Today’s Update on the Pet Food Recall—6/4/2007

There are a couple of opinion pieces on food and drug safety that are worth taking a look at today. The Ventura County Star urges an expansion of the FDA to give it the ability to cope with contemporary challenges:

We encourage China to continue working to ensure a safe food supply, but the U.S. cannot rely solely on safeguards instituted abroad. The FDA must be given sufficient funds to hire and train the inspectors it needs to ensure imported food products meet this nation’s highest standards.

Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute calls for an Internet-based country-of-origin labelling law:

Anything ingested by Americans and sold in stores should have an identification number on it that cites the batch of the product. Firms should be required to keep track of the countries of origin of every ingredient in every product they make, and to register that information with the FDA. The FDA should then publish that information on the Internet for all to see.

Is the objection that the food brands have to the labelling law that they don’t want to print the country-of-origin of ingredients, they don’t want to reveal the country-of-origin of ingredients, or that they don’t want to have to keep track of the country-of-origin of ingredients? If it’s the first, Mr. Hassett’s proposal, while making it tougher for consumers, is potentially a compromise that businesses might accept. If it’s either of the latter two or some combination, it’ll have no effect on their opposition at all.

I suspect that what the brands would really like is for us all just to go back to sleep.

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