Lack of Food Safety in America

964 Words2 Pages

“There are … responsibilities more important than making sure the food our families eat is safe” (Joe Biden). The vice president of the United States does not consider food safety important. The government food agencies such as The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), do not do enough to ensure our safety from food. Our standards of ensuring food safety have dramatically dropped due to government food agencies not doing enough to protect us and making new rules and regulations to hard for food producers. To give background on the FDA and USDA for better understanding the USDA is responsible for meat and poultry, while the FDA is responsible for dairy, seafood, and vegetables. The USDA was founded in 1862 to encourage food creation in the United States (Sherrow 15). Dr. Peter Collier was the first person to suggest rules and laws for the safety of our food (Sherrow 15). Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act in 1890. The Act made the USDA inspectors inspect all pig products (Sherrow 15). In 1906 the Comprehensive Meat Inspection Act was passed. The act assigned inspectors from the UDSA to the United States’ 163 slaughter houses. In the slaughter houses the meat needed to be inspected before and after slaughter (Sherrow 15-16). The FDA is also responsible for protecting food from terrorists and anyone who wants to try to harm the public (Wilson). The FDA oversees 167,000 farms in the United States and 421,000 worldwide farms. The FDA only has 1,100 inspectors to inspect those farms (Wilson). The number of inspections done by the FDA went from 4,573 in 2005 to 3,400 in 2006 (Sherrow 34). According to the Center of Science in the Public Interest the FDA has no authority for prev... ... middle of paper ... ..." Washington Post. (2009): n. page. Student Research Center.23 Jan. 2014. CNN Wire Staff, . "USDA recalls beef headed for Georgia school lunches." CNN. N.p., 24 Sep 2011. Web. CNN. Cone, Tracie. "USDA, McDonald's suspend slaughterhouse buys." USA TODAY. USA TODAY, 22 Aug 2012. Web. 23 Feb 2014. "Food Safety Facts and Figures - Home Food Safety." Home Food Safety. Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Web. 23 Feb 2014. Sherrow, Victoria. Food Safety. New York: Chelsea, 2008. Print. Tirrel, Meg. "FDA Delays Food Safety Regulations." Claim Journal. N.p., 20 Dec 2013. Web. 23 Jan 2014. Wilson, Jacque. "Who is Looking Out for Your Food Safety?." CNN. CNN, 08 Oct 2013. Web. 23 Jan 2014. United States. Department of Health and Human Services. Contingency Staffing Plan for Operations. 2013. Print. .

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