The FDA(Food and Drug Administration) nominally exists as a consumer protection agency, a portion of the Department of Health and Human Services, tasked specifically with overseeing various pharmaceutical substances, some medical procedures and food stuffs (among other “public health related” goods)and the safety thereof for both human and other animal use. But does it actually end up protecting any consumers?

The answer to that question seems to be, If they do, it’s on accident.

Why though would that be the case? Surely an organization tasked with so serious a task as our food and medicine safety would be fairly on top of their game, right?

First off, you’ve apparently gotten your hands on the good stuff so be a pal and share.

Second off, let’s examine why not.

Their mission is where it starts to fall apart right away. With minimal looking you can find out what they regulate. Short version? They regulate a LOT. Approximately 25% of consumer expenditures are regulated in some manner by the FDA. Remember, there’s 350(ish) million people living in the USA, which cranks out approximately a $19T gross domestic product, according to the World Bank. Twenty-five percent of that is monitored in some manner by the FDA, an organization that has less than 20,000 people working for it according to it’s own data. Now, let me be clear, this is NOT an argument for a larger FDA, this is merely pointing out the first of many reasons why the organization is really rather terrible.

So with all of those things under their purview things would almost be expected to slip through the cracks, right? Well if by slip through the cracks you mean drive semi trailers full of E. coli contaminated lettuce through, then you might be correct. Small mistakes, would be expected, people are people and they mess up. It happens. But with the FDA, the “mess ups” tend to be just a wee bit larger. I’m sure everyone remembers the lovely time last year when it was almost impossible to find romaine lettuce because of all the e. coli. Well, what you may not know is that it took the FDA and CDC(Center for Disease Control) about 7 weeks to identify there was a problem before issuing their warning. During that time 2 people(one in the US and one in Canada) died from the bacteria and several others required hospitalization.

Then, more seriously let’s recall the disaster that was fen-phen back in the 90s. Some of my younger readers may not remember this combo drug but it was supposed to be a miracle weight loss. And boy howdy did you lose weight. Death can cause some pretty intense weight loss. Which is bad enough until you realize that it would appear the FDA not only authorized this drug cocktail but put pressure on its people to sign off on it with no warnings so it could be marketed.

These are just a tiny handful of examples of a myriad of issues that have plagued that agency since its creation. For an additional, deep dive into one aspect of the FDA I’d suggest you check out Mance’s podcast with Jeremy R. Hammond (and check out his website) if you want to be a little extra horrified.

All of this leads back, to me, to the same question though. What exactly do we have these guys around for again?