Food-Borne Illnesses Rise, Inspections Drop

The AP is reporting (via MSNBC [1]) that food inspections by the FDA have dropped since 2003.

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

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Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency’s own statistics.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the FDA, at the urging of Congress, increased the number of food inspectors and inspections amid fears that the nation’s food system was vulnerable to terrorists. Inspectors and inspections spiked in 2003, but now both have fallen enough to erase the gains.

Surpisingly, cases of food-borne illnesses were three times higher in 2003 (the peak of inspections) than the previous year.