Critters I: The FDA Is Out to Lunch. Still.

SURVIVORS

What are a few thousand dead dogs and cats to the Food and Drug Administration when you have pharmaceutical companies to suck up to, laws to not enforce, inspections to not be made and the medical-marijuana-is-evil propaganda mill to keep going?

The FDA acknowledges that it received more consumer calls on the pet food recall than any other issue in the agencies history, but nearly six months after the waves of recalls began and spread to some of the best-known brands in the U.S., the FDA doesn’t know what caused the deaths, only that it believes that melamine was not the source.

Dave Schuler, who has been all over the story since Day One at The Glittering Eye, says that:

"IMO the FDA couldn’t have diminished public confidence in the government if they’d deliberately set out to do so than by its handling of this matter.

"It remains unclear to me how one can be confident that we’re being protected against something that has unquestionably caused pet deaths and injuries numbering as high as the tens of thousands if we don’t know what the heck to protect against. Nor do I see why we need a huge federal agency to tell us that everything’s okay—after all, we have the Chinese government to do that for us."

Touché , Mr. Schuler.

The number of dogs and cats affected by the bad food remains unknown, but the numbers are daunting: Over 5,000 pet food products recalled and at least 5,000 deaths, although anecdotal reports put the number much higher.

There has been movement in only three states to hold pet food manufacturers responsible. Under U.S. law, pets are classified as property, and while there are provisions for criminal charges if a pet is abused, civil law only allows pet owners the right to sue for economic damages if a pet is harmed, or dies.

The FDA's imported food inspection processes are, for all intents and purposes, 70 years old, and there seems to be no rush to modernize them.

It’s Schuler’s view that it appears that the FDA views itself largely as a clearing house.

But he notes that:

"We don't need a clearing house for that kind of information. That's 1950's thinking. This is a very commonplace problem with the federal government today."

Amen. Or should I say woof-woof.