Update on FDA Lab Closures

Back in February, I href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/02/now_what_i_thought_things_were.php">wrote
about the irony of the Bush Administration touting their
efforts to improve food and drug safety, while at the same time
planning to close 7 of the 13 FDA laboratories.  



In the interim, we have had all kinds of food and drug mishaps.
 The FDA did not close any labs, but they also did not say
they had canceled their plans.  



The closure plans came to light in December 2006 when PEER ( href="http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=824" rel="tag">Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility) blew the whistle.
 Empolyees in the rel="tag">National Treasury Employees Union href="http://www.nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=1086">
raised the alarm.  US Rep. href="http://www.house.gov/dingell/" rel="tag">John
Dingell took up the cause, href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110st27.shtml">investigating
from his position as
Chair of the rel="tag">House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
 



McClatchy reported on this in href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/200/story/16218.html">May,
and the LAT reported on it href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-fda18jul18,1,6649299.story">yesterday.



Now, Bush and his people are in the news again, and again they are
proclaiming their commitment to improving food and drug safety.
 



href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/washington/19bush.html?ex=1342497600&en=17f3ed4849dec2b3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">

face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/washington/19bush.html?ex=1342497600&en=17f3ed4849dec2b3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">Bush
Forms Cabinet Committee to Study Safety of U.S. Imports

By DAVID STOUT

Published: July 19, 2007

WASHINGTON,
July 18 — President Bush on Wednesday announced the creation
of a panel of cabinet officials who will look for ways to minimize the
dangers from food and other products shipped into the United States.



Mr. Bush established the panel, to be known as the Interagency Working
Group on Import Safety, by executive order. Although the step coincides
with concern about tainted imports from China, the White House insisted
that the safety effort was not aimed at that country.



“This is, in fact, a normal piece of business,” the
White House spokesman, Tony Snow, told reporters. “We get
food imports from 150 countries around the world. It’s
important to monitor them all.”



The president’s order said the panel would try to identify
actions that could be taken “within existing
resources” to improve import safety, including reviews of
cooperation with foreign governments and manufacturers regarding their
inspection and certification procedures...

A good first step would be to use "existing resources" and NOT SHUT
THEM DOWN in the middle of a crisis.



Oddly, the FDA website has no information (that I could find) about he
planned closures.  The  House Committee on Energy and
Commerce does have some information, including this June 26, 2007 href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-ltr.062607.FDA.WEAC.pdf">letter
(PDF file) to the new head of the FDA, href="http://www.fda.gov/oc/voneschenbach/bio.html" rel="tag">Andrew
C. von Eschenbach.  In the letter, Dingell expresses
particular concern about the planned closure of the Winchester
Engineering and Analytical Center (WEAC), the only
FDA lab prepared to detect radioactive contamination of food.  



The LAT article (linked above) underscores the problem:

WASHINGTON
— The Food and Drug Administration would be unable to ensure
the nation's food safety if a plan to close half of its testing
laboratories goes through as suggested, a House panel was told Tuesday.



The agency has come under increased scrutiny in recent months because
of a succession of well-publicized problems with food, including peanut
butter contaminated with salmonella, spinach contaminated with E. coli
and fish imported from China that was found to have traces of illegal
antibiotics.



In testimony Tuesday before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee,
congressional investigators criticized the reorganization plan and said
they doubted the FDA's ability to police food imports...

Unfortunately, the transcript of the href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-oi-hrg.071707.FoodSafety.Part2.shtml">hearing
is not yet available. (Update: there is a six-hour video of the hearings, which is alarming to watch. It can be found using the link to the hearings.) Based upon the LAT reporting, it does not sound
as though the FDA has any intention of reversing its decision.
 Eschenbach said that consolidated facilities with new
equipment will replace the old ones.  Unfortunately, there is
no mention of specific plans for doing so.  The original
reports of the planned closures indicated that the labs were to be
closed within a matter of months, clearly not allowing time for any
expansion or installation of modern equipment at the remaining
facilities.  



We are left to speculate about the true plans, and the true
motivations.  Meanwhile, it looks as though the Administration
is saying one thing, but doing another.