Wednesday, March 12, 2008

It was telling, and unsurprising, that there was nothing relating to food in The Post's March 7 editorial "Fixing the FDA." Though food appears first in the Food and Drug Administration's name, food safety and nutrition play second fiddle to drugs at the agency.

The FDA regulates about 80 percent of America's food but receives only about a third of America's food-safety dollars. The remaining money is spent at the Agriculture Department, where again food safety is just one of many things the agribusiness-promoting agency tries to do.

The FDA clearly needs fixing, meaning, as The Post suggested, more money for inspections at pharmaceutical plants here and abroad -- but also at the farms, factories and processing facilities that supply America's foods. A still better fix would be to split the FDA into one well-funded agency devoted to drugs and a second food-safety agency that also includes the food-safety functions now at the Agriculture Department. Both food and medicines are too important to get second billing at any agency.

MICHAEL F. JACOBSON

Executive Director

Center for Science in the Public Interest

Washington