bush,jr / Republican admninistration makes us less safe at home

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sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-flafda0718nbjul18,0,7425419.story

 

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

 

Plan to cut FDA labs sparks criticism

 

Employees fear food inspections would suffer

 

By Claudia Lauer

 

Los Angeles Times

 

July 18, 2007

 

Washington The Food and Drug Administration would be unable to ensure the

nation's food safety if a plan to close half its testing laboratories goes

through as suggested, a House panel was told Tuesday.

 

The agency has come under increased scrutiny in recent months because of a

succession of well-publicized problems with food, including peanut butter

contaminated with salmonella, spinach contaminated with E. coli and fish

imported from China and found to have traces of illegal antibiotics.

 

In testimony Tuesday before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee,

congressional investigators criticized the reorganization plan and said they

doubted the FDA's ability to police food imports.

 

"The FDA lacks sufficient resources and authority to be effective," said

David Nelson, chief investigator for the Energy and Commerce Committee.

 

In his opening statement, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the

subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said the FDA inspects fewer

than 1 percent of the food imports that come through the nation's ports and

takes samples from only a fraction of those.

 

Investigators said much of the problem stems from the laboratories being

understaffed or lacking the authority to scrutinize shipments of products

unless they are on a watch list from the FDA head office.

 

They argued that closing seven of 13 laboratories, as FDA Commissioner

Andrew von Eschenbach is suggesting, would only weaken the agency's ability

to police imports.

 

Investigators said they feared that closing the laboratories could have a

negative effect on food security at ports of entry by depleting their

already understaffed operations.

 

They said many foreign food importers have learned how to get around FDA

testing by shipping their products directly to cities where there are no

agency laboratories.

 

For example, they said, because the FDA laboratory in San Francisco has

expertise in examining seafood, companies have started shipping more fish to

Las Vegas.

 

"Stop the reorganization. They have given us no justification for the

closures," Nelson said. "There is a lot of indication that it will cost more

than it will save."

 

Directors from five of the targeted laboratories also testified, arguing

that each of their facilities had special programs that weren't available

elsewhere, including the only food irradiation testing site in Winchester,

Mass.

 

Von Eschenbach said the plan was getting an early bad rap.

 

"I want to make it very clear, the closures are for one purpose and one

purpose only: to bring the FDA laboratory infrastructure into the 21st

century," he said.

 

"It's going to be very painful, but we are not closing labs with the idea of

eliminating functionality."

 

Von Eschenbach said new consolidated district offices would have

state-of-the-art robotics equipment that would make testing easier and in

some cases more portable, allowing for more agents to go out to sites to

test products on the spot.

 

The current system requires most samples to be transported to a laboratory

for testing.