• rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    While RFK Jr is the same worm man, let’s please remember all the cries about drugs being expensive and regulators stifling competition there, and that (from what I’ve read, I’ve never been to US) what can be put into food is already not very well regulated in your country.

    Those agencies are problematic. Just like actions aimed at something good may have negative side effects, often outweighing the effect in the intended direction, similarly it is here.

    And after typing the previous I’ve read the article and that’s what he’s saying, mentioning Canada as the good example. Unfortunately by analogy this would mean that for drug regulation he’d go the same way, only with his antivaxxer views. Also talking about kids being healthier is cringe.

    • ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml
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      26 days ago

      The agencies are problematic because they generally aren’t allowed or don’t have the budget to properly regulate things. Eliminating departments isn’t going to help anything, and I really don’t think the guy that picks up roadkill for a snack will improve the overall quality of food in the country.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        26 days ago

        Not sure this is the case with FDA.

        We’ll see. Roadkill for snack is fine when meat’s cooked correctly, unless it’s a roadkill near Chernobyl.

        But it’s understandable not to trust the guy who had part of his brain eaten by a parasite to cook meat correctly.

        • ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml
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          26 days ago

          It’s important to know that both the FDA and the USDA are in charge of inspecting food, and which food is covered by which agency can be complicated.

          FSIS [under the USDA] conducts continuous daily inspections of foods in its domain, whereas FDA inspections have no regular schedule. The FDA is more likely to inspect only after a tip about a possible food safety violation, so random inspections can occur up to 10 years apart or, in rare cases, not at all.

          “It’s not that they don’t want to inspect more, they just don’t have the funding,” Raymond says.

          This inspection imbalance means that pepperoni pizza, because it contains meat, has ingredients that will be inspected three times before the product hits the grocery store freezer: at the slaughterhouse, the packing plant and the pizza factory. A vegetarian pizza produced at the same facility, however, will probably not undergo any inspection.

          And in regard to the FDA being not allowed to regulate:

          [The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994] placed the burden of proof concerning dietary supplement safety on FDA, requiring the agency to show that a dietary supplement ingredient is adulterated rather than requiring the manufacturer to prove a supplement is safe prior to marketing. This is in contrast to new food additives, which require submission of safety information in a food additive petition prior to marketing, or drugs, which generally require submission of safety data as part of a new drug application prior to marketing.

          At least with dietary supplements, they can’t make a new product guarantee it’s safe, the FDA needs to already know something is dangerous before it can force a recall.

          If you’d prefer to learn more through a comedian, John Oliver covered this topic a while back https://youtu.be/Za45bT41sXg