FDA Unaware Peanut Corporation Of America Even Made Peanut Butter - Last Inspected In 2001

[hatrack]

Federal food regulators describe a massive salmonella outbreak traced to a Georgia peanut butter plant in 2007 as “a wake-up call.” But that realization did not lead officials to scrutinize at least one other peanut processor: the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely. They didn’t even know the plant made peanut butter.

That gaffe by the Food and Drug Administration illustrates a fundamental weakness in federal oversight of the nation’s food supply, according to food safety experts and consumer advocates. The FDA, critics say, lacks the resources and the wherewithal to take a comprehensive approach to regulating the food industry and tends to deal with outbreaks of food-borne illnesses as isolated episodes rather than as interconnected elements of a broad threat to food safety.

“It seems to take a lot to get them to pay attention to an industry,” said Jean Halloran, the director of food policy initiatives for the Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine. “You don’t see them bearing down on what the problem was and checking all the other companies.” The FDA, she said, should emulate agencies that investigate airplane crashes: Find the cause and then make certain that necessary fixes are universally applied. “You check all the 747s to see if they have a wing that’s about to fall off,” she said.

Federal inspectors last visited Peanut Corp.’s Blakely plant in 2001, when it discovered equipment exposed to pesticides, dirty duct tape on broken machines, dead insects near peanuts and gaps big enough for rodents to enter.

EDIT

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/02/08/peanut02081.html

[47of74]

1. Thank the previous administration for that...

They loaded the government down with loyal Bushies who were totally unqualified for the jobs they were given, and this is the end result.

[liberalmuse]

2. Why would this be surprising?

The Bush cabal turned it's head the other way when it came to the FDA. And everything else, for that matter.