest asks “Can We Trust the FDA?—Must Read Special Report,” and reveals the Food and Drug Administration is in crisis. Most of the article is about the drugs we take, but the department is responsible for regulating $1.5 trillion in food, as well as, animal feeds and drugs. The article stated that insiders say, “it’s [FDA] woefully underfunded, dangerously understaffed and fractured by bitter internal tensions.” I immediately suspected feuding within the department exists because some people have ethics. In 2004, the FDA came under fire for silencing a staff scientist about antidepressants causing suicidal tendencies in teens. Ditto for the EPA, when scientists testified before congress last year that they were tired of being suppressed, and their findings/reports compromised.
The FDA receives only $2 billion in funding, which sounds like a lot but as the article says “is about what Fairfax County, Virginia, pays for its public schools.” It’s really frightening to read words like “chilling new report” in reference to the department in charge of our food and medicine. Worse yet the “chilling” report was commissioned by the FDA’s own advisory Science Board that also describes it as “nearly out of control.”
Congress has just begun to help shore up the FDA, increasing their funding by $145 million, but hey compared to billions, that’s a drop in the bucket. Of course about a quarter of that went to the drug review branch, another reason to read this story to see how much conflict of interest there is within the FDA relative to the drug industry. But special interests and conflict of interest on the food side of this equation cause an equal amount of damage. We start seeing problems like tainted food, beef, and chicken recalls, lax inspection of CAFO’s and runoff from them that may make its way into our tributaries, and of course really lax inspection of imported food. I watched a program where farm raised shrimp in an Asian country were swimming in polluted water with feces from farm animals. I check what I buy now. I steer clear of imports. I know the FDA isn’t checking.
The article said the public needs to weigh in. Weigh in? Scream for Pete’s sake. This is our bread, this is our health and it’s being handled shabbily. This type of decision-making and ethics is repetitive in the EPA, and more than likely throughout our federal agencies at this point. As I read the five key problems in this industry, they were similar to the EPA’s problems:
· The FDA suffers pressure from industry to speed decisions, and soft-pedal problems.
· Safety of New Drugs. Safety decisions are many times based on inefficient industry studies.
· Sloppy Record Keeping
· Conflicts of Interest
· Muzzled Experts
This list just about says it all doesn’t it? From the looks of things, we’re on our own.
Read the article: http://www.rd.com/national-interest/special-reports-and-surveys/problems-in-the-fda/article55513.html