Lawmakers say FDA lab closure plan is risky for consumers
By Andrew Bridges, Associated Press July 17, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Importers have learned to evade close federal scrutiny of the food they ship into the United States, putting consumers at increasing risk, congressional investigators said Tuesday.
Lawmakers also criticized the Food and Drug Administration's plan to close half of its laboratories. They called that idea misguided and questioned whether it would save money and enhance the agency's ability to target unsafe food, as FDA commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach said it would.
"FDA's ill-conceived decision to close seven of its 13 laboratories likely would expose American consumers to even more danger from unsafe foods, particularly imports," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., at a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce subcommittee on the FDA and food safety.
The FDA's ability to police the nation's food supply has come under withering criticism from Congress and others amid a string of high-profile cases of foodborne illness, including E. coli-tainted spinach and salmonella-contaminated peanut butter and snack foods, as well as concerns about drug-laced, farmed fish imported from China.
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Investigative counsel Kevin Barstow said he was told by an unnamed FDA deputy lab director that "none of the test results he's seen are completely accurate."
"The words he used were 'not good' and 'spooky,' " Barstow told the subcommittee.
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=37500&dcn=todaysnews
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