July 17, 2007, 11:09AM
Plan to close half of FDA labs raises food safety concerns


By ANDREW BRIDGES
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A Food and Drug Administration plan to close half its laboratories is an assault on food safety that probably would expose more Americans to harm from unsafe food, lawmakers charged today.

The FDA's ability to police the nation's food supply has come under withering criticism from Congress amid a string of high-profile cases of foodborne illness, including E. coli-tainted spinach and salmonella-contaminated snack foods. The FDA, meanwhile, says it's streamlining its operations, including through a plan to consolidate the labs where it tests foods.

Members of Congress called that plan misguided and questioned whether it would save money, as FDA has claimed. Worse, they said, is the risk it would harm food safety.

"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 the onset of a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce subcommittee on the FDA and food safety.

Imports from China, in particular, recently have come under scrutiny. Chinese-made ingredients have been linked to deadly pet food ingredients mixed with industrial chemicals and snack food seasonings contaminated by salmonella.

"We know that we are vulnerable to harm from abroad where rules and regulations governing food production often are more lax than they are at home," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., in raising the prospect of terrorists tampering with imports entering the U.S. food supply.

FDA officials, including commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, were expected to testify later today.

An ongoing Energy and Commerce Committee investigation found the FDA has little ability to police imports. In San Francisco, for example, the FDA's staff can only conduct a cursory review of imports, generally dedicating just 30 seconds to each shipment as it flashes by on a computer screen, according to investigators.

Even when products are flagged by the FDA, importers have learned to game the system, investigators said. For example, the FDA relies on results obtained from private labs before clearing and releasing suspect imports, including Chinese farmed seafood. But those labs produce results driven by financial rather than scientific concerns, investigators told the subcommittee.

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.

Importers also can reduce the level of scrutiny by having their products test negative five consecutive times, according to a summary of the investigators' findings. Since some large fish, including tuna, can be flagged for high mercury levels, importers will arrange to have five lots of smaller fish — generally younger and with comparatively less mercury — tested to obtain an all-clear from the FDA, according to the findings. Once the monitoring decreases, the importers can then resume bringing in larger fish that otherwise might not pass muster.

Some potentially problematic seafood imports are being steered to enter the country in Las Vegas to avoid the scrutiny they might receive in San Francisco and other West Coast seaports, according to House investigators.

The problems go beyond food. In Puerto Rico, investigators learned importers were getting around the FDA's blocking of imports of Chinese-made toothpaste made with an antifreeze ingredient by co-packaging them with toothbrushes. Once labeled in import records simply as "toothbrushes," the packages were able to slip past the FDA until the agency caught on, senior investigator David Nelson said. Examples of the tainted toothpaste included a Crest knockoff called "Crust," Nelson said.

July 20, 2007, 10:11PM
Tainted food is traced to developing nations
Mexican onions, cantaloupe; India's pickled mangoes; Chinese toothpaste


By TRACI CARL
Associated Press


MEXICO CITY — Mexican cantaloupe irrigated with water from sewage-tainted rivers. Candy laced with lead. Chinese toothpaste is not the only concern for U.S. consumers wary of the health risks posed by imported goods.

Producers in other developing nations are big violators of basic food safety standards, even as they woo consumers with a growing appetite for foods like pickled mangoes from India and winter-season fruits and vegetables from Mexico.

On Wednesday, President Bush established a high-level government panel to recommend steps to guarantee the safety of food shipped into the U.S. and to improve policing of those imports.

"The administration is concerned about the safety of imported products that Americans eat and use," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

China, already under suspicion as the source of tainted toothpaste, contaminated fish and toxic medicine, had the largest number of violations in the past 12 months, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejecting 1,901 shipments of food or cosmetics. But India and Mexico weren't far behind, with inspectors rejecting 1,787 and 1,560 shipments, respectively.

The biggest reasons? Foods that are unapproved or contain poisons and pesticides. Some are simply dirty, with inspectors finding that the shipment "appears to consist in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise unfit for food."

And those are just the problems that are caught. FDA inspectors only have the money and resources to check about 1 percent of the 8.9 million imported food shipments a year. Many of those inspections target problem products from problem nations, like Indian relishes or Mexican cantaloupe.

The FDA banned all cantaloupe from Mexico in 2002 after four salmonella outbreaks traced to the fruit killed two people in the United States and hospitalized at least 18 others.

While some Mexican cantaloupe exporters have regained the FDA's trust by adopting cleaner irrigation methods, Mexican melons are often contaminated by sewage-laced water. In June alone, the FDA rejected six shipments of Mexican cantaloupe, 4 percent of the 139 total shipments from Mexico, because of salmonella.

Mexican green onions were blamed for a 2003 outbreak of hepatitis A in Pennsylvania that was traced to the Chi-Chi's restaurant chain. Four people died and more than 600 people were sickened.

And three Mexican candy manufacturers, including two subsidiaries of Mars Inc. and Hershey Co., agreed last year to lead testing and annual audits after The Orange County Register found that California state and federal regulators knew spicy Mexican candies could cause lead poisoning in children, but did nothing.

Candy makers are still major violators, making up at least 15 percent of the FDA's June rejections for Mexico after inspectors determined that shipments were filthy, unsafe or contained pesticides.

In the same month, FDA inspectors determined that four shipments of oral electrolyte solution — used to treat dehydration in children with acute diarrhea or vomiting — contained unsafe coloring and false labeling.

I saw the Hearings, and if I were Stupak I would recommend all the top appointed FDA people and all hired by them or the Bush Administration be summarily fired and brought up on charges of endangering the health of the American people.

If they aren't immediately fired I would call for their Impeachment since they are "Federal Officers".

And that would just be for starters.

Firing a couple levels of management without having replacements lined up would be even more crippling and the charge you advocate doesn't exist in our laws. Their impeachment would assure the senate being unable to oppose the administration for the rest of the term, this would include the inability to impeach Bush + Cheney as the FDA impeachments would have to be one at a time and replacements would have to be approved by the senate, and that's assuming the best (conviction).

Firing a couple levels of management without having replacements lined up would be even more crippling and the charge you advocate doesn't exist in our laws. Their impeachment would assure the senate being unable to oppose the administration for the rest of the term, this would include the inability to impeach Bush + Cheney as the FDA impeachments would have to be one at a time and replacements would have to be approved by the senate, and that's assuming the best (conviction).