IS THE FDA NECESSARY?
The Food and Drug Administration regulatory cop has been off the beat so long that some food producers have hired their own inspectors, reports Andrew Martin of the New York Times:
For many years, the food industry lobbied against initiatives that would have strengthened the F.D.A.’s oversight. But industry attitudes are changing as food-borne pathogens turn up repeatedly in foodstuffs once regarded as safe, like peanuts and pistachio nuts, costing those industries millions in lost sales.
This raises an interesting anti-regulation point: companies do have a market incentive to hire their own regulators, because no company wants to be the next Georgia Peanut Corporation or (for those nostalgic for FDA news of the 90′s) Jack in the Box. But the self-policing introduces a conflict of interest — for example, unlike federal inspectors, companies would not likely go public if they discovered rampant health and safety violations, particularly those inflicting company workers.
Ultimately, companies actually benefit from a strong FDA. They don’t have to pay for food inspectors. And they don’t have to compete with companies that take advantage of weak regulation by brazenly ignoring minimal health safeguards.-MB