FDA Doing A Great Job - Says FDA

Despite growing criticism of the agency, the Food and Drug Administration says things are just getting better and better. Its headline for today's press release about its own Food Protection Plan: "FDA Reports Significant Progress in Protecting the Food Supply."

This is a much cheerier outlook than the agency had a year ago, when it said that without additional funding, it would be unable to protect our food and drug supply. But now that it's gotten a budget increase and is likely to get even more in the future, the agency is no doubt eager to show that with that money, it is indeed up to the task of keeping us safe.

The Government Accountability Office criticized the FDA's new plan in June, saying it "provided few details on the resources and strategies needed" for implementation. And despite the positive headline, today's report suffers from similar vagueness; half of the agency's accomplishments are things like sending a delegation to China "to share ideas," or "working with industry and the public to identify best practices."

Of course, the FDA would probably spin this as the initial stage of the agency's "hugely ambitious" overhaul as it changes its focus to stopping contamination at the source instead of merely catching it once it enters the country. And some genuine progress has been made, with new technologies in place to detect contamination, and new offices opening in China to inspect food before it gets imported.

But the GAO criticized the FDA's oversight capabilities as recently as September, and when the FDA moved to block Chinese imports in mid-November, consumer advocates wondered why the move came months after the start of the melamine scare. Plus, there's even been skepticism in China over the foreign FDA offices. "China is such big country," said doctor and legislator Leung Ka-lau. "How will a few offices be able to keep an eye on the food items produced by all mainland provinces and cities?"

Still, it's a start. And if a year ago the message was, "Give us more money or we're all going to die," I suppose "significant progress" isn't a hard standard to meet.