Here’s my plan to reform the food safety system—take the asylum keys away from the inmates. The New York Times documents the absolute unmitigated disaster of our privatized, volunteer food safety system. But the first three paragraphs sum up the entirety of the problem:
When food industry giants like Kellogg want to ensure that American consumers are being protected from contaminated products, they rely on private inspectors like Eugene A. Hatfield. So last spring Mr. Hatfield headed to the Peanut Corporation of America plant in southwest Georgia to make sure its chopped nuts, paste and peanut butter were safe to use in everything from granola bars to ice cream.
The peanut company, though, knew in advance that Mr. Hatfield was coming. He had less than a day to check the entire plant, which processed several million pounds of peanuts a month.
Mr. Hatfield, 66, an expert in fresh produce, was not aware that peanuts were readily susceptible to salmonella poisoning—which he was not required to test for anyway. And while Mr. Hatfield was inspecting the plant on behalf of Kellogg and other food companies, the Peanut Corporation was paying him for his efforts.
1) Where’s the FDA in all this and 2) how many logical flaws can you find in this system? Nowhere and lots. Food inspections are just too darn expensive—let’s have the food companies take care of it for us. And make no mistake: our friends in the food industry really, really don’t want the government snooping around. Even when mild reforms are proposed, like toughening audit standards and automatically alerting federal authorities when problems arise, the food industry screams bloody murder. Which is funny tragic when you think about it, given recent events.
If you want detailed reform proposals, ask Bill Marler. But at the end of the day there are three things that will fix food safety. Cut red tape, spend lots more money, and de-privatize the food safety business. Luckily that’s just the kind of reform we’re good at. We are good at doing those sorts of things.
Aren’t we?
Food safety: How local can you go?
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Comments
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amazingdrx Posted 12:59 am
06 Mar 2009
It would even save companies as corrupt as the Peanut Corporation of America, If they would gave been forced to cleanup, they would still be in business.
Now add in all the re-regulation in every sector of our economy and tha's real stimulation through job creation. Imagine if GH would have been forced to build high mileage cars by regulation? Would they be solvent now?
Imagine if AIG would have been forced to back their insurance policies with real assets? Or if mortgage standards would have been in place, enforced by actual regulators that visit each mortgage company periodically and test random morthage deals?
If we want free and fair trade the first step is to find the poisonous products coming in. How can honest businesses compete with crooked ones when no regulation is the Reagan revolutionary rule?
The corpor-right limboob shills will tell you this is socialism. But imagine an economy where consumers can trust business, business that is reasonably, randomly (this is vital for quality control in all government and business endeavors), and competently regulated. Won't that drive a new boom as money comes out from under mattresses again?
Random regulation allows a very small random sample to police a huge industry. 1000 visits to food distributors, for instance, could identify and cure problems in millions of businesses.
The same for mortgages, cars, derivative trades, whatever...a small pecentage of random samples can fix a whole system. This is the basic quality control method used in all mass production. Regulators need to get the message of simple mathematical statistics.
It's the basis of public polling too. A thousand people chosen at random can track public opinion over the whole population, to within a few percentage points of error.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Ted Clayton Posted 1:52 am
06 Mar 2009
However, the U.S.A. has a very large food-system, and the rate of such egregious examples is very, very low.
PCA not only had a problem - they knew they had a problem, and criminally concealed it. Once operations are willing to go criminal, I think the normal assumptions about quality-control options basically go out the window.
Not only were they criminal, they were seriously stupid, since the peanut-contaminant was bound to start making people sick.
Inspectors - even under the best systems - can only do so much. There is only so much testing that can be done, without either halting all production (waiting for test-results to return, follow-up test, etc), or driving product-prices to show-stopping levels. Peanut butter at $15 a pound is no longer a product, because it won't move in the market. It's no longer nutritious, since folks can't afford it.
Therefore, I don't see the suggestion to simply open the coffers and pitchfork money at the problem as a credible proposal.
Inevitably, screening & testing and working reasonably with reasonable food-providers will still leave us with less than 100% safety.
No criminality and no lack of protocol was involved, for example, in the recent spinach-contamination episode. We still have no firm accounting of how the spinach-problem arose ... and thus we have no way to know when & if it will arise again.
"The entirety of the problem" simply is not "peanuts", nor spinach. I don't think the general problem is rampant criminality ... nor 'lack of government'. While good inspection-systems (both government & industry) are helpful, they are not perfect. There will continue to be the occasional problem.
No, I don't want $15 peanut butter ... or $10/bunch spinach. ... Maybe some do, but I don't see it as a solution, so much as simply another problem.
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cheflovesbeer Posted 2:52 am
06 Mar 2009
There is no reason the companies can not pay the government to perform inspections. I know they will scream bloody murder about taxes. Another Reagan/Bush myth. Taxes are how we fund things like fire departments, roads,and all manner of things.
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KenG Posted 3:12 am
06 Mar 2009
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:37 am
06 Mar 2009
But the whole idea of auditors and inspectors being chosen by the industry inspected and audited is stupid. The computer work I do has led to me happening to be on site at large companies on a number of occasions when audits are being done, both financial audits, and resource audits. And one aspect of the process was pretty much the same. The auditor would be given the documents the company thought they would need, and would decide they need more. The company would grumble and provide the information and backup required. The auditors would provide an analysis. The company would want the results to show higher or lower profits or higher or lower reserves. The auditor would explain what would be needed to support this. In some cases they would ask for more documentation. In others the auditor would change assumptions and add a footnote about the new assumptions. But in the end the company would end up with an audit showing what they asked for, or so close as not to matter. The competitive market at work: an auditor that refused to this would not have hired again. The company would have found a more cooperative auditor next time around.
Incentives matter. Truly independent auditors and inspectors may not be sufficient to fix our food system, but they are needed. And I see no reason that a decent system of government inspectors should lead to $15 per jar peanut butter. I will note that government building inspectors, though not panacea works reasonably well in the U.S. The U.K. system of builders hiring their own building inspectors does not have an enforcement record particularly superior to the way the U.S. does it. And from what I gather, it leads to certain rules, particularly those on energy efficiency, being widely unenforced.
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newsnerd Posted 4:39 am
06 Mar 2009
A musing from the corner cubicle.
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