Melamine, anyone? Bush has cut FDA food inspections in HALF. Bush "not alarmed" by '04 food warnings

[Bluebear]

The federal agency that has been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls. "We have a food safety crisis on the horizon," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

That's not all that's dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

---There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.

---Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency's own statistics...

The Bush Administration's budget request for 2008 includes an additional $10.6 million for food safety at the FDA; the lobbying group said 10 times that increase is needed. Even though the FDA increased its overall spending on food between 2003 and 2006, those increases failed to keep pace with rising personnel costs. "It's not just outsiders like us who have been watching it for a while. People who worked in the Bush Administration are coming out and saying the agency is not working at its current resource levels. It just can't manage the job," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1594020,00.html

====

Bush not alarmed by warning on food supply

WASHINGTON -- President Bush expressed no alarm yesterday about a warning from his outgoing top health official that the US food supply is vulnerable to terror attacks but would not deny the assessment and assert that the nation's food is safe...

"We're a large country with all kinds of avenues where somebody can inflict harm," Bush said. "We're doing everything we can to protect the American people. There's a lot of work to be done."

Thompson had said he worries "every single night" about a possible terror attack on the food supply, and despite dramatic increases in inspections of food imports, only "a very minute amount" of food is tested at ports and airports.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/05/bush_not_alarmed_by_warning_on_food_supply/

[Lasher]

1. Any of you libertarians out there know how a benevolent free market will rectify this?

I'll bet if those pesky FDA inspectors stop interfering with business, these problems will self-resolve in the ensuing anarchy.


http://www.attackcartoons.com/index.php?topic=LibertarianMan&page=2

[Up2Late]

2. I really like this one from David Horsey at the Seattle P-I

Originally published on Tuesday, April 24, 2007

<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=1579>

[emilyg]

4. Thank you

[Lasher]

6. I love toons

[pnwmom]

9. Well, at least the dead

won't have to pay any more of those unfair taxes.

:sarcasm:

[mzmolly]

20. LMAO

Might as well look on the "bright" side huh?

:crazy:

[Hubert Flottz]

12. We need to regulate deregulation, before we become extinct too.

Are you better off today that you were in 2000?

[Lasher]

13. Now there's a slogan I'd like to see recycled.

I'm not better off and I know it's going to get worse. Pretty soon they'll be looking for a specimen of the USA middle class to preserve and display in a museum.

[DesEtoiles]

3. you should diary ths on dailykos - it will go right to the top

[Bluebear]

10. norma

how does one do that? never been!

[DesEtoiles]

18. go to www.dailykos.com and sign up for a username

if it takes you a couple days to post as a new user I will post it for you, and I will clearly label it as posted for you so you get the benefit of your work

[JCMach1]

5. Insanity, pure insanity!

[tiptoe]

7. All part of Neocon fear tactic and goal to PRIVATIZE the FDA (by making government look bad) ...

same MO as Katrina response
same MO as SBA response to 9/11
same MO as USDA response to Mad Cow
etc
etc

Grover Norquist "Starve the beast" (U.S. Government) of tax revenues and drain the US Treasury (via perpetual wars based on lies) ==> cutbacks in funding of gov't programs, led by idiot-appointees who understand that Medals of Freedom go to those who do a "Heckuva Job" in performing deliberately-incompetently, all for the sake of debasing "government" to make argument FOR "privatization."

AND IT'S UNFORTUNATE THAT A FEW (MILLION) PEOPLE (AND PETS) HAVE TO GET SICK, DIE OR BECOME MAIMED: GOTTA CRACK A FEW EGGS TO MAKE AN OMELET (AND IT'S HAAARD WORK) :sarcasm:

http://tinyurl.com/QKK23

[tiptoe]

8. "We're doing everything we can to TERRIFY the American people. There's a lot of SABOTAGE to be done"

http://tinyurl.com/QKK23

[Vinca]

11. I can't believe the report today that the recalled pet food was not

discarded, it was dumped into the farm animal feed mix. Nothing like a nice breast of melamine chicken. It's as if the entire world has gone insane.

[Lasher]

14. Don't be silly. Do you know what that would have done to 1st quarter profit margins?

So much for blaming this fiasco solely on those sneaky Chinese.

Next on the menu: Soylent green.

[Bluebear]

15. Think of the lost profits though!

That's all that makes the world go 'round anymore!

[jgraz]

16. "Nobody could have anticipated the collapse of the food supply"

[donco6]

17. Remember during the debates and Bush was asked . . .

. . . about people from the US buying Canadian pharmaceuticals at reduced prices . . . why that was being stopped by the Bushies? Bush said something like, "Well, we need to make sure they're not gonna kill ya!" So he was all concerned about us being killed by cheap drugs, but at the same time was reducing the number of food inspectors.

Is he even capable of telling the truth?

[Nikki Stone1]

19. kick and recommend

:kick: