Obama: be scared about food (aka Obama Pledges to Improve Food Safety)

[IHOPSkins]

Jumbo beat me to it in pointing out the more general flaws in your position. So, I'm going to get specific in pointing out how uninformed your position is in this.

Are you happy to jump onboard?

Jumbo is a good ally....I would also want him to help me fight my battles

By all accounts....

All?

....the FDA has been dysfunctional for many years, probably as far back as Reagan/Bush-or earlier. Over the years the FDA has been so under resourced....

So is every other government program...ask any liberal

.....the FDA has been so under resourced that today they only inspect somewhere in the neighborhood of only 1% of imported foods....

Well the USDA does 15%

According to the FSIS Quarterly Enforcement Report from FY 2006, an average of 15%

of products presented for importation were physically examined or sampled by USDA.5

http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/house_import_testimony.pdf

Furthermore, the climate of deregulation combined with antiquated laws and infrastructure has made their work of assuring food/drug safety difficult, if not impossible.

Hyperbole?

Bush....Oh I mean, Obama is the Master of it

If it was impossible....nobody would get caught, Right?

How many other issues are out there? (isn't that the question?)

....please explain how one could go about fixing this problem WITHOUT spending more $$$ ?

The Liberal answer to most things

I'll bite.............

Alternative #1 "HANG'EM HIGH"

Increase penalties for violations

Use said penalties for more random inspections

Taxpayer Expense Increase?.......ZERO

Side effect = more self regulation

See below for Alternative #2

Maybe they could find food inspectors willing to work without being paid. Oh, I know. Obama is the "Magic Negro"....

Well Obama does seem to have a Magical Money Maker

I hope the coming inflation rate increase doesn't equal your wanted import inspection %

The bottom line is that we need to confront the fallatious idea that we've been fed by the right ...

You are now entering partisan territory

that Govt. should cost nothing.

Funny how Tarriffs used to pay for Government

Maybe if countries want to IMPORT FOOD to the US, they should pay for that privilage?

Tariffs would help with these increased inspection costs.....maybe "At Risk" countries like China would pay More?

Tax or tariffs....you decide

Taxes for government to spend another 1 BILLION dollars takes from everybody

Tariffs would just take $$$$ from the limosine liberal who wants Fresh Imported Seasonal Olives from Greece

In general I agree that smaller Govt. is better.

There is hope for you!

.....However at some point Govt gets so small that it can't effectively do the things we expect....

Obama has just now made an appointment

But he includes 1 Billion for more inspections

Of Course this will improve inspections......The question is

Is this the BEST USE of this money?

I would agree to increasing inspections....in a more porportional manner

IE, the goal is people eating healthy food...NOT 100% of all food inspected!

What percent of Imported Food would you feel safe inspecting?

Side Note

Please read My response to Jumbo....and Jumbos

His Issue with my post was NOT what you think

Side Note 2

Are you more Informed now?

[panel]

You don't think the food industry needs to be looked at? In the last couple of years we have had several large scale recalls (the E.Coli recall about a year ago and the salmonella recall now just to name two). To have two major recalls in two years is unacceptable to me and should be unacceptable to others as well.

Also, the first part of the thread title should be amended.

I'm sorry, I think those recalls were WAY overblown. In the spinach recall we were throwing away tons of food, all because 3 people died. A total of 200 people got sick. With the amount of news coverage that it was getting you would think that thousands of people were dying and millions were getting sick.

Your chances of dying were higher to drive to the store to buy the spinach, then they were to actually eat the spinach.

Food safety is one of those things that gets tons attention, so it gets talked about. I think the FDA is already being overprotective, I don't see the justification in spending more money that we don't have to prevent recalls from ever happening. And to be honest, even if we had the type of oversight that Obama wants, I doubt it would prevent the type of small scale "outbreak" that we saw with spinach. And then we would still be throwing away all our food, and we would be asking why Obama wasn't able to prevent this outbreak, and in reality, it would be just another small scale occurrence that is too small to be caught by a government agency, that is getting blown out of proportion again.

[The Sisko]

Are you happy to jump onboard?

Jumbo is a good ally....I would also want him to help me fight my battles

All?

So is every other government program...ask any liberal

Well the USDA does 15%

According to the FSIS Quarterly Enforcement Report from FY 2006, an average of 15%

of products presented for importation were physically examined or sampled by USDA.5

http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/house_import_testimony.pdf

Hyperbole?

Bush....Oh I mean, Obama is the Master of it

If it was impossible....nobody would get caught, Right?

How many other issues are out there? (isn't that the question?)

The Liberal answer to most things

I'll bite.............

Alternative #1 "HANG'EM HIGH"

Increase penalties for violations

Use said penalties for more random inspections

Taxpayer Expense Increase?.......ZERO

Side effect = more self regulation

See below for Alternative #2

Well Obama does seem to have a Magical Money Maker

I hope the coming inflation rate increase doesn't equal your wanted import inspection %

You are now entering partisan territory

Funny how Tarriffs used to pay for Government

Maybe if countries want to IMPORT FOOD to the US, they should pay for that privilage?

Tariffs would help with these increased inspection costs.....maybe "At Risk" countries like China would pay More?

Tax or tariffs....you decide

Taxes for government to spend another 1 BILLION dollars takes from everybody

Tariffs would just take $$$$ from the limosine liberal who wants Fresh Imported Seasonal Olives from Greece

There is hope for you!

Obama has just now made an appointment

But he includes 1 Billion for more inspections

Of Course this will improve inspections......The question is

Is this the BEST USE of this money?

I would agree to increasing inspections....in a more porportional manner

IE, the goal is people eating healthy food...NOT 100% of all food inspected!

What percent of Imported Food would you feel safe inspecting?

Side Note

Please read My response to Jumbo....and Jumbos

His Issue with my post was NOT what you think

Side Note 2

Are you more Informed now?

GAO-07-785T Federal Oversight of Food Safety: High-Risk Designation Can Bring Attention to Limitations in the Government's Food Recall Programs I'm not really into the whole sentence by sentence answer thing but I will make a good faith effort to respond to your points.

First, you're correct that FSIS does a better job than FDA. Unfortunately, that's a really low bar to clear. Nonetheless, USDA/FSIS still expends way too many resources on visual "poke and sniff" inspections that do little in the way of assuring food safety. Even more importantly, USDA gets most of the funding in spite of the fact that they're not responsible for most of the food supply and the source of 85% of foodborne illness comes from the FDA inspected side.

http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2001/109-7/spheres.html

Among the most fundamental problems with the current system, experts say, is inequitable distribution of resources and responsibility between the FSIS and the FDA. In 1906, the Federal Meat Inspection Act directed the FSIS to visually inspect every single carcass on a production line. Today, at least 7,400 federal inspectors are needed to comply with this statutory mandate. The task of inspecting carcasses and meat plants is so great that in 1999 it consumed $712 million--70% of the federal monies allocated to the two agencies for food safety programs. In the same year, the FDA did its best to monitor the rest of the food supply with the remaining $288 million. In short, the FSIS monitors 20% of the food supply with 70% of the budget, while the FDA monitors 80% of the food supply with only 30% of the budget. Ironically, many experts say the carcass-by-carcass inspection policy at the FSIS is outdated and ineffective for threats such as E. coli O157:H7. "Federal inspectors take an average of two seconds to inspect a chicken carcass," says Taylor. "That may be enough to detect grossly visible contamination, for example fecal matter, but not dangerous bacteria."

The article above was written in 2001. I chose it because the paragraph I quoted sums the problem up well and the issues cited haven’t changed much.

As for your assertion that we should rely on producers to essentially self-regulate in association with large fines, that could potentially work. Unfortunately, there are several problems with that approach. First, there is the problem of the inadequate food trace-back system. That’s why finding the source(s) of foodborne illnesses has often been difficult and time consuming. That’s further complicated by the fact that most cases of foodborne illness go unreported because the victims think it’s “just stomach flu”. However, there’s a bigger ethical problem with your approach. In essence you’re advocating that the American consumer be used as a guinea pig to determine whether food is contaminated or not. Of course, I’m sure you’d reconsider that stance if it was your kid sickened or dead from E. Coli, or if you’re the one that gets CJD. However, if you're willing to step up and make your family the official food tasters for the country, I'm more than willing to agree to that.

The final flaw in your argument is much simpler. In essence you’re saying that allowing the fox to watch the henhouse is a good idea. That really worked out well on Wall Street, huh? Suuuure it did.

Your comment about “Limosine Liberals” wanting fresh luxury items is quite frankly, stupid. Why? Because you have no idea how much we rely on imported foods. And no, I’m not talking about things like Greek olives or Russian caviar. How about “luxury items” like fish, fruit and vegetables.

http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/20080428tfahfoodsafety.pdf

According to USDA’s Economic Research Service, approximately 15 percent of the nation’s food supply is imported. However, the country relies more heavily on imports for certain types of foods. For instance, 60 percent of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. are imported, as is 75 percent of the seafood Americans consume.

Your comment that I’d expect us to inspect 100% of food imports is a nice strawman for you to knock down, but it works less well when I respond to it. My answer to that is really quite simple. I think as much food should be inspected as the science calls for. I have studied and worked in public health, but I know my limitations. I’d be going way beyond my level of expertise to even guess at how much food should be inspected. However, I would hazard a guess that 1% or so is way too little. In any event, I’d trust that food scientists, agro researchers and other scientists would be able to come up with a satisfactory method and degree of testing that would do a good job of assuring a safe food supply without unduly inconveniencing producers. I certainly wouldn’t have a problem with increasing tariffs to accomplish it. On that we agree.

Finally, you’re wrong about a few other things. I’m not a liberal, I don't need Jumbo to fight my battles for me, and I certainly don’t feel more informed after having read your post.

[IHOPSkins]

......I think as much food should be inspected as the science calls for.....

And we agree

How many people died in the US last year?

Is it realistic to expect Zero?

How much would we gain and how much would it cost?

One Billion Dollars to save how many lives?....Maybe?

[IHOPSkins]

.....The final flaw in your argument is much simpler. In essence you’re saying that allowing the fox to watch the henhouse is a good idea. That really worked out well on Wall Street, huh? Suuuure it did. ....

That Suuure is a Flaw......In liberal government

Penalties should be given to Wall Street....but we bail them out

If the FOX got BuckShot...it wouldn't be an issue

But....we say "Don't let it happen again"