Hundreds of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees who work with food safety said public health has been harmed by their agencies deferring to business interests, according to a survey released today, at a telephone press conference, by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
“Hundreds of scientists and inspectors responsible for food safety have personally experienced political interference in their work, and that’s bad for public health,” said Francesca Grifo, director of UCS’s Scientific Integrity Program. “Both the administration and Congress need to act.”
Just last month, two Iowa farms recalled more than a half-billion eggs linked to about 1,400 cases of salmonella poisoning. Last year, about 700 Americans were sickened and nine died from a salmonella outbreak traced to contaminated Peanut Corporation of America plants. And in 2006, an E. coli outbreak killed three people and sickened more than 200.
More than 1,700 respondents took part in the survey, which was conducted for UCS by the Iowa State University Center for Survey Statistics. Most of the respondents had worked at their agency for more than ten years.
Hundreds of survey respondents identified undue corporate influence as a major problem. More than 620 respondents (38 percent) agreed or strongly agreed that “public health has been harmed by agency practices that defer to business interests.” Three-hundred-and-thirty respondents (27 percent) said they had personally experienced “instances where public health has been harmed by businesses withholding food safety information from agency investigators” in the past year. And more than 300 respondents (25 percent) said they personally experienced corporate interests forcing their agency to withdraw or significantly modify a policy or action designed to protect consumers in the past year. When asked that same question about Congress and non-governmental interests, more than 260 respondents (24 percent) and more than 240 respondents (22 percent) said yes, respectively.
Dean Wyatt, a USDA veterinarian who oversees federal slaughter house inspectors, said his agency regularly punishes inspectors for writing up legitimate safety violations. “Upper level management does not adequately support field inspectors and the actions they take to protect the food supply,” said Wyatt. “Not only is there lack of support, but there's outright obstruction, retaliation and abuse of power.”
More than 100 respondents said that their agencies had asked them to exclude or alter scientific information. For example, 190 respondents (16 percent) said they witnessed officials selectively or incompletely using data to justify a specific regulatory outcome. One-hundred-and-five respondents (10 percent) said agency decision makers inappropriately asked them to exclude or alter information or conclusions in an agency scientific document. Ninety-eight respondents (9 percent) said agency managers asked them to provide incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information to the public, regulated industry, media or government officials.
The results were not all bad. Respondents said that interference had decreased under the Obama administration, compared to the Bush years. However, the improvement was very small.
“A majority said specific reforms would make the nation’s food safer,” said Grifo. “Respondents overwhelmingly said establishing stronger whistleblower protections for inspectors and regulators would improve food safety.”
Respondents supported other reforms, including:
• Seventy-one percent agreed that “requiring each food production facility to conduct a science-based hazard analysis and implement preventive controls” would improve safety.
• Seventy-three percent said that “establishing a comprehensive electronic system to trace food products through the production and distribution system” would improve safety.
• Seventy-five percent said that the FDA should increase the frequency of food safety inspections.
Kenneth Kendrick, a former Peanut Corp assistant plant manager in Plainview, Texas, has first-hand experience with this lack of regulation.
He said he tried to anonymously alert the Texas Department of Health to problems at his plant, but couldn't get anyone's attention. After salmonella was discovered at Peanut Corp's plant in Blakely, Georgia, he helped FDA inspectors locate the source of salmonella contamination at his plant.
“It’s unbelievable that FDA does not routinely inspect processing plants,” said Kendrick. “The plant I worked at was infested with rodents and its ceilings were leaking water from a roof covered with bird feces. No one even looked at this plant until the nation was hit with a massive salmonella outbreak linked to another Peanut Corp plant.”
The Senate is currently considering bipartisan food safety legislation that includes many of the reforms supported by respondents. The bill would grant the FDA the authority to test widely for pathogens, and bolster the agency’s ability to trace outbreaks back to their source. Most important, it would give the agency the power to recall contaminated foods and fine companies that knowingly sell them. Currently, the agency only has the power to request that companies conduct recalls.
Respondents were particularly worried about the safety of imported food, also overseen by FDA. Only 35 percent were completely or mostly confident in the safety of imported foods; 32 percent were only somewhat confident; and 21 percent were not at all confident. The remaining respondents said they didn’t know. The Senate bill would hold foods from overseas to the same standards as domestic products.
“There’s no question that the FDA needs to improve its efficiency and effectiveness,” said Robert Wallace, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Iowa, who has studied the FDA’s food safety system extensively and spoke at the UCS press conference. “Also, it needs better support for its scientific and regulatory activities and a better communication program, and it needs to more fully incorporate risk-based methods into all of its programs.”
The current system is based on a law enacted in 1906, when the major problems were parasites that inspectors could actually see. “Our biggest threats now are microbial, which are much more difficult to detect,” said Grifo.
Grifo said the FDA is starved for resources. The agency is responsible for the safety of 80 percent of the country’s food supply, yet it has half the number of inspectors as the USDA. In part because of this lack of staff, the FDA inspects food production facilities only once every 10 years.
“Food safety legislation is sorely needed, but the administration also could address some of the problems the survey identified by releasing the scientific integrity directive the president said he would release more than a year ago,” said Grifo. “A directive that provided better protection for whistleblowers, ensured scientists and inspectors the right to speak publicly about their work, and ordered agencies to release visitors logs documenting with whom management met would help improve food safety.”
