It was in 1970, the year after Richard Nixon became president, that I came to Washington to be a new Nader's Raider. On my first day at work, Ralph Nader asked me to research and write a book about food additives. I had no idea what food additives were, let alone how to write a book, but I dove in.
It didn't take me long to see why some people considered the three letters F-D-A to stand not only for Food and Drug Administration, but also for Foot Dragging Artists. For the next four decades I've seen countless examples of failure to act, which have resulted in countless illnesses and deaths.
One glaring example of FDA's plodding pace concerned sulfites, which had long been used as preservatives in wine, raisins, and other foods and were thought to be safe. In 1982 the FDA proposed that sulfites formally be declared "generally recognized as safe," or GRAS, a legal category of substances added to food, even though several years before California researchers found that sulfites could trigger asthma attacks. The problem arose because restaurants had begun soaking iceberg lettuce and peeled, raw potatoes in a sulfite solution. The sulfites prevented browning but resulted in high levels in the foods.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) publicized the sulfite problem and then, even in those pre-Internet days, heard from many people who suffered asthma attacks after eating a restaurant salad or drinking a glass of wine. Then we heard from more than a dozen people whose family members died after eating sulfite-laced foods. That made me realize that sulfites had probably caused hundreds or thousands of deaths.
With people dying, CSPI petitioned FDA to ban sulfites, but the agency did nothing. 60 Minutes ran, and then re-ran, a story, but still the FDA did nothing. It took a 1985 congressional hearing led by Rep. John Dingell to move the FDA. The parents of a young girl told the committee how she died minutes after eating a salad with sulfite-treated ingredients. FDA commissioner Frank Young then acknowledged that the agency published its GRAS proposal without updating its literature review. But it took five years, and who knows how many unnecessary deaths, before the FDA finally banned sulfites from fresh vegetables and limited the amounts permitted in other foods.
Numerous more recent examples demonstrate that the FDA still needs a major transfusion of spine stiffener to take on the food industry and protect consumers:
Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, estimated that trans fat was causing tens of thousands of fatal heart attacks annually. So in 2004, CSPI petitioned the FDA to ban partially hydrogenated oil, which is still officially GRAS. Eight years later, the FDA still has not done so, and some foods -- like Marie Callender's Lattice Apple Pie, Pillsbury Grands! Buttermilk Biscuits, Pop Secret popcorn, and White Castle Chocolate Frosted Donuts -- still contain copious amounts of the deadly fat. (Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, and Iceland have all essentially banned the use of partially hydrogenated oil.)
The bottom line is that FDA officials just don't act as if they are the protectors of health that the public expects them to be. Instead, time and time again, they have shoved problems under the carpet, perhaps hoping the problems will be forgotten or solved through voluntary action.
The FDA appears to suffer from two problems. First, its own staff requires virtually absolute proof -- as in dead bodies with toe tags identifying the chemical cause of death -- that a substance is deadly before it dares reverse a previous approval. Second, agency officials fear that companies would run to their friends in Congress to stop the agency from acting. And with the current pro-business House of Representatives, that is not an idle concern. But whatever the underlying cause, the public expects -- and deserves -- greater protection from the agency that was established to keep harmful substances out of their daily diet.
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This is the FDA.
The FDA should only be banning substances that are inherently and universally dangerous, and instead forcing disclosure of other substancs and ensuring accuracy of reporting.
You have no right to tell people they can't eat a lot of salt, but telling them "this item has 850mg of sodium" is certainly reasonable.
I think the average person assumes there is some reputable watchdog agency or good safety standards for food and drink, when it's really the wild west and you're on your own to educate and protect yourself from harm.
And good luck even finding the information.
Get a life and an education.
If you want to use it, I believe the word is "overrun".
Even at that, foods (Genetically-Modified, or otherwise) don't overrun anything.
They are usually inanimate products that can't move.
The FDA has tested thousands of foods.
In genaral, the US public does not read the labels on food packages.
What good would your desired warnings do?
By-the-way - Your spelling and punctuation need some work.
You're a grammar/spelling critic and you say this ''don't overrun anything," and spell general ''general'' ?
And by the way -- the whole process of food testing, protecting the public, etc, has been politicized. You will not be able to READ on the label what pesticide residues are on /in the product! You won't even be able to find out which products are GMO because of political pressures!
It will take nothing short of a strong boycott of suspect products in order to make changes. And given that the vast majority of America is now nothing more than internet addicted, apathetic, "I'm privileged" cattle, there is no chance any boycott will work.
America only has maybe one or two decades left before it collapses in on itself and is picked apart by other countries. Our Congress and White House are seeing that this happens...
Sad, but true.
I worked in early PCB research in the 60's and had the same experience. Companies continued to sell solvents laced with this chemical for years after they knew it was a huge hazzard to health. People are told to sign non disclosure agreements not just to protect secret formulas but also to scare and put fear in employees that might let the public know about findings. It happens every day. You eat at your own risk.
Just be a buyer beware consumer and try to do the best you can..Oh BTW those ingredient labels mean very little. It's an out-dated computer program developed by ....yep you guessed it....FDA.