F.D.A. Inspections Lax, Congress Is Told, while imports doubled

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/washington/18imports.html?ex=1342411200&en=22c114e20d58c101&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

F.D.A. Inspections Lax, Congress Is Told

By MARIAN BURROS
Published: July 18, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 17 — It did not take exporters and importers long to learn that the safety net for goods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration is full of holes.

According to testimony Tuesday before a House subcommittee, they have been able to bring tainted products into this country because the F.D.A. has neither enough resources nor inspectors to stop them. And each year it has become easier: since 2003, the number of inspectors has decreased while imports of food alone have almost doubled.

Recently consumers have had a crash course in the hazards of imported products, especially those from China: pet food and pig and chicken feed contaminated with melamine; counterfeit toothpaste with diethylene glycol; fish contaminated with antibiotics and a suspected cancer-causing agent; the use of carbon monoxide to make decomposed fish look fresh.

Despite headlines about these imports, the F.D.A. intends to close 7 of its 13 laboratories that test for these problems. Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the subcommittee, said the closings “would likely expose Americans to even more danger from unsafe food, particularly imports.”

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