NYT editorial: You’re Eating That? "Agencies to protect consumers whittled to incompetence."

You’re Eating That?
Published: November 26, 2007

A few years ago Americans walked into the grocery store and plucked items from the shelves with a confidence that the world could only envy. Now, according to a survey for the Food Marketing Institute, only 66 percent of consumers in the United States are confident that the food they buy is safe, down from 82 percent last year. With news of killer spinach, tainted hamburger patties and imported seafood that can provide as many toxins as omega-3s, who can blame them?

Food safety, like toy safety, is part of a growing national concern that government agencies that are supposed to protect consumers have been whittled down to incompetence. The Bush administration insists it is focusing on import safety — finally. Congress must keep pressing for a complete overhaul of the consumer protection system. Each day there is news of another dangerous hole in the consumer safety net.

USA Today pointed out a particularly glaring problem last week. The private laboratories that test foods from companies on the government’s “import alert list” cannot automatically report tainted food to the Food and Drug Administration. Instead, they must give their reports to the importer who is paying for the test. If a shipment fails one laboratory’s test, some importers have switched to a less-reputable laboratory to get the tainted foodstuff through. That cannot be allowed. When labs find a batch of food with too much pesticide or salmonella or worse, they should be required to alert the F.D.A., not hope the companies will come clean for them....

***

After years of mollycoddling the industry, the Bush administration needs to start protecting America’s consumers. Many members of the food industry now understand that they are losing their customers’ confidence, which means they’re in danger of losing their business.

The Food Marketing Institute — with 1,500 members, including major grocery chains and wholesalers — is calling for new rules that would allow the government to recall any food shipment if the producer or importer hesitates. That makes sense to us. Americans need to be a lot more confident that what is on sale at the corner grocery is safe enough to eat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/opinion/26mon1.html?hp

The Gray Lady is a hoot sometimes, isn't it? As if the Administration ever gave a good crap about ordinary Americans!

I know, it's the Newspaper of Record and they have to pretend as if there's anything legitimate about the BFEE, but still. I always get a kick out of how their editorials are worded.

just like any other male written about. It IS a bit of a hoot!

I've heard that he absolutely HATES being referred to as "Mr. Bush," thinking it's a major diss.

as in, "President Bush believes in a man-made component to global warming; why don't you?"

but otherwise, I'm all about referring to him by any number of colorful, insulting names and titles.

so don't hold your breath, NYTimes.

That is the republican rationale given to us for cutting public services and regulations... I guess that the rabid right could claim that costs would have increased even more... but the situation makes their decades long BS pretty transparent. The companies are going to charge as HIGH as they can - few (no?) savings get passed on to the consumers.

So we pay continuing escalating costs (thanks to escalating transportation costs) - we get much less confidence in our food safety. But hey - really rich folks and corporations have gotten huge tax cuts and subsidies - and we get a really popular :sarcasm: war for our money.

Sadly - while this issue highlights all that is wrong in current priorities - it is so "dry" (the perception that the public doesn't like policy talk) - it will likely be little written about and be very unlikely to pierce the public psyche.

To "pierce the public psyche" we'd need a more aware and vigilant population, and probably TV news broadcasters who educate people about the significance of issues like the subject of the posted editorial.

and the public finds them interesting, or at least would if the issues were covered half as well as Britney Spears' panties.

It's become either: a self-fulfilling prophesy where there is no coverage of important matters therefore people who aren't news junkies don't hear of them and their lack of knowledge is then given as proof of lack of interest by a lazy media: and/or it's yet another excuse given in the deliberate dumbing down of America by the less than a dozen media moguls who control the major media (take your pick).

I tested one of those "complicated" and "dry" issues that pundits were bleating about as "too difficult" to understand and "not interesting to the average voter". At the height of Plamegate, I took the time to explain the issue to a number of generally uninvolved people who did not follow the news closely and who had not heard anything about the affair (none of my subjects had a college education). Every one of my subjects understood the story, were outraged by it, and were surprised they hadn't heard anything about what they thought should be a top news story. One of my test subjects went on to register to vote for the first time in her life (she is in her 40's), and voted for Kerry, all because of the "too complicated" story of Plamegate.

People are not dumb. Take a look at the opinion polls. A majority opposed the Iraq war before it started despite near-100% support for the war from news outlets. More people hate Bush today (aka "strongly disapprove") than hated Nixon, even though the media has only recently begun criticizing this administration, and the criticism so far has been mild aside from Olbermann and a few columnists.

We here are not in the minority on the issues. We are solidly in the majority on the major issues of the day. To the degree our opinion differs from that of the general public it is that we are better informed because, lets face it, we're news and politics junkies. We work hard to find out that Country X really did not have any connection to Incident Y, even though government and media propaganda suggests that they did, and Candidate X does not really stand for Policy Y even though his or her propaganda implies that they do. Other people don't have the time, opportunity, or interest in making a hobby of tracking down the news.

If we had a functioning media, and (to a lesser extent) an opposition party with a spine, people would not need to work as hard as it is currently necessary in order to see through every detail of the propaganda. But even without being well-informed, the public gets it.

Think about the food safety issue. Who here hasn't heard someone in their circle of acquaintances express concern about food, pet food, or toy safety in the last year? What is "too complex" about "there are more dangerous products sold today because Republicans (and a few complicit Democrats) have relaxed protections, cut the budgets of inspection agencies, and appointed industry executives to watchdog positions"? I can sum it up in one sentence. But the media is either too lazy to cover the story in its detail, or they don't want to tell Americans why it is so.

and a real good grasp of the failure of our press to fulfill its responsibility, including uncertainty about the exact reason for that failure. And I agree with your example of the Plame matter. That is an EASY one. Yet the press covered it as an issue with two sides, trashing the Wilsons, so the truth was never made clear -- a covert CIA agent, working in the area of weapons of mass destruction, was exposed by her own government for its own nefarious purposes.

(Maybe you should consider posting as a separate thread?)