ANIMALS ON DRUGS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 84

He went on to declare: “For the past 100 years, the free market, not the government, has been the primary
driver of innovation and improved safety. Consumer choice is a far more effective accountability mechan-
ism than government bureaucracies.” 4
The David-and-Goliath battle was vicious and marked by an ongoing misinformation campaign by the
industries. The food-processing industry—represented by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which
is a well-funded organization with a staff of one hundred—had no desire to change the status quo. It was
dead set against mandatory recalls and frequent inspections.
United Fresh, the lobbying organization for the produce giants, argued that scale is unimportant and
that large produce growers should have the same regulations as the small farmer who sells directly to con-
sumers at a farmers' market. Other debates raged over registration fees, and again industry demanded that
Kraft should pay the same as the small independent cheesemaker.
Considering the gravity of the situation at the FDA, and the contentious battle taking place over the
legislation, it is no surprise that Michael Taylor was back. In rotations between government and industry
he had become the consummate damage-control expert for Democratic administrations. He was back to
help shepherd the bill as it moved through the Senate and to manage the contentious process of writing
the rules for implementation after passage. No one is more accomplished at schmoozing industry or main-
stream consumer advocates than Taylor. FDA staff say—off the record—that Taylor must be involved in
every decision and is a continual bottleneck to making progress on implementing the bill.
While the law certainly doesn't represent an overhaul of the food safety system, it has provided the FDA
with mandatory recall authority. The other significant part of the bill is the establishment of a schedule for
FDA inspections of food-processing facilities—a measure that is long overdue, since many manufacturing
plants have never been inspected, but that is completely inadequate. There are 190,000 registered food fa-
cilities in the United States and 230,000 foreign ones. The new law mandates inspection once every three
years for “high-risk” facilities and once every five years for “low-risk”ones.
But the devil is in the details. The legislation directs the FDA to double its inspections of foreign food
facilities that export products to the United States every year for five years, beginning with six hundred
foreign facilities in fiscal year 2011, bringing the number to nineteen thousand in fiscal year 2016. Industry
has vehemently opposed inspections, and with this schedule it has been granted its wish. The other prob-
lem is the definition of risk. Taylor's staff is still in the process of determining how the risk categories will
be defined.
The other big win in the legislation was the Tester amendment, offered by Senator Jon Tester, a rancher
from Montana. An exemption from inspections is given to farms or small food businesses grossing less
than $500,000 per year that sell a majority of their food products directly to consumers, restaurants, or
grocery stores within a 275-mile radius from their place of business or within the same state. The produce
industry tried vainly to strip this provision, and it is a testament to grassroots activism that it remained in
the bill. United Fresh and nineteen other produce organizations sent a letter denouncing the amendment
and calling Tester names.
Unfortunately, the new legislation does not deal with many of the important issues that are challenging
public health because of the globalized and industrialized food system. While the FDA spends resources
and staff time on busting small cheese producers for using raw milk, we are facing a crisis of antibiotic res-
istance that is caused first and foremost by the industrialized livestock industry. The FDA has the power to
stop factory farms from using low-dose antibiotics to promote growth, yet it has refused to take sufficient
action, even though, at some time in the near future, antibiotics may be rendered useless against infection.
In August 2011 the biggest contaminated meat recall to date was ordered by the third-largest turkey-
producing corporation, Cargill. In twenty-six states, 36 million pounds of ground turkey contaminated with
a strain of salmonella resistant to multiple antibiotics sickened dozens of people. The poisoned meat was