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It strikes me that the FDA is powerless in the face of the corporate lobby. While allowing CAFOs (among others) to "police themselves," the FDA aggressively pu
by bmj 15y ago
It strikes me that the FDA is powerless in the face of the corporate lobby. While allowing CAFOs (among others) to "police themselves," the FDA aggressively pursues raw milk producers and farm-to-table organizations [http://farmtoconsumer.org/quail-hollow-farm-dinner.htm http://farmtoconsumer.org/quail-hollow-farm-dinner.htm] because no one with deep pockets is protecting these folks politically.
- anamax 15y ago> It strikes me that the FDA is powerless in the face of the corporate lobby. The term that you're looking for is "regulatory capture". RC is like gravity. Any plan which ignores it or tries to legislate it away is wrong, no matter how well-intentioned.
- rdtsc 15y ago> It strikes me that the FDA is powerless Because of stuff like this: http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/politics/revolvingdoor.html http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/politics/revolvingdoor.html why would you expect anything else? Not sure what the solution is but there is definitely a problem. It is not just the FDA. Most regulatory agencies have this problem in our country.
- stevetursi 15y agoI've learned a lot about this issue from books such as Fast Food Nation and movies such as Food Inc, which tend to focus on the incredible power that food industry lobbies seem to have over congress and the FDA. In the case of Fast Food Nation, the issue isn't the expected premise - that McDonalds et al serves low-quality food and causes obesity - that is merely the result. The issue, he seems to claim, is that certain people in the government are literally paid off to allow the industry to do so, both with passive defensive methods (not implementing laws that would restrict them) and active, offensive methods (creating laws that impede initiatives that aren't in the food industry's interest.)