Associated Press:
The federal agency that's been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.
The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.
"We have a food safety crisis on the horizon," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.
Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.
So we're dumping a boatload of money on a snipe hunt in Iraq to keep us safe from an entirely theoretical (and largely fictitious) threat and now we can't afford to do inspections to keep us safe from proven and actual threats.
That's one of the signs of leadership, that sense of priorities.
Tags: news | politics | Bush | FDA | morons | consumer safety
