McClatchy: FDA plan to close field labs draws fire

[babylonsister]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17173852.htm

FDA plan to close field labs draws fire
By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers



WASHINGTON - A Food and Drug Administration plan to close seven of 13 field laboratories has angered some lawmakers, government workers and safety advocates, who fear the move will chase away skilled veteran employees and hurt the FDA's ability to respond to public health emergencies.

The FDA's field labs inspect and analyze food, drugs, animal medications and feeds, medical devices and other health products.

The labs check for compliance with federal guidelines, protect consumers from unsafe, ineffective and mislabeled products, and help investigate public health threats such as product tampering, bio-terrorism, food-borne illnesses and contaminated blood supplies.

Several of the facilities helped investigate the recent pet food scare and E. coli and salmonella outbreaks in spinach and peanut butter. On the heels of these crises, the proposed lab closings have been met with strong suspicion.

"In the middle of all these outbreaks and contamination issues, the timing of the proposal is extraordinarily bad," said Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America.

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[gulfcoastliberal]

1. They'll stop at nothing to gut this country as completely as possible.

We're watching so many spectacular train wrecks; it's giving me ADD! I've got to say climate change is the most spectacular of all, but the open dismantling and destruction of a once "great" nation/empire is right up there.

[gulfcoastliberal]

2. I just realized the SF lab is the one that inspects a lot of Chinese imports..

Here's a good website on this: http://www.nteu.org/FDALabLocations.aspx


As I thought, the San Francisco lab is a major food safety operation:

San Francisco District Lab

• The SF lab analyzes foods and drugs produced, both locally and imported, for other bacterial pathogens like Salmonella, Listeria and Hepatitis.

• The lab also examines food, drugs, cosmetics and candy -- especially imported Mexican candy -- for toxic elements such as lead, cadmium and arsenic.

• The SF lab is a FERN "Food Emergency Response Network” Lab -- meaning it’s prepared to respond to potential terrorist attacks against food and drugs imported via land, sea or air ports. Due to its proximity to ports in Oakland, San Francisco and Stockton, it plays a significant role in the west coast’s food and drug safety.

• FDA Commissioner von Eschenbach gave the San Francisco District Lab high praise for its rapid and excellent analytical work in its analysis for E. coli in last year’s food-borne outbreak which implicated spinach from the Salinas valley. The lab analyzed approximately 800 samples from this outbreak including raw spinach, irrigation water and soil samples.


This is a huge outrage. Huge.