FDA budget fails

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Despite years of warnings and reports of unsafe food making it to grocery shelves, President Bush’s final budget proposal pays only token notice to the problem.

The White House offers a 5.7 percent increase for the Food and Drug Administration, a poorly staffed agency unable to fulfill its obligation to protect the bulk of the nation’s food and medicine supplies. That increase is an insult to the American people, who face an unnecessary risk because the FDA has been gutted and unable to do its job, particularly when it comes to inspecting imported food.

As we noted last week, federal auditors recently told Congress that the FDA is badly broken and in dire need of help. Former FDA attorney Peter Barton Hutt, a member of a panel of experts brought in to assess the agency, said to properly do its job, the agency needs its funding doubled and a 50 percent increase in staff.

The Bush budget allocation would amount to a drop in the bucket. Under the administration’s plan, the number of full-time employees in the FDA’s food inspection program would grow to 2,810 in the 2009 fiscal year, which is 133 fewer people than the program had in fiscal year 2005.

Considering the number of food safety issues that have come to light in the past few years, from spinach contaminated by E. coli to contaminated pet food from China, the federal government should be making food inspection, particularly of imports, a priority. Congress should boost the FDA’s budget, giving the agency what it needs to protect the American people.