Who Is Responsible For Food Safety?

Food safety has become a fast growing issue across the United States because of the high levels of GMO and the fatalities of consumers. There have been incidents where the consumer has not received justice from the companies. The government has protected the big corporations leaving the consumers to question, who will protect their rights? Who will ensure food safety? The food production corporations should ensure food safety for consumers which should be monitored by the Food and Drug Administration.

Food production corporations should ensure food safety since they are responsible for the consequences that consumers encounter after consuming their product. There have been consumers who have died because of an E. coli infection that has occurred through the contamination of feces of an animal in the food being produced. Foodborne diseases have caused an estimate of “6 million to 81 million illnesses and up to 9,000 deaths each year (EIDJ).” These corporations need to take action and be monitored by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Food and Drug Administration should enforce caution for food corporations when producing goods for the consumers. The “FDA-regulated products have almost tripled from 2004 to 2014, rising to about 33 million” (IFS). This increase of FDA influence upon the food products can promote a form of assurance of the food corporations making changes to their productions and have them become more cautious about the chemicals utilized. The FDA is working on protecting the American consumer and “implementing historic new food safety laws” (IFS). The administration is part of the food system and provides a safety net for consumers and will trial these large corporations demanding change.

The large corporations can escape the responsibility of the negative effects of their produce by blaming the consumers. However, there is only so much a consumer can do to ensure food safety. Buying at farmers’ markets can be extremely expensive, thus making most Americans rely on the large food industries to provide clean, healthy, and good produce (CPH). Furthermore, with the increase in supply and demand “Controlling human pathogens on fresh vegetables, fruits and nuts is imperative” (CA) yet it seems like a rather impossible task with the pressure of industry and government sources. This leaves for the public to rely not only on the honesty and caution of these corporations but the FDA to mandate regulations.

In conclusion the food industries need to take responsibility for the negative outcomes that have occurred because of their product and be regulated by the FDA to ensure the public’s health. The government has not been much help when having past corporations trialed for these foodborne illnesses, but with the help of new regulations and the FDA there shall be more caution when using chemicals. These large corporations need to change their form of production and follow these mandated laws that the FDA has instilled to protect the public’s health.

– Melany Suarez

1. Baur, Patrick, et al. “Inconsistent Food Safety Pressures Complicate Environmental Conservation for California Produce Growers.” California Agriculture, vol. 70, no. 3, Jul-Sep2016, pp. 142-151. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3733/ca.2016a0006.

2. Taylor, Michael R. and Howard R. Sklamberg. “Internationalizing Food Safety: FDA’s Role in the Global Food System.” Harvard International Review, vol. 37, no. 3, Spring2016, pp. 32-37. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.southern.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fse

3. “Food-Related Illness and Death in the United States – Volume 5, Number 5-October 1999 – Emerging Infectious Disease journal – CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 Dec. 2010. Web. 7 Apr. 2017.

4. Meah, Angela. “Still Blaming the Consumer? Geographies of Responsibility in Domestic Food Safety Practices.” Critical Public Health, vol. 24, no. 1, Mar. 2014, pp. 88-103. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/09581596.2013.791387.

5. Fig. 1 “Cooking Tumblr.” Lowephotos.info. Accessed April 18, 2017.

Who is Really Responsible?

Food. Such a wonderful necessity to life. Food can change a person’s mood in a matter of minutes. It can make a sad person smile, a mad person laugh, and so much more. So when it comes to the safety of food, who is really responsible. Now many can say that as the consumer of the food we eat, we are responsible, but it goes deeper than that. Even though we control what we eat, the government is much more responsible for so many reasons. For one, it has set up organizations, such as the Food and Drug Administration or FDA, Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the Food Safety and Inspection Service. These organizations were set up so that they can make sure food is safe for people to eat. They do checks on companies to make sure they are following the rules and regulations on making food safe. Many people don’t really know what these companies are doing to the food that they are consuming. Big corporations use different chemicals and ingredients to make the food grow faster and last longer. Even though the things they use are working on the food, it has also made people sick and even die from it. If the companies choose not to follow the rules that these organizations, set up by the government make, they have the power to close these companies down. A reporter for the Produce News, Joan Murphy, talks about how the FDA did just that to a company. “Sunland became the first business to have its food facility registration suspended by the FDA, thereby shutting it down, after its testing records showed it shipped Salmonella-positive products, the FDA said in a Nov. 26 letter from Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to Sunland President Jimmie Shearer.” The FDA is cracking down on companies that aren’t following the rules of the government have set up to keep the people who eat the food these companies have set up. The government also has the responsibility because it has all the resources to stop the disease from getting out even more. If there was a breakout of a deadly disease, the government- made organizations start going to work to stop this disease from getting to a large amount of people. They have scientist and detectives trying to figure out what caused the breakout and how to stop it. They then come up with medication to give to people so they don’t catch this horrendous illness. These are just a few reasons why the government has more of the responsibility of the food we as the consumer eat.

—Levern Anderson

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• Murphy, Joan. “First company shut down by FDA under new food-safety law”, December 06, 2012. Accessed 28 March. 2017.
• “Safer Food Saves Lives Infographics” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 03, 2015. Accessed 28 March. 2017.

• “What the Government does?” FoodSafety.gov, September 15, 2016. Accessed 27 March. 2017.
• “What is the role of the FDA” EDinformatics.com, Accessed 28 March. 2017.
• Fig 1: Who is responsible for the outcome of your life.           http://www.hongcurley.com/who-is-responsible-for-the-outcome-of-your-life/

Corrupt FDA

The American government should feed, educate, and protect its people. Government food companies like to increase the profits, while decreasing costs. This has resulted in less money allocated in the regulation of healthy food. No matter how diseased the animals are, they are still money in the eyes of the meat packagers. The Food and Drug Administration(FDA) has not been imposing safety regulations for their desire of profit.

According to Quartz Media; the meat industry has contributed about $894 billion dollars to the US government. The immense lobbying and political campaigning has resulted in companies influencing the government. The government protected the tobacco companies when the linking of lung cancer to tobacco emerged. This was because they brought immense revenue to the government.

The FDA purpose is to regulate and approve the administration of Drugs and Food products. In an article by the Huffington post, stated how the members of the FDA that determined if the food additives companies were using were safe, all had ties to the companies they were researching. The infiltrated members of the FDA protected their companies leaving them to decide whether the additives were safe or not.

The FDA not imposing regulations on the meat, has brought many consequences to the people. This is due to the fact of how the production of the meat is. What took ten weeks to make a four-pound chicken forty years ago, today only takes five weeks. (Modern) Companies produce while ignoring if the chicken has diseases. If the FDA does not regulate the companies, they will only be poisoning American people.

The FDA has also failed to ban the use of anti-biotics in factories. By giving animals antibiotics, they will get fatter, while reducing the chances of diseases from the extremely nasty conditions they live in. The use of anti-biotics has been linked to diseases which are resistant to anti-biotics. This has caused 23,000 deaths each year according to the Center of Disease Control(CDC). Our government which was formed to protect us, has not done anything about these deaths.

Today, anyone with money can influence the government. The government, which was meant to protect us, has turned against us. The FDA is a perfect example, as they have not imposed strict regulations on food companies. The infiltration of company officials has made the FDA look the other way to healthier food.

–Luis Samaniego

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1. Bartolotto, Carole. “4 Ways the Food and Drug Administration Is Not ‘Protecting and Promoting Your Health'” The Huffington Post. October 29, 2013. Accessed April 18, 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carole-bartolotto/fda-problems_b_3904329.html.

2. Figure 1

3. “Modern Meat Chicken Industry (Poultry).” Poultry (Penn State Extension). Accessed April 18, 2017. http://extension.psu.edu/animals/poultry/topics/general-educational-material/the-chicken/modern-meat-chicken-industry.

4. Shanker, Deena. “Big Meat’s wildly successful, 40-year crusade to keep its hold on the American diet.” Quartz. October 22, 2015. Accessed April 18, 2017. https://qz.com/523255/the-us-meat-industrys-wildly-successful-40-year-crusade-to-keep-its-hold-on-the-american-diet/.