Furious Seasons

November 03, 2008

The FDA Is "Fundamentally Broken"

There is an excellent and lengthy article on just how screwed up the FDA has gotten in yesterday's New York Times Sunday Magazine and how many of the problems stem from the inability--if not unwillingness--of the FDA to police Chinese drug and food plants. I've long been critical of the agency for its lazy approach to psychiatric drugs--Zyprexa scandal anyone? or how about SSRIs and suicide?--but the problems are far broader and much deeper and extend into aspirin and foodstuffs.

Here's just one measure of how fouled up people think the agency has become:

"Even the F.D.A.’s staunchest defenders now acknowledge that something is terribly wrong. Among them is Peter Barton Hutt, who served as the agency’s general counsel during the Nixon administration and is widely considered the dean of the F.D.A. bar in Washington. I’ve interviewed Hutt dozens of times over the years, and he has always defended the F.D.A. No more. 'This is a fundamentally broken agency,' Hutt told me earlier this year, 'and it needs to be repaired.'"

I'm not sure that it can be, especially with so many drugs, drug ingredients, food and food ingredients being made in China. I seriously doubt our ability to make the Chinese government play ball with us on food and drug safety and we are fools if we don't think we should be bringing the bulk of our drug and food manufacturing back home.

Gardiner Harris' article is excellent and I encourage one and all to read it.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at November 3, 2008 12:03 AM

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Comments

In my experience in dealing with buying from the Chinese - they will suck you in with good product and a low price, and when you are complacent they will start sending you poorly made product and force price increases down your throat regardless of contracted pricing. They will refuse to deliver if their prices are not met. They will refuse to honor any credits or claims due to shoddy product.

Before anyone cries "stereotyping", this happened again and again and again every time we had to find a new manufacturer because we could not afford the prices for the crap (and i mean crap) they were shipping to us.

I believe the Chinese manufacturers believe us to be nothing more than "stupid Americans" and I am thankful that I do not have to personally deal with them anymore.

The FDA must be as helpless as I felt I was.

Posted by: nvam at November 3, 2008 12:09 PM

The reason the US is outsourcing all of our manufacturing to China is because of their low, low prices based on super-expoitation of labor and loose safety regualations and standards. It gets scarier when it's food and drugs that are being made as cheaply as possible. Instead of making the Chinese govt' play ball with us, why don't we just keep these jobs here in our own backyard? Maybe we are stupid Americans if we don't even look after ourselves.

Posted by: Sophia at November 3, 2008 05:01 PM

The FDA is not a consumer watchdog agency that most ppl believe or hope that it is; it is corrupt, but moreso it rides the axis of evil. AstraZeneca, for example outsourcing Seroquel, and bags of the main ingredient found tainted. It is not rocket science to keep up with this ridiculous shit. The FDA having a hand in the cookie jar (Laughren)doesn't help.

Doesn't it make you want to give up?

Posted by: Stephany at November 3, 2008 06:51 PM

I find it discouraging to try to buy non-Chinese or non-genetically modified products when my own government does everything it can to prevent me from having access to the information I need to make an informed choice. I agree the solution isn't to get the Chinese to live up to our standards. Why should they? There's no reason for them to care about us, what have we ever done for anyone else on the planet besides use their cheap labour?

I would be happy to buy less, but pay more for reliable quality. But my country's economy is built upon mass quantities of cheap plastic crap that's probably leaching carcinogens into everything we eat or breath or touch.

My solution is to avoid medications whenever possible and to buy local food whenever I can. I also do not use prepared or convenience foods if at all possible. Happily, I have discovered they really aren't all that convenient, plus they taste terrible if you're used to cooking your own food.

I'm really very alarmed and unhappy with the influx of Chinese-made, melamine-laced products. I do not blame the Chinese. I do blame the US government, manufacturers and all of us who are willing to settle for anything just as long as we get our WalMart "fix".

Posted by: Sherry at November 4, 2008 05:04 AM

"I'm really very alarmed and unhappy with the influx of Chinese-made, melamine-laced products. I do not blame the Chinese. I do blame the US government, manufacturers and all of us who are willing to settle for anything just as long as we get our WalMart 'fix'."

Amen.

Posted by: Sophia at November 4, 2008 12:56 PM