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Recent months have proven to be
nothing short of an evolving period of crisis for the
American food industry, dealing first of all with the nightmare of contaminated
spinach. Soon afterwards, deadly
microbes began showing up in peanut butter, of all things. And, then came the contamination of tomatoes
and imported melons. But, this latest
outbreak, involving tainted pet food has not only contributed to the illness or
death of reportedly thousands of family pets, more importantly, it's revealed a
food safety system in America that's remarkably dysfunctional.

 

Confidence in the FDA couldn't be
lower. What we've depended upon to be
our first line of defense in protecting the safety of our food has instead
revealed itself as an agency that's chronically under-funded and forced to
utilize severely outdated methods of scientific research and analysis. But, even more disappointing is the
realization that it actually has very little enforcement authority, even within
its own poorly structured regulatory framework. So, it comes as no real surprise that today's "post
911" FDA is only geared toward reacting to situations, with nothing in
place to stop them from occurring in the first place.

 

Former FDA chief, Dr. David
Kessler in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, was quoted as saying "We have no structure for preventing food-borne
illness in this country. The reality is that there is currently no mandate, no
leadership, no resources, nor scientific research base for prevention of food
safety problems. There is no one in the executive branch with the clout and
Authority to prevent food-borne illness".

 

Many argue that we're using our
pets as guinea pigs, testing the safety of ingredients and unknown additives
imported for the production of pet foods.
The greater concern should be that much of those same ingredients are
finding their way into foods consumed by us humans. Not surprisingly, I have an
increasing lack of confidence in the suggestions of "experts" or food
labels advocating "Safe For Human Consumption". Precisely who is it that I'm supposed to
trust?

 

As concerned Americans, this has
to be our wake-up call. It's time to
strengthen the FDA's ability to ensure the safety of our food supply by
providing the desperately needed resources and by unifying and elevating food
safety leadership between the FDA and the Department of Health and Human
Services. It's time to once and for all
put an end to the growing number of high profile, and deadly breakdowns in the
nation's food inspection system.

 

We can't bring back the beloved pets we've lost, as a
result of the current lack of oversight, but we can take measures to prevent
the tragic consequences of future outbreaks.
Our message to Congress should be that it's no longer "ok" to
rely on a broken system with the embarrassing capacity to inspect only 1 to 2
percent of our increasing levels of cheap imported food products. And, we need action now, before our concerns
once again, begin to erode with the passing of time.

For additional information and
important resources, please visit <a href="http://www.wagcentral.com">Wag Central</a>

Copyright 2007 Harry Monell. All rights reserved. Please feel
free to share the entire contents of this article with your friends or post it
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The Contamination of Pet Food and Some Frightening Revelations