U.S. Food Safety: The Import Alarm Keep...(st doubled in the past decade from $36 b...),Health

Trouble is, inspections by the FDA -- either at the source of production or at the borders -- can't keep up. The agency is responsible for inspecting all imported foods with the exception of meat and egg products, which are covered by the Food Safety and Inspection Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Overall, "there's been an 81 percent drop [in FDA inspections] since 1972," noted Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, in Griffin. "That's a huge reduction, and, at the same time, compared to 1972, we have a huge amount more of food imports."

In fact, the FDA's own data show that the number of inspectors at its Office of Regulatory Affairs dropped from 1,642 in 2003 to 1,389 in 2005 -- even as food imports rose from 9.3 million shipments per year to more than 13.8 million shipments annually.

The reason for the shortfall is simple, Doyle said: "Reduced budgets."

The bottom line, according to FDA figures, is that its inspectors now sample just 1.3 percent of all imported food shipments entering the country.

However, simply boosting the number of inspectors may not be the solution, said Michael Rogers, who helps oversee FDA foreign and domestic inspections as director of the FDA's division of field investigations.

"With more [money], certainly more inspections can be done," he said, "but that's not the panacea for total public heath protection." Instead , Rogers said, collaborating with business and foreign governments to help spot tainted food before it reaches this country, which is part of the Food Protection Plan, may be the most important step the agency can take.

Certainly, the agency currently performs relatively few on-site inspections of foreign farms and food processing plants.

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