FSMA gave the FDA more control over inspecting food that is imported into the United States. Unfortunately, the legislation is not likely to be quite as effective as it was intended to be because of probable budget cuts to the FDA’s food safety budget. A Republican-controlled sub-committee just cut the FDA’s food safety budget by nearly 20%, which in effect means it is unlikely that the FDA will be able to follow through on developing the methods needed to inspect foreign food products.
As this TIME magazine article points out, passing the food safety legislation may have been a complete waste of time because of the budget cuts. In fact, the actual food safety budget that passed the appropriations sub-committee is less than it was before the FSMA legislation was even passed. Some experts are saying that imported food will actually be less safe than it was before.
Since one out of six Americans ends up severely ill or hospitalized due to food safety issues and illnesses such as e coli and salmonella, it seems like budgeting a bit more for food safety should be somewhat more of a priority in congress.
(Granted, the FDA is not the only federal agency to take a hit on the budget; HERE is a LINK to an article which gives the ugly truth about the United States budget.)
It’s also surprising to note that the food safety budget has not been affected by the recent e coli outbreak in Europe that has thus far killed 15 people in Germany and 1 person in Sweden. The European e coli outbreak should serve to underscore the seriousness of food safety as well as the importance of food inspection.
In addition to the loss of health and life that foodborne illnesses cause, the countries who have exported unsafe food suffer economically for quite some time after any kind of food-related outbreak. If the FDA were able to inspect all of the food before it was admitted into the United States, it would prevent many of the illnesses and would alert growers’ in the exporting country to any problems in advance. As result, our food would be safer and growers would be able to stop more problems before they happened.