It didn't take me long to see why some people considered the three letters F-D-A to stand not only for Food and Drug Administration, but also for Foot Dragging Artists. For the next four decades I've seen countless examples of failure to act, which have resulted in countless illnesses and deaths.
The FDA appears to suffer from two problems.
First, its own staff requires virtually absolute proof -- as in dead bodies with toe tags identifying the chemical cause of death -- that a substance is deadly before it dares reverse a previous approval.
Second, agency officials fear that companies would run to their friends in Congress to stop the agency from acting. And with the current pro-business House of Representatives, that is not an idle concern. But whatever the underlying cause, the public expects -- and deserves -- greater protection from the agency that was established to keep harmful substances out of their daily diet.
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