gosh- they finally figured it out...

Published on Saturday, December 1, 2007 by the New York Times

by Gardiner Harris

WASHINGTON - The nation’s food supply is at risk, its drugs are potentially dangerous and its citizens’ lives are at stake because the Food and Drug Administration is desperately short of money and poorly organized, according to an alarming report by agency advisers. 1201 05

The report, made public on Friday, is the latest and perhaps most far-reaching in a string of outside assessments that have concluded that the F.D.A. is poorly equipped to protect the public health.

It was written by three members of the F.D.A. Science Board, an advisory panel that reports directly to the agency’s commissioner, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach. The three authors in turn had 30 scientific advisers.

The report concludes that over the last two decades, the agency’s public health responsibilities have soared while its appropriations have barely budged. The result is that the F.D.A. is falling farther and farther behind in carrying out its responsibilities and understanding the science it needs to do its many jobs.

“F.D.A.’s inability to keep up with scientific advances means that American lives are at risk,” the report stated.

Sandy Walsh of the F.D.A. said the agency “values the evaluation done by the subcommittee members and the scientific experts that were consulted” but would not comment further.

Barbara J. McNeil, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School and one of the report’s authors, said she was stunned at the agency’s sorry state.

“This was the first time that a group of people got together and really looked at all the areas that the F.D.A. has to cover,” Dr. McNeil said. “We were shocked at the scope of its responsibilities, we were shocked at how little its resources have increased, and we were surprised at the conditions those in the F.D.A. had to work under.”

The report notes that the agency’s computer systems are aging and prone to breakdowns, “most recently during an E. coli food contamination investigation.”

“Reports of product dangers are not rapidly compared and analyzed, inspectors’ reports are still handwritten and slow to work their way through the compliance system, and the system for managing imported products cannot communicate with customs and other government systems,” the report stated.

The agency often misses significant product arrivals because its computers are so poor that they cannot distinguish between shipments of road salt and those of table salt, the report said.

The Institute of Medicine, the nation’s most prestigious scientific advisory organization, concluded last year that the agency’s system for ensuring the safety of drugs needed an overhaul. Recent legislation enacted some of the institute’s recommendations.

More hearings regarding the F.D.A.’s oversight of food are in the offing, including one in the Senate on Tuesday. The report concluded that the “F.D.A.’s ability to provide its basic food system inspection, enforcement and rule-making functions is severely eroded, as is its ability to respond to outbreaks in a timely manner.”

Garret A. FitzGerald, a pharmacologist from the University of Pennsylvania and adviser to the authors, said the report was raising an alarm because “this is a crisis.” Dr. FitzGerald pointed to a series of food and drug scares that have demonstrated how little oversight the F.D.A. provides.

He blamed a “cabal of Congressional majorities and presidential administrations that has serially stripped the agency of assets.”

Their computers broke down.
Their system is old.
Important notes and reports are handwritten.
They get misfiled or misdirected.

Their dogs ate their homework.
(*Again, where the hell is that "Give me a break" icon????*)

This reminds me of part of a comedy routine I heard just last night on Comedy Central from Lewis Black (who I absolutely adore). He was speaking about the Veterans' Administrations failure to deliver disability checks to recently returning vets from Iraq. He said the VA's excuse was that they "have no computers and if they were able to get some"... (where the hell are our tax dollars going anyway? Oh, right. I forgot.)..."but if they did get some they'd be old and not very functional."

To which Black said even on his old Apple iMac, he can download 100 er...."female genitalia" in less than 5 minutes.

Maybe if they tell the folks at the FDA and the VA they could get all the porn they wanted if they just updated or bought more computers, that might provide more impetus for them to do their jobs.

@#^&%*!#$#$$%!!!

thanks for making me chuckle!
I'll have to check out this guy you mention, I never heard of him.
I like political humor.
BTW if anyone else likes political humor, I recommend a show called 'wait,wait' on wnyc radio station. (not a station I much like in general)
http://www.wnyc.org/schedule/

It is on the weekend-check the schedule, twice, once on am, once on fm, and on the web.

It is very topical, and to me, hysterically funny, even at times when I don't much feel like laughing.

ellen

I know it's OT of your original post, and I don't want to take away from its importance, but since you were interested, ellen...Lewis Black started out as a regular on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show". He's had a couple HBO specials and several on Comedy Central. His specialty is political/observational humor.

The show last night was a sort of special 2007 retrospective. One thing he asked of the audience was to vote for what we considered to be the biggest failure of 2007:

1.Brittany Spears
2.Michael Vick
3.The Soprano's Ending
4.George W. Bush

I answered by a process of elimination.
1. Brittany Spears would have to matter or have a distinct impact on my life in order for me to consider her a failure. She didn't qualify.

2. Michael Vick is in a totally different realm than "failure". Although I'm sure that's what his teammate 'buds' felt he did to them: fail them and to hell w/what he did to those poor animals. Yeah, boo-hoo for the team and his teammates. To me, he qualifies in the category of sadistic, SOB, B@st@rd, Mother ******. (I put in the asterisks).

3. The Sopranos' Ending? Uh, hello? We're talking, like, real life. Not a fictional HBO mafia family from Alpine, New Jersey in the cartage "business". Duh.

4. George W. Bush? Well, as diplomatically as I could have put it: I would have had to have had an expectation of success in order for someone or something to have 'failed' me. No?

continuing on a topic which is ot...

I was thinking this morning that if I had an all-day radio show I could fill it with
"News of the Bizarre" or -"never underestimate the stupidity of certain folk" -
1)Researchers have developed a pill to create the effects of exercise
!
2)Anderson Cooper re the report that just came out that Iran is *not* creating a bomb: "Gee..how did our Intelligence get it so wrong?"

duh..
Anderson, have you heard of a country called Iraq?
ARGGG

e

Oh, boy, I've wanted that for a long time! "Bizzarro News" with two specific editorial sections:

• "What The Hell Did They Mean By That?"
News devoted to oxymorons, metaphors and double-speak in politics; and

• "What The Hell Were They Thinking?"
News of the incredibly stupid and how their dumb-a$$ actions affect the world.

"The Daily Show" comes pretty darn close to covering both.

I think if my son's elementary class can have up and running computers payed for mostly by fund raising then the federal government should be able to afford some good computers also. IT's just an excuse.

In case you missed it:

"Here’s an easy question: What’s worse, someone who doesn’t know anything about the world, or someone who tries to spread their ignorance to others on national television? The View’s Sherri Shepard, who once admitted she didn’t know if the world was flat, insists that “Jesus came first before [the Greeks and Romans]” and “I don’t think anything pre-dated Christians.” Really? What about Pangaea?

Clearly this woman has never heard the meaning of the expression B.C."


ps If I had my bizarro news blog, I would entitle it "No Comment", altho I'm sure someone already has that title.
Some things speak for themselves, and all I can do is shake my head and

ellen

quote:

“I don’t think anything pre-dated Christians.”

WHAT??

Who is this idiot?

Guess you don't watch The View?

I don't watch it either, but a couple of news re-played this incident, cuz it is so uh..amazing.

She is the same person who doesn't believe in evolution, and when Whoopie Goldberg asked her, well do you think the world is flat, and she said, I don't know. I never thought about it.

gosh I can't find an emoticon to show how I feel about that!!

e

Next thing you're gonna tell me is that Adam and Eve didn't ride dinosaurs to church.

A bunch of know-it-alls here. Sheesh.

Wayne

Yeah, I found the clip online. Wow.

Does it sound "sour grapey" to say I can't believe that this moron gets paid a sh*+load of money to host a TV show while you and I aren't???

I think "The Ellen and Su Show" has a great ring. Our tagline could be, "Perennials and Politics."

I like it!