Contaminated food sickens 48 million Americans, resulting in more than 3,000 deaths and more than 100,000 hospitalizations each year. That’s right: 3,000 deaths.

Hard as this is to believe, it’s easy to see how we got here. It starts with the neglect of the Food and Drug Administration, the agency created to ensure the quality of much of the U.S. food supply, which has been starved of funds for decades. Congress gives the FDA about $1 billion a year for overseeing the bulk of the $1.2 trillion food industry. That’s enough to pay for about 1,100 inspectors, who manage to check only 6 percent of domestic food producers and 0.4 percent of importers each year.

Inspection programs paid for by industry have filled the void. As Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue, however, industry-backed inspectors have given the all- clear to producers that should be shut down.

These private inspectors, known as third-party auditors, operate with no government oversight or rules. Standards for the auditors are established by trade organizations financed by supermarket chains and food producers. Auditors are often paid by the companies whose plants they inspect and can be told what to look for, when and where. Board members of the companies that provide the audits sometimes also work for food producers. The potential for conflicts is obvious.

Yes, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 does require inspectors of foreign food processors to be FDA certified. And yes, their audit reports must be turned over to the agency. But there’s a catch: Domestic auditors were exempted from these requirements after food manufacturers argued that certification programs would siphon off resources better used in other FDA efforts. In essence, the industry would keep an oversight network it pays for and controls.

The calculus of costs and benefits should persuade Congress to increase funding for FDA inspections.

 

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