The Glade 4.0

That's the FDA having a failure, as is to be expected given the size of the U.S. and its agricultural base. Moreover, people not wanting to have to inspect their own food for safety and wanting the government to do it for them is not asking the government to protect them from themselves, it's asking the government to protect them from someone else - which is one of the reasons we have a government; to protect citizens from unscrupulous actions by others. There is no reason each individual should have to invest the time and effort to learn how to protect themselves from problems with their food just to avoid having the government do it. This is just removing the government from a function for the sake of removing the government from a function, and represents exactly the sort of excess that led to an oversize government - just in the opposite direction.



I do not see how the same system could apply. If one state has a big agricultural lobby that gets very weak standards implemented, any other state is faced with a choice of accepting those standards as equal to their own, or not doing business with them at all. Both choices are equally ham-handed, and either could lead to unacceptable consequences; either the sale of foods that are not acceptable to the population of that state, or large quantities of food being simply unavailable. Similar problems would occur with drugs.



I don't see that "professionals" would do any better, given the sheer volume of what's to be inspected. Furthermore, it is not "security theater"; occasional failings do not make the system haphazard, irregular, or non-existant. This term, security theater, is an exaggeration when applied to the TSA (shitty as they may be they do at least cut off the easiest routes and stop incompetent and untrained fanatics from doing as they please) and is just using prejudicial language to make the situation sound worse than it really is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In that vein, I have a rock that repels lions that I am willing to sell you.

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Nope, people who are willing to put things into their body without taking any measure to verify that it is safe are choosing to close their eyes and trust that the Gov't is doing it for them. No one is forcing people to ingest any certain product, they are choosing to do so, all while relying on the Gov't to protect them, that's the Gov't protecting them from themselves. These same people have no idea what the FDA regulates, how often places are inspected, nor do they have any idea of what the inspection consists.

Having one example of twenty years of failure is just that: twenty years of failure. In this case it is an indication of a systemic failure due to non-existent regulation. Other examples of haphazard inspection are evidenced by the fact that the highest level of violation the FDA can assign to a facility is an official action indicated (OAI) classification, which warrants agency action to ensure the violation is fixed. The FDA took no regulatory action against 25 percent of facilities it assigned an OAI classification in fiscal 2007. Further, 36 percent of facilities with an OAI classification did not receive any follow up from FDA to ensure the violations that earned them an OAI were corrected. Other examples fall easily to anyone who looks.

Only 1.3% of imported fish, vegetables, fruit and other foods were inspected in 2006, that's less than the 1.8 from 2003. I would call that as close to non-existent as one could get. As for irregular, fifty-six percent of the food facilities subject to FDA inspection were never inspected over a five-year period studied by federal auditors.

Of the facilities the FDA classified as high risk, they only inspected 63% in 2008. As I said, haphazard, irregular or non-existent. Every year US citizens buy their tickets to the security theater, and they get more show than substance.

The idea that "Big Ag" would be able to influence the inspection process if it were done by anyone but Big Gov't is laughable because it carries the connotation that "Big Ag" lobbying doesn't permeate everything about the current system. One wouldn't have to worry about any kind of "big agricultural lobby" if the inspections were made by independent who would go out of business if their inspections fell to the level of the Federal Government's food regulators. Obviously the issue is too big for the Gov't to wrap its hands around. The scale of the private sector, would allow inspections and certifications to be accomplished much more readily out of the Government's hands.

Some may wish that our Gov't protect them from all the unscrupulous people of the world, but that's not what our Gov't is intended to do, nor is it something it should be attempting. The tens of thousands of pages of regulations issued last year weren't able to do it last year, nor did it work the year before, ad infinitum, and it won't next year, or the next. As much as people would rather put their heads under the blankets and hope for the protections of Gov't in all things, it ain't gonna happen, and will only lead to even more dependence.

The mere fact that people are unable to fathom someone besides the Gov't doing things is symptomatic of a Gov't that is expected to be all things to all people. This way of thinking is endemic in our society. That is not a good thing.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

But without the FDA, we'll have The Jungle!

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

The problem with getting rid of the FDA is not the loss of FDA inspections, which suck, but the loss of regulations that have legal weight. A private inspector can't do anything to a company that fails its tests, and more importantly, without laws and regulations the worst thing you can do to a company that actively lies about what's in their products is sue them. The individuals running the company and responsible for these decisions would not be personally accountable for their misconduct, you can only sue the corporation. You'd have tons of manufacturers whose sole purpose is to sell a dangerous or shitty product for just long enough to make a quick buck and then vanish with the profits when they get caught. That's what happens in other totally unregulated industries like online gambling.

The market for drugs would be especially prone to this, people who are sick will try anything. Just claim your placebo is a miracle cure for everything and even if every private company calls bullshit on you, desperate people who are dying and will try anything will still buy it. Without an agency that can actually force you to stop selling your product there's no way around that.

You just described a compelling reason to eliminate corporate personhood, not a compelling reason to maintain the FDA.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I feel you are saying that sarcastically, but for a fairly large portion of the industry, that is exactly what we will have.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

This is silly, You just got done saying you'd like to see independent experts do this; how is that any less "relying on someone to protect them from themselves?"

I'll give you a hint: it's not, because they aren't asking the government to protect them from themselves in the first place. They should not have to take any measure to verify that food or perscription drugs are safe. They should be safe, and if there's any uestion as to whether they implicitly can be trusted (and there is) then' it's the proper role of government to protect them from the unscrupulous. People do have a choice what foods to eat, but they do not have a choice as to whether to eat, so presenting it merely as a matter of personal choice is as tortured as this "protecting you from yourself" nonsense.



One example does not demonstrate twenty years of failure.



Non-existent regulation? Easily ficed: create some regulation. This is not an argument to abolish the FDA; it's an argument, at best, that it needs greater powers or greater resources. Again, this is an enormous country with an enormous agricultural base.



Again, size and volume. You're doing a great job of pointing out a lack of resources.



63% is not hapahazrd or nonexistant. At best, irregular. As for "security theater", repeating the mantra over and over does not make it suddenly make sense; you just got done saying it's 63% then turn around and say "more show than substance"? By those numbers its more substance than show, and as for show, there is none. When was the last time there was any sort of publicity-drawing action by the FDA to compare with what goes on in airports? You're doing a great job of establishing the FDA is understaffed, and/or underfunded however. Perhaps we could redirect some of the DOE funds there.



This is nonsense. First of all, the argument is not that "Big Ag" would not be able to influence the Federal government; it's that it can influence certain state governments a lot more than it can the Federal government because it competes against a far smaller number of interests at that level. Agriculture obviously should have some influence, just like any other major economic activity should ahve its interests represented, but it should not be in a position to dominate the body that should be overseeing it. It can do that at the State level in many states; it cannot do that with the Federal government because it must compete against far too many other lobbies.

As for this fantasy of "independents that would go out of business", what happens when they do that and go out of business? Now no one's inspecting anything. Yet people still have to eat. In the meantime we've gotten rid of government inspection for no better reason than the fantasies of people who want to eliminate government involvement for no better reason than ideology.

Tell me, where exactly is the capital and expertise going to come from for these "independent" inspectors in sufficient volume to improve on the FDA record, for agriculture or anything else. Oh that's right, from the businesses they inspect! Yes, that will work out great! Remember, if the government does it , it must be corrupt and inefficient just because it's government, but that would never become a problem in the private sector because the almighty force of consumer anger will prevent it... yeah, right.



That's exactly what the government is intended to do and should be doing. Obviously perfection in that goal is unattainable, but that's what we have one for.



The fact that it cannot be done perfectly, and that considerable room for improvement exists in no way establishes that the government shouldn't be doing it. This is something it explicitly should be doing, and we should be demanding better performance, not simply tossing the idea out because "Gummint is bad, mmmkay?"



We aren't talking about all things, we're talking about food and drugs. Expecting the government to protect you from people who would sell you harmful food or drugs under the guise of healthful ones is not putting your head under the blanket, nor has it the first thing to do with "dependence". This is exactly what government should be doing - doubly so with things that come from foreign sources.



This is nonsense. We are talking about one specific issue: safe food and drugs. Expecting the government to regualte those things in no way generalizes to "being all things to all people".

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

We already did, and no one wants to return just to satisfy libertarian fantasies.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm not against the principle of the FDA. If it operates efficiently and effectively, which I'm not sure it does, then I'm fine with it. But I doubt it is worthwhile in its current form.

So you're saying corporations would be willing to bet hundreds of millions of dollars that a state will relax its regulations for their product vs the corporation just hedging its bets and producing a product that can access all markets?

The libertarians are in a fantasy land? No, the FDA and other agencies like it are the fantasy- in that their presence makes a tangible difference in outcome. They in reality are a wasted step in a process that only adds cost to the consumer.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I like this presumption that regulation by state means states still won't collude via professional regulatory bodies that don't mandate compliance (ASME/ANSI/IEEE etc.)

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I'm saying that dumping the load of recreating state versions of the FDA onto each of the fifty states is going to wreak havoc on them financially and most of them won't be able to do it in addition to the duties the similar in state agencies already have. Quality will falter and the corporations will wager that they can get away with a lot of questionable activities in the markets where the state agencies are failing their jobs. The Corporations will play the states and people will die because of it. The FDA is far from perfect, what is needed is to make it better, not disband it.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Except they don't.

What people need protection from is the **** we offshore to China (everything) where they put rat poison in dog food to artificially bump up protein counts; where they lace baby formula with melamine; where they fill "vitamins" and "supplements" with rat-shit.

What people need protection from is the same **** that led to the creation of the FDA in the first place; snake-oil salesmen. They need protection from the same charlatans that offered "alternative" treatment that led to Steve Jobs' death.

People need protection from slicksters, shucksters and unscrupulous practioners who prey on the vulnerabilities of people who cannot be expected to understand anything beyond the most basic premises of general medicine.

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and we've demonstrated that the FDA does literally next to nothing. But the only justification for keeping them around is the result of trying to prove a negative. Much like the idea of "saved or created" it's a argument crafted to shut down the debate of if something is justified.

If the FDA went away and the States took over the regulation of their commerce- the first result I would say is that there will be MORE regulators looking at the products. At the very least a statistical advantage over the system currently in place. Also, States like california could have real control over the product. Right now the FDA can just alter it's definitions in order to satisify any requirement it sets. Remember- the FDA sets the rules AND enforces them. And the States have no real recourse to fix them. We don't want to allow corporations to work without checks or balances yet we allow multiple agencies to operate just like that. Look at food labels- it's a lot of misleading wordplay. If the FDA wanted to help people they would mandate plain english labels that show the values for the entire package. Instead they play on numbers using portion sizes.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

And again you come to the point that you are assuming that: 1. The FDA does this. 2. The FDA does this enough to actually reduce the rate it happens. 3. That if both are true the reduction is worth the cost.

I haven't seen any evidence to support the last two.

And snake oil salesman were not businesses they were small traveling operators. Those traveling operators don't really exist anymore, and not because of the FDA, but because there is a corner drugstore (or multiple) close to most Americans.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Elmo, are you making the argument to do away with food/drug monitoring; or are you making the argument to let individual states monitor their own food/drug supply?

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Right now I am just pointing out where your position is lacking. My position is the market will do a better job than any governmental organization as the market has millions of regulators which are active all the time however I believe if you conduct your own argument logically you will eventually conclude the FDA is the worst possible of all alternatives and thus at least come to support the Constitutional position that if you must have a regulatory agency its only legal and valid at the state level.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

First, an observation: the way you asked this question highlights a major difference in perspective. If you see the United States as a homogeneous, monolithic country, then this is a natural question to ask. But if you see the United States more literally as "united states" -- a political union or confederation of mostly-autonomous states, then things look quite a bit different.

Secondly, let me answer this question with a question:

Scientifically, if you want to find out the best way to do something, do you only do it a single way? Or, instead, do you do it many different ways (and many different times) and then compare the results to see which way actually worked best?

And on a related note, why do you think that "the best way to do something" has a singular, "one-size-fits-all" answer? Might there not be a best way to administer the production and sale of food and drugs in New York city that is different from the best way to administer them in rural Arkansas?

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I could not disagree with you more. If medical standards across the states are different then there is nothing preventing a state from stepping beyond medical-marijuana to medical-heroin, medical-crack, etc., at which point once you cross state lines your "prescription" becomes a felony.

Since this state-level department would also set food-safety standards what would bar Ohio from ruling all corn from Indiana as sub-standard as a defacto subsidy to Ohio corn growers/cross-state tariff? We have seen nations do this already.

Essentially your system would result in the Massachusetts insurance industry. (Not Romney-care, but the true insurance market within MA)

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So it is no longer the responsibility of a person for knowing the laws of the state they are traveling through?

What would stop Ohio from doing it is that Indiana could and would sue them because state's aren't allowed to moderate the trade between themselves.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

If Ohio is responsible for the health and well being of it's citizens as the FDA is not then then it is not truly a tariff is it nor is it regulating trade? It is a public-health concern. Just as it was when Japan banned the import of American Beef. In actuallity however...

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Then it becomes a matter for the courts and lawyers. Of course since they would be hard pressed to determine a test to differentiate Ohio corn from Indiana corn I don't think they could show a difference let alone one that is cause for a health concern. It is Ohio's money to waste though.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You mean the way that Yuengling sued Ohio for banning the sale of it's beverages within our state?

Back to your question above about a person knowing laws of the land. What would stop Colorado from becoming Amsterdam of the west? What would prevent people from PA (where you live right?) from riding the dragon all the way back home? Or committing crimes in PA to finance trips to Colorado?

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I would assume the same things that stop people from doing those things right now.

1. Their own morality and respect for themselves and others.
2. The punishments that may be meted out (such as in the intervening states and Pa for example).

Let me ask why you think the scenario you paint is likely when people could commit crimes in the US to finance their activities in Amsterdam or any nation that does not have extradition with the US? Do you believe this is a common enough of a concern to justify special worry?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville