Oh, wait, no it isn't:
The federal agency that's been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.
The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.
"We have a food safety crisis on the horizon," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. (Paging Dr. Gupta blog: Who's leading the food safety charge? )
Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.
That's not all that's dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:
• There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.
• Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency's own statistics.
Maybe I should go back to soaking my veggies in chlorox like I used to during the cholera outbreak.
Posted by binky at February 27, 2007 07:50 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Hacktastic! | Health | Politics | Shame