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Monday, May 19, 2008

Shrimpers Ask for Regulation, but Can FDA Help?

An article in The Daily News (Galveston County, TX) provides yet another example of industry groups asking for federal regulation, realizing that safety is good for business. (Thanks to the Government Accountability Project blog for pointing this out.)

Domestic shrimpers — whose share of the American market has fallen to ten percent, according to the article — want new laws that will empower the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to inspect imported shrimp:

The industry is pressuring the federal government to revamp the way the U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspects shipments — only a tiny fraction are inspected, much less tested — and some in the industry want new laws requiring better disclosure of the origins of seafood.

If a foreign supplier refuses entry to American inspectors, the FDA has no legal authority to deny imports from that supplier, said Michael Taylor, a former FDA policy commissioner and professor of health policy at George Washington University….

The FDA has standards for imported seafood, but even if it did have legal authority to inspect every foreign supplier, government audits reveal the FDA is spread so thin that foreign firms can send potentially harmful seafood to the United States almost at will.

The story also underscores the problems with the bureaucratic morass that governs food safety in the United States. While FDA is responsible for regulating seafood, USDA regulates other kinds of meat like beef and poultry. Although USDA has been under fire recently, its track record on food safety is much better than that of the FDA.

Comparatively, USDA is better resourced and more properly authorized by Congress to conduct the kind of inspections necessary to ensure food safety. Before slaughter, USDA is legally required to inspect every head of cattle and every chicken for health and safety. USDA also inspects imported beef and poultry before it can be placed into commerce. While USDA needs more inspectors, its regulatory regime is intended to be exhaustive.

FDA, on the other hand, conducts risk-based inspections. Essentially, the agency makes educated guesses about where it can make the best use of its resources. FDA inspected just 1.2 percent of imported seafood, according to the article.

As a result, there is increasing concern about both domestic and foreign products under FDA's jurisdiction. In the past couple years, seafood, spinach, pet food, and peanut butter have all made headlines. In each instance, it has seemed that a better-resourced or better-functioning FDA could have reduced the chances of those products becoming contaminated.