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What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals? You know why. Because that would be onerous govern

What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals? You know why. Because that would be onerous government regulation. Americans are obsessed with the idea that the government overregulates everything. That's why Congress is unwilling to fund enforcement actions.

anigbrowl 14y ago
I can't upvote this hard enough.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
The government does overregulate damned near everything. Even worse, it fails to regulate the right things. You can't buy Kinder Eggs in the US because of FDA regulations, and yet the FDA lets in literally tons of rice that is tainted with lead or arsenic. Does that seem like a problem to you? It seems like a problem to me.
- astrodust 14y ago
  Number of kids that've died from lead poisoned rice: Zero. Number of kids that've died from eating a Kinder Surprise, Darwin's Law notwithstanding: At least one? If you want to complain about regulation, you're really complaining about people who don't want to take personal responsibility for their own actions. Rather than not buy Kinder Surprise treats for infants, they'd rather ban them for everyone just in case. Regulations, in many cases, just reflect collective attitudes.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    I'm not sure what sort of point you're trying to make. The major risk of lead poisoning isn't death it's the many other serious negative health effects, especially on children's development. Is there a particular reason why we should ignore lead exposure in children at levels several times higher than the current EPA limits? Moreover, if a simplistic analysis of deaths caused by "exposure" are to be used to guide policy then we should ban water first of all, along with buckets, gravity, and food.
    - nmz787 14y ago
      I suffered through childhood lead poisoning and I'm still here on HN!
- MichaelSalib 14y ago
  Does that seem like a problem to you? It seems like a problem to me. Your argument proves too much. I mean, this does sound like a problem, but it sounds like the same problem I've encountered in every government I've dealt with and in every corporation I've worked for. It is one of the fundamental problems of human organizations operating with rules. The rule sets are both too strict and too lenient. But what is the alternative to rule sets? Philosopher kings? I tell you what: since we both agree that it is a problem, why don't you list some large organizations that consistently promulgate rule sets which everyone agrees neither underregulate nor overregulate?
No1 14y ago
No, it's because their mission above all else is now to reinforce big pharma. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/hazard/independent.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/h...
aethertap 14y ago
Personally, I'd prefer to assume more of the responsibility for selecting healthful food for my family, if it came with the freedom to choose it. I've run into a number of "harm in the name of help" regulations in that regard. For example, in order to sell meat in packaged cuts, it must be butchered at a USDA inspected facility. That sounds sensible at first glance, but it creates a problem for people who want humanely-raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat: running a USDA inspected processing facility is very expensive, and the only way to do it (currently) is to go for large volume. That means that the same facility that processes the conventional meat will be processing my meat, exposing it to both chemicals and pathogens that it would never otherwise have come into contact with (resistant forms of e. coli, among other things). In a large facility such as that, contamination from one animal has the potential to spread to many more. Health threats from this are uncommon, but they do happen and the size of the facilities means that their effects are widespread rather than localized. Add to that the common practice of adding fat (from other animals) to ground meat, and you end up with a recipe for reduced-quality meat. One of the biggest reasons to eat grass-finished meat is its balance of omega fatty acids. When the leaner grass-finished meat is fatted up with fat from industrial animals, that benefit is lost. The regulation that was meant to help did help in the average, but it also made it more difficult to go beyond average. One side-effect of regulation in agriculture in general seems to be to cut the small producers off from the bottom by centralizing and raising inspection costs. That in turn reduces diversity in the food supply and makes it more prone to large-scale outbreaks of problems (e.coli in spinach recently comes to mind). It also has a second effect, which is that people trust food too much (rice from China seems to be a case in point). Because all food is inspected and certified transparently by someone else, consumers take little interest in the process, which makes it easier for things that aren't on the standard inspection list to escape notice. Personally, I'd love to see a voluntary style of inspection, where a producer can opt in to one or more inspection programs in order to receive a certification. Consumers would then look for labels indicating whatever style of inspection they prefer (right now we basically have organic and not organic, but there are many others that might be relevant). There is definitely a need for inspection in the food supply, but I think that our current model of forcing all producers into a tiny number of alternatives is less than optimal.
- pekk 14y ago

anigbrowl 14y ago

I can't upvote this hard enough.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

The government does overregulate damned near everything. Even worse, it fails to regulate the right things. You can't buy Kinder Eggs in the US because of FDA regulations, and yet the FDA lets in literally tons of rice that is tainted with lead or arsenic. Does that seem like a problem to you? It seems like a problem to me.

astrodust 14y ago
Number of kids that've died from lead poisoned rice: Zero. Number of kids that've died from eating a Kinder Surprise, Darwin's Law notwithstanding: At least one? If you want to complain about regulation, you're really complaining about people who don't want to take personal responsibility for their own actions. Rather than not buy Kinder Surprise treats for infants, they'd rather ban them for everyone just in case. Regulations, in many cases, just reflect collective attitudes.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  I'm not sure what sort of point you're trying to make. The major risk of lead poisoning isn't death it's the many other serious negative health effects, especially on children's development. Is there a particular reason why we should ignore lead exposure in children at levels several times higher than the current EPA limits? Moreover, if a simplistic analysis of deaths caused by "exposure" are to be used to guide policy then we should ban water first of all, along with buckets, gravity, and food.
  - nmz787 14y ago
    I suffered through childhood lead poisoning and I'm still here on HN!
MichaelSalib 14y ago
Does that seem like a problem to you? It seems like a problem to me. Your argument proves too much. I mean, this does sound like a problem, but it sounds like the same problem I've encountered in every government I've dealt with and in every corporation I've worked for. It is one of the fundamental problems of human organizations operating with rules. The rule sets are both too strict and too lenient. But what is the alternative to rule sets? Philosopher kings? I tell you what: since we both agree that it is a problem, why don't you list some large organizations that consistently promulgate rule sets which everyone agrees neither underregulate nor overregulate?

No1 14y ago

No, it's because their mission above all else is now to reinforce big pharma. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/hazard/independent.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/h...

aethertap 14y ago

Personally, I'd prefer to assume more of the responsibility for selecting healthful food for my family, if it came with the freedom to choose it. I've run into a number of "harm in the name of help" regulations in that regard. For example, in order to sell meat in packaged cuts, it must be butchered at a USDA inspected facility. That sounds sensible at first glance, but it creates a problem for people who want humanely-raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat: running a USDA inspected processing facility is very expensive, and the only way to do it (currently) is to go for large volume. That means that the same facility that processes the conventional meat will be processing my meat, exposing it to both chemicals and pathogens that it would never otherwise have come into contact with (resistant forms of e. coli, among other things). In a large facility such as that, contamination from one animal has the potential to spread to many more. Health threats from this are uncommon, but they do happen and the size of the facilities means that their effects are widespread rather than localized. Add to that the common practice of adding fat (from other animals) to ground meat, and you end up with a recipe for reduced-quality meat. One of the biggest reasons to eat grass-finished meat is its balance of omega fatty acids. When the leaner grass-finished meat is fatted up with fat from industrial animals, that benefit is lost. The regulation that was meant to help did help in the average, but it also made it more difficult to go beyond average. One side-effect of regulation in agriculture in general seems to be to cut the small producers off from the bottom by centralizing and raising inspection costs. That in turn reduces diversity in the food supply and makes it more prone to large-scale outbreaks of problems (e.coli in spinach recently comes to mind). It also has a second effect, which is that people trust food too much (rice from China seems to be a case in point). Because all food is inspected and certified transparently by someone else, consumers take little interest in the process, which makes it easier for things that aren't on the standard inspection list to escape notice. Personally, I'd love to see a voluntary style of inspection, where a producer can opt in to one or more inspection programs in order to receive a certification. Consumers would then look for labels indicating whatever style of inspection they prefer (right now we basically have organic and not organic, but there are many others that might be relevant). There is definitely a need for inspection in the food supply, but I think that our current model of forcing all producers into a tiny number of alternatives is less than optimal.

pekk 14y ago