With tainted food from China flooding into the United States, the feds must take steps to protect a vulnerable public. And they should crack down on food produced here, too.
As sad as it was for people whose cats and dogs got sick from pet food contaminated with ingredients from China, the incident may have been the wake-up call this country needs.
A recent Washington Post review of Food and Drug Administration records revealed that for years a largely unregulated Chinese marketplace flooded the United States with food unfit for human consumption, including juices and fruits rejected as "filthy," dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical and swordfish rejected as "poisonous."
FDA inspectors were able to interdict only a small portion of the bad food, and, on occasion, the Chinese companies tried sending those tainted foods back to the U.S. Quite clearly, the FDA needs far more resources to protect an unsuspecting American public, but the solution will also require the U.S. to get tough.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), as chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, sponsored a proposal to give the FDA authority to reject imported foods from questionable foreign suppliers that reject FDA inspections of their facilities. He's also called for additional research and rapid response teams to help prevent and contain contamination of produce.
Those steps would be a big help, but, inexcusably, not everyone's on the same page. Many U.S. companies have become commercially dependent on Chinese imports. Others don't want to rock the boat because they want the Chinese to buy more U.S. goods, such as beef. And a consumer advocate told The Post that previous attempts to toughen FDA rules often hit a wall with the Bush administration.
What's more, the problem isn't just China, evidenced by news stories about contaminated produce and meat produced in the U.S. Advocacy groups such as the Minneapolis-based private Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, which promotes sustainability and family farms, have warned for years about the excessive use of antibiotics in livestock feed, which organizations such as the American Medical Association believe have contributed to the increasing problem of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans.
A study last year by the institute found brand-name chicken products in U.S. supermarkets and fast-food restaurants were "widely contaminated with arsenic" because U.S. growers, unlike those in Europe, continue to use the substance in chicken feed to promote growth, said David Wallinga, a physician and director of the institute's food and drug program.
What can consumers do? Show support for efforts like Kohl's to crack down on imported food suppliers and demand the feds toughen rules on food produced here. It won't be cheap, but the cost needs to be weighed against the need to protect health and lives.Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
