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are now infected with this pathogen, which largely replaced less virulent forms of the bacteria in chicken flocks during the 1960s. This replacement was not inevitable; only five flocks infected with S. enteritidis have been identified in Sweden, for example, since 1987. Chickens infected with S. enteritidis do not usually become sick, but they pass the bacteria along to their eggs and to each other. Although the FDA is responsible for preventing transmission of foodborne illness from animals to humans, it inspects shell eggs, not hen houses. Three USDA agencies have some responsibility for eggs. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) oversees animal health but not egg safety—because the chickens are not sick. The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) grades eggs for size and quality but does not oversee their safety. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspects liquid, frozen, and powdered egg products but not shell eggs. Even though more than 10,000 cases of S. enteritidis infections are reported each year, and more than 600,000 cases are suspected, these kinds of divisions impede cooperation, and none of the agencies has established a program to keep eggs free of a pathogen contributing to substantial illness in the population.50

FIGURE 4. An example of the inconsistent and illogical federal oversight of the safety of beef and chicken broths. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates beef broth and dehydrated chicken soup, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates dehydrated beef soup and chicken broth. (Source: General Accounting Office, GAO/RCED-92-152, June 1992.)

Even with the best of intentions, it would be difficult to keep up with food safety problems given the changes in the U.S. food system since 1906. By the early 1980s, for example, the poultry industry had already expanded far beyond any reasonable inspection capacity. In 1975, USDA officials examined 14 billion pounds of birds at 154 plants; just six years later they had to inspect 29 billion pounds at 371 plants. The USDA has 7,000 inspectors or so, and they oversee 6,000 meat, poultry, and egg establishments—and 130 importers—that slaughter and process 89 million pigs, 37 million cattle, and 7 billion chickens and turkeys, not to mention the 25 billion pounds of beef and 7 billion pounds of ground beef produced each year. Today’s poultry plants slaughter and process more than 90 birds per minute on production lines, and each USDA inspector must examine 35 birds per minute.51 No matter how impossible such demands may be, current laws require USDA inspectors to examine every carcass, and they do so to the best of their abilities.

If anything, the demands on FDA are even more unreasonable. About 700 FDA inspectors must oversee 30,000 food manufacturers and processors, 20,000 warehouses, 785,000 commercial and institutional food establishments, 128,000 grocery and convenience stores, and 1.5 million vending operations. The agency also must deal with food imports, which comprised 40% of the country’s supply of fresh fruits and vegetables and 68% of the seafood in 2000. The FDA’s budget allocation for inspection purposes was just $283 million in 2000, minuscule by any standard of federal expenditure. It is not surprising that the FDA conducted only 5,000 inspections annually, visited less than 2% of the places under its jurisdiction, and inspected less than 1% of imported foods prior to 2001, when threats of bioterrorism temporarily forced improvements.52

Although the USDA has more than twice the budget and ten times the employees of the FDA, it regulates just 20% of the food supply, and foods under its jurisdiction account for just 15% of reported foodborne illnesses. A few years ago, Congress required the USDA to take its responsibilities more seriously, and the agency appointed an undersecretary for food safety. Within the arcane world of government, however, this official outranks the FDA commissioner, and the status differences add to coordination difficulties. The FDA chafes at the imbalance in budget