Three investigators working for the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation revealed some alarming findings about the government’s ability to conduct food safety oversight in a hearing last week. The day-long hearing, entitled "Diminished Capacity: Can the FDA Assure the Safety and Security of Our Nation’s Food Supply?," featured testimony from the subcommittee investigators as well as consumer advocates, scientists from five FDA laboratories slated for closing and Andrew von Eschenbach, the head of the FDA, and three of his department heads.

David Nelson, Senior Investigator for the full Committee kicked off the hearing by describing how the number of FDA investigators has dwindled since 2003 while the number of food imports has nearly doubled. He said the FDA inspects less than one percent of all imported foods and samples only a fraction of those it inspects. On a typical day in the San Francisco office, he said, a reviewer may examine 600 food entries, 300 medical device entries, 25 reagent entries and 25 drug entries on a computer screen. This is one entry every 30 seconds, giving the reviewer little time to take action. “A single entry of Chinese herbs can take more than an hour to review,” he said.

The FDA also “permits importers to take possession of even highly suspect goods and arrange for their testing by private laboratories,” Nelson said. These tests are then used as evidence that food is safe to enter the U.S. However, the laboratories are not certified by the FDA, despite the congressional investigators’ findings that they often use incorrect methods or report incorrect results. FDA staff told investigators that certain independent labs were “scary” and others “shoddy,” arriving at results that are driven by financial rather than scientific concerns.

While the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which inspects meat and poultry, allows these products to come into only 10 ports, the FDA must oversee imports coming into 326 ports, Nelson said. Unfortunately, the FDA has inspectors at only 91 of those ports. Importers know where their chances of avoiding inspections are greatest and work the system accordingly, the investigators said.

Nelson described a disturbing finding related to Country of Origin Labeling: "The true country of origin of imported wheat gluten and of vegetable protein is also a matter of some controversy. Committee staff was told that Europe generally, and the Netherlands specifically, is the principal source of wheat gluten imports. Staff witnessed, however, the unloading of wheat gluten declared as coming from China in 50-pound bags marked with the 'Wind Mill' brand of a Dutch firm, Meelunie. The bags gave no indication that the product was from China, but indicated the supplier was in 'Amsterdam, Holland.'"

Seven of the 13 FDA labs are slated for closure and the investigators visited all but one of them. In the process, investigators testified that they had tried repeatedly but were unable to get the FDA to provide analysis justifying what the investigators called a "radical reorganization" of the FDA.

Representatives of five of the seven labs slated for closure came to the hearing to describe their work, which included testing for poisons in pet food, evaluating bioterrorism threats, checking for antibiotic contamination, and inspecting medical devices. They testified that they were being kept in the dark about the details of and the reasons for the proposed closings.

Testifying last, FDA Administrator von Eschenbach argued that the FDA was working hard to improve its inspection system. The lab closings, he said, were part of an effort to consolidate resources and bring the FDA "into the 21st Century." Von Eschenbach resisted the call from some members for mandatory standards for food safety practices, saying he preferred "guidances."

Several members of Congress have introduced legislation to overhaul the FDA's food inspection system, among them Senator Richard Durbin (D-Il), whose bill calls for fees on importers to be used for more and better inspections.

Consumers Union is analyzing such proposals and will be weighing in on them in the near future.