And now it is tomatoes

One would think that with the recent rash of food poisoning cases the FDA would do its level best to fix the rather obvious problems with the inspection system. Alas, that would be a losing bet.

At a news conference, Mr. Leavitt said he “would like to once again strongly urge Congress to act quickly to enhance the safety of food and medical products,” comments that angered some in Congress, including Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Specter said that administration delays in seeking money for food protection efforts at the food and drug agency amounted to “criminal negligence.”

“The failure to have these inspections is subjecting people to bodily injury and death,” said Mr. Specter, who sent a letter to Mr. Leavitt on Tuesday insisting that the additional money for the F.D.A. should be included in a supplemental request this year, not in next year’s budget.
Food-safety advocates criticized what they said was the government’s inaction in preventing outbreaks of food poisoning.

“How many times does this have to happen before F.D.A. gets serious about food safety?” asked Sarah Klein, a staff lawyer at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Klein is asking the wrong question. The right question is: who should run the FDA so that it can get serious about food safety? Look, I know this will sound repetitive but when the Party that controls the Executive Branch is more interested deregulation than actually performing its proscribed duties, failures of this nature will continue, be it in FEMA, the FDA, the VA medical system, etc.

In general, the GOP takes as gospel the notion that government is the problem. As such, they have very little interest in seeing government provide solutions that serve the commonweal. When government programs succeed, that success undermines the very bedrock of modern conservatism and contradicts the notion that we must fear the Federal boogeyman. Put another way, when one believes that government is the problem that belief very easily slips into self-fulfilling prophecy. Hence we have a Food and Drug Administration incapable of executing its mission. What we need is new leadership.