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FINDINGS

On average, FDA inspects less than a quarter of food facilities each year, and the number of facilities inspected has declined over time. Between fiscal years (FY) 2004 and 2008, FDA inspected annually an average of 24 percent of the food facilities subject to its inspection. Except for a few instances, there are no specific guidelines that govern the frequency with which inspections should occur. Further, the number of food facilities that FDA inspected declined between FYs 2004 and 2008, even as the number of food facilities increased. In addition, the number of inspections of facilities that have been designated by FDA as “high risk” has also declined. FDA officials noted that the overall decline in FDA inspections was largely due to a decline in staffing levels.

Fifty-six percent of food facilities have gone 5 or more years without an FDA inspection. FDA identified 51,229 food facilities that were subject to inspection and were in business from the start of FY 2004 until the end of FY 2008. Of these, 56 percent were not inspected at all, 14 percent were inspected a single time, and the remaining 30 percent were inspected two or more times. If FDA does not routinely inspect food facilities, it is unable to guarantee that these facilities are complying with applicable laws and regulations.

The number of facilities that received OAI classifications has declined over time. The number of inspected facilities that received OAI classifications decreased from 614 in FY 2004 to 283 in FY 2008. The percentage of facilities that received OAI classifications also dropped from nearly 4 percent to nearly 2 percent during this 5-year period. In addition, nearly three-quarters of the facilities that received OAI classifications in FY 2008 had a history of violations. Two percent of facilities that received OAI classifications refused to grant FDA officials access to their records.

FDA took regulatory action against 46 percent of the facilities with initial OAI classifications; for the remainder, FDA either lowered the classification or took no regulatory action. In FY 2007, a total of 446 facilities initially received OAI classifications. FDA took regulatory action against 46 percent of these facilities. For the remainder, FDA lowered the OAI classification for 29 percent and took no regulatory action for 25 percent.

For 36 percent of the facilities with OAI classifications in FY 2007, FDA took no additional steps to ensure that the violations were corrected. In FY 2007, 280 facilities received OAI classifications that were not lowered by FDA. For 36 percent of these facilities, FDA did not reinspect them within a year of the inspection or review other evidence provided by facilities to ensure that the violations were corrected.

29

THE EPA’S BLIND SIDE

Pesticides and Honeybees

We all learned in grade school how important the honeybees are to our food production. And we know that they’ve been dying off in droves over the past several years. Nobody’s yet determined exactly why, but the spraying of pesticides is one of the prime suspects.

At the end of 2010, some brave and outraged individual within the Environmental Protection Agency leaked an internal memo. It’s a lengthy new EPA study of a tongue-twister pesticide called clothianidin, which is manufactured by the German agrichemical giant Bayer. Their Bayer CropScience division had applied to use this particular pesticide as a seed treatment on cotton and mustard. It’s already widely used on corn, soy, wheat, sugar beets, sunflowers, and canola in the States. In 2009, Bayer took in about $262 million in sales of clothianidin.

This new study says flat out that the health of our nation’s honeybees is imperiled by this product. That’s actually been a concern for almost ten years, except the EPA under Bush granted “conditional registration” to clothianidin in 2003. Bayer’s own study in 2007 was rubber-stamped by the EPA as “scientifically sound.” And, in April 2010, the Obama administration’s EPA granted full