Food safety is a vital component of public health, as demonstrated by the prevalence of food-borne illnesses and recalls due to safety concerns.

Food Safety: A Vital Public Health Concern

The FDA's shortcomings and delayed response to food recalls are highlighted, along with examples of food recalls due to safety concerns.

FDA Shortcomings and Recalls

The shutdown of an Abbott factory due to safety violations and the FDA's delayed response, leading to hospitalizations and deaths, are discussed.

Abbott Factory Shutdown and FDA Failures

The historical failures of the FDA in ensuring food safety and the lack of authority to address safety concerns are highlighted.

Historical FDA Failures

The FDA's emphasis on drugs over food, funding issues, and the complex division of responsibilities with the USDA are discussed.

FDA's Emphasis on Drugs Over Food

The complexity of the FDA's oversight, funding issues, and the discrepancy in resources between the FDA and USDA are explained.

Complexity and Funding Issues

The inadequate oversight of food safety, slow bureaucracy, and lack of resources for critical areas like infant formula oversight are highlighted.

Inadequate Oversight and Bureaucracy

The dysfunction within the FDA, including slow bureaucracy and delayed decisions, and the consequences of inadequate oversight are discussed.

Dysfunction and Consequences

The vulnerabilities in food safety, particularly with leafy greens, and the challenges in inspecting produce are explained.

Vulnerabilities in Food Safety

The need for a massive overhaul in food safety, the history of the USDA overhaul, and the shortcomings of the FDA Modernization Act are discussed.

Overhaul and Modernization Act

- The piece discusses the importance of food safety in public health.
- It highlights the high number of Americans affected by food-borne illnesses each year.
- The FDA's shortcomings in ensuring food safety are exposed, citing examples of delayed recalls and safety violations.
- The FDA's focus on drugs rather than food is criticized.
- The division of responsibilities between the FDA and USDA for food safety oversight is confusing and creates cracks for problems.
- The FDA receives less funding than the USDA for food safety oversight, despite having a more complex job.
- The FDA's team overseeing infant formula is understaffed, with only 9 people allocated to the task.

- The FDA has issues with its structure and bureaucracy, as demonstrated by its slow decision-making process.
- The FDA recently proposed removing ingredient requirements for French dressing, which was requested by the Association for Dressings and Sauces.
- The FDA's oversight of leafy greens is a major concern, as large industrial farms with close proximity to livestock can lead to food contamination.
- The FDA has significantly fewer workers overseeing leafy greens compared to beef, which poses a risk to public health.
- The FDA's lack of resources and slow response time has resulted in outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, such as E. coli.
- The Food Safety Modernization Act was meant to address these issues, but the FDA has not been adequately funded and has faced bureaucratic challenges in implementing the necessary regulations.
- Some experts suggest that a complete overhaul or the creation of a new agency dedicated solely to food safety may be necessary to prevent future outbreaks.

The speaker expresses their dissatisfaction with a world where the only safe way to prepare a basic salad is through a complicated process.

- The text discusses the importance of food safety in public health and highlights the high number of Americans affected by food-borne illnesses each year.
- It criticizes the FDA's shortcomings in ensuring food safety, citing examples of delayed recalls and safety violations, and their focus on drugs rather than food.
- The confusion in responsibilities between the FDA and USDA for food safety oversight is mentioned, along with the FDA's lack of funding compared to the USDA.
- Issues with the FDA's structure and bureaucracy, as well as their slow decision-making process, are highlighted.
- Specific concerns are raised about the FDA's oversight of infant formula and leafy greens, which have been linked to outbreaks of foodborne illnesses.
- The FDA's lack of resources and slow response time, along with bureaucratic challenges, have hindered the implementation of necessary regulations.
- Some experts suggest the need for a complete overhaul or the creation of a new agency dedicated solely to food safety.

John Oliver discusses the groups in charge of keeping our food safe – from the FDA, to the USDA, to, most crucially, the Association for Dressings and Sauces.      

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-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Our main story tonight concerns food.

Whether you're a vegan, a carnivore, or somewhere in between, all of it is either ripped from its home or dies screaming.

Specifically, we're gonna talk about food safety.

It is a vital component of public health, as demonstrated by this old PSA about a military base having to deal with an outbreak of salmonella.

At midnight, about 40 of us in the duty section got a light meal.

It was just about this time that things were beginning to happen.

At first, a few of the men who weren't in the duty section got sick.

It was hard to tell which caused the most trouble.

Except it isn't, because diarrhea causes the most trouble.

If you had to choose between those 3 symptoms, diarrhea is dead last every single time.

Awful, but at least you can somewhat control the trajectory.

It is possible to daintily vomit in public, but there is absolutely no way to retain any shred of dignity once you have shat yourself.

-♪ ♪ -♪ Odds are, you've probably experienced getting sick from food at some point in your life, because it happens a lot.

Every year, an estimated 46 million Americans are sickened by food-borne illnesses.

And of them, 128,000 are hospitalized, and about 3,000 die.

Now, obviously, it is in the public interest to try and prevent any of that from happening, which is why so often, you'll turn on the TV and see stories like these.

Kraft Heinz has voluntarily recalled 7,000 cases of Taco Bell's salsa con queso mild cheese dip out of botulism concerns.

An expanded recall of peaches linked to a salmonella outbreak.

Several Jif peanut butter products are being pulled from the shelves.

Stores cannot sell this cereal legally because of this recall.

So, if you have the Honey Smacks in your pantry, please throw it out.

On the first 1, Honestly, I'd always assumed that all Taco Bell jarred products could give you botulism.

And as for, throw out your honey smacks, that's pretty good advice even when there's not a recall.

And that's without getting into the mascot.

Serial mascots are supposed to be charming, whether they're a cultural stereotype that this accent doesn't get to enjoy, or an inappropriately sexy tiger.

And look, when you see stories like those, you would assume that the government is constantly on the lookout for potentially dangerous food.

But it's become increasingly clear that our food safety system, in particular, the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees most of it, has some serious shortcomings.

In 2016, an audit done by the agency itself found unacceptable delays in getting dangerous food off the shelves, finding that in 30 recalls, it took an average of 57 days from when the FDA was notified.

And the author of that report acknowledged that was a big problem.

Unless you get all the product off the shelf, people still are at risk.

If you were playing Russian roulette, you took all the bullets out of the gun and you put it to your head, there's no risk.

But if there's still a couple of bullets left in there, you're still playing Russian roulette, aren't you?

That is an alarmingly apt metaphor for the current safety of our food supply.

Although, real quick, if you are playing Russian roulette and you take all the bullets out of the gun, for what it's worth, you are no longer playing Russian roulette.

You're in a community theater production of The Seagull.

I had to leave at intermission, but you were so good.

And you might remember, the FDA's shortcomings were badly exposed last year when Abbott, a company that makes 40% of this country's baby formula, shut down its factory over serious safety violations.

Violations that the FDA clearly should have acted on much sooner.

A sign of trouble came last September in a report to the FDA.

An infant who became ill with a rare bacterial infection had consumed formula made at the Abbott plant.

In October, an Abbott whistleblower sent FDA officials this 34-page document alleging that lax practices, including regulatory violations, were consistently overlooked.

It wasn't until January 31st that the FDA sent a team to the Abbott facility to investigate.

There, they found evidence of bacteria in the powdered infant formula environment that can be deadly to infants.

The FDA took 4 months from their first sign something was wrong to do a follow-up inspection.

And at that point, at least 4 babies had been hospitalized, and 2 died.

Even an internal FDA report afterwards concluded that the agency had systemic vulnerabilities.

And a much more scathing outside audit faulted them for lack of communication and engagement across the agency.

But the truth is, Scathing report finds fault with the FDA is just not a new story.

It has happened again and again and again.

You can find similar reports in 2010, 1991, and even this 1 from back in 1969.

The American consumer is surrounded by an arsenal of products which can kill or maim him, and the Food and Drug Administration has neither the money nor the authority to do much about it.

That's the gist of a confidential report prepared by 7 senior members of the FDA.

That is Walter Cronkite flagging the state that the FDA is a serious problem half a century ago.

And if something that he reported on is still an issue, you know you've got a problem.

I'm just saying, if JFK was still regularly getting shot in Dallas, You'd really hope somebody would have done something about it by now.

But given that we've known the way the FDA regulates food is some version of fucked for decades, tonight, let's talk about exactly why that is, and why it's been so hard to fix.

Let's start with the fact that despite the FDA standing for Food and Drug Administration, the 2 parts of that are not given remotely equal weight.

FDA commissioners almost always come from the medical side and have almost no experience with food issues.

And apparently, it's a long-running joke among FDA officials that the F in FDA is silent.

In fact, its own staff, including some FDA commissioners, have been known to slip up and call it the Federal Drug Administration.

And come on, there's only 2 things to remember in the name, food and drugs.

If you need a helpful mnemonic for it, just remember this simple phrase, food and drugs, it's 2 fucking words.

Also, interestingly, the FDA doesn't actually oversee the safety of all food in the U.S.

It oversees around 80 percent of it, but the remaining 20 percent largely falls under the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

And the division of responsibilities can get maddeningly complicated.

While broadly, the USDA oversees beef, poultry, and some egg products, and the FDA oversees the rest.

In practice, where the exact lines get drawn can get ridiculous.

Beef broth made in a plant regulated by the USDA, which inspects every day.

But chicken broth, made in a plant regulated by the FDA, which is inspected once every 5 years.

In the frozen food aisle, cheese pizza is regulated by The FDA.

It can be very difficult to guess which agency oversees which kinds of food.

The feed that egg-laying hens eat, FDA again.

But closed-faced meat sandwich, that's FDA.

And you should know, if you make a half-cheese, half-pepperoni pizza, and then put an egg on top, the whole government actually explodes.

And the thing is, that fractured structure can create a lot of cracks for problems to fall into.

Because despite the fact that the FDA oversees, remember, 80% of food, they and the USDA receive close to the same amount of funding for food safety oversight.

Meaning the FDA essentially has to make the same budget go 4 times as far.

On top of that, the FDA's job is actually much more complex, because while the USDA's work is concentrated in large meat processing plants, of which we have relatively few, around 800, the FDA's purview includes about 35,000 produce farms, 300,000 restaurant chain establishments, 10,500 vending machine operators, and roughly 275,000 food processing facilities, more than half of which are overseas.

Very basically, the FDA is spread extremely thin, and the USDA isn't.

And this discrepancy actually helps explain a shocking fact that came to light after that baby formula incident last year, regarding the size of the FDA team that is tasked with overseeing those particular factories.

There's a total of 9 people who are focused on infant formula at the FDA in the budget.

We got an additional 4 people allocated last year.

The entire department overseeing infant formula was just 9 people.

For context, this show has 4 interns, and we need all of them.

But the stakes of their jobs are just not nearly as high.

Their only life or death duty is making sure that Mr.

So, clearly, some of the FDA's issues come from without in how it's structured and funded, but some of its problems come from within.

Like the fact that even by government standards, it has an infamously slow bureaucracy.

Take for instance this very specific announcement that they made at the end of 2020.

The Food and Drug Administration is proposing removing ingredient requirements for the salad dressing at the request of the Association for Dressings and Sauces.

Right now, dressing must include vinegar, oil, and lemon or lime in order to be called French.

Now, I know that was about an FDA ruling, but the only thing that I'm thinking about after watching that clip is the Association for Dressings and Sauces.

I now want to know everything about them.

I'm guessing ranch and barbecue sauce are the heavyweights there, mayo too, obviously.

And then there's probably turmoil over the hot, young newcomers, truffle ketchup, green goddess dressing, all the flashy stuff.

But who do you think the black sheep of the organization are?

Maybe some of the more fucked up mustards?

This is the only thing I'm interested in talking about now.

Just know, any time I'm talking about something else, 90% of my brain is still focused on the Association for Dressings and Sauces.

But the point of showing you that clip is that the FDA made that announcement at the end of 2020, after my new favorite trade group asked them to do something about the definition of French dressing back in, and this is true, 1998.

And when they announced the decision, they didn't even explain why it took them more than 2 decades, spanning 1-9-11 and the dissolution of the Spice Girls, to arrive at that decision.

But all of this dysfunction has real consequences, because it's not just baby formula or honey smacks that can cause illness.

1 of the biggest vulnerabilities in our current system actually has to do with leafy greens.

They are overseen by the FDA, and are a major source of food contamination.

And 1 of the key reasons for that is that large industrial farms have become more common with livestock raised extremely close to where crops are being grown, and sometimes even sharing a water source.

And that, as this expert explains, can be a real issue.

How we raise animals can fuel the growth of these bugs.

So if we crowd the animals together and you have 1 that's carrying a really bad pathogen like E.

Coli 157, then they can poop those bacteria out.

And then the shit from the cattle washes off into the streams or into canals, irrigation canals.

And then those can be used to water these plants.

You have this distribution system for these pathogens from animals to produce.

Now, there are a lot of excellent production choices in that documentary, including deciding to both cinematically shoot a cow shitting, and allow someone to say the word, shit.

You can keep your little pleasantries like feces and manure, but it's cow shit.

Call it what it is, we know it when we see it, if not always when we eat it.

But the point is, that shit can go from the animals into water, which is then sprayed directly onto the lettuce.

And given the growth in boxed and bagged salads, just 1 head of contaminated lettuce can get spread out across a lot of people.

And while with meat, you can kill off a lot of the pathogens simply through the act of cooking it, with produce like leafy greens, your options are significantly more limited.

Rinsing fruits and vegetables is always a good idea, but health experts say E.

I had a professor who used to say, you can't sterilize lettuce with a blowtorch.

That is a striking thing for your professor to have said to you.

Although, to be fair, it's technically not true, because you obviously can sterilize lettuce with a blowtorch.

And the reason I know that is, just watch me.

I'm not saying this is a good idea, or that it tastes good afterwards, I'm just saying.

You clearly can sterilize lettuce with a blowtorch, okay?

All of this would make you hope that our produce is as thoroughly inspected as our beef, but the opposite is the case.

Because while there are over 7,000 workers overseeing beef for the USDA, there are only 614 FDA field investigators responsible for leafy greens.

And I would say that this is a disaster waiting to happen, except it already has happened, and repeatedly.

Coli outbreak in leafy greens sickened 240 people and killed 5 across 36 states.

Coli outbreak hit again in leafy greens, but the FDA was so tied up dealing with the first 1, that an FDA executive wrote to his colleagues, I have no resources to deploy.

And it's a little disconcerting that messages from a modern public health department sound a lot like missives from the Civil War.

-♪ ♪ -$1.50 And as this food safety expert explains, all of that leads to a truly striking truth.

When you eat a hamburger, The most dangerous part of that is not the burger.

It's going to be the onion, lettuce, and the tomatoes.

Partly because I don't want to live in a world where lettuce, onion, and tomatoes are dangerous, but also because I don't want to live in a world where going to Panera is edgy.

Panera is, and should always be, a milquetoast suburban destination where women in their 50s gossip, girls in their teens gossip, and 1 very old man eats a bagel over the course of 3 hours.

Panera should not be edgy, but as the FDA seems to have turned a Greek salad into a loaded gun, I guess it fucking is now!

So by this point, it should be clear, a massive overhaul is needed here.

And you should know, overhauls in food safety can happen.

It happened to the USDA 30 years ago, after undercooked hamburgers at Jack in the Box restaurants led to 1 of the worst E.

Something that, just as a side note, Jack in the Box executives at the time could have handled with a little more tact.

The company's president says Jack in the Box will pay all medical expenses for those who got sick, and he urged customers to come back to avert another blow to the company.

Also, how is it the customer's responsibility to keep your employees from losing their jobs?

If we accidentally killed 4 people during 1 of our multiple stupid explosions, I wouldn't be begging you to keep watching our show and be getting sent to prison.

Except, I'm just kidding, rich white celebrities don't go to prison.

Felicity Huffman took 1 for the whole team, so now we're square.

The point is, after Jack in the Box, there was a public outcry prompting a major overhaul to the USDA.

And the thing is, the FDA almost had a similar moment back in the late aughts.

There were a series of horrific outbreaks in peanut butter, spinach, and other foods.

And in response, Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act, which gave the FDA sweeping new powers to regulate food.

And at the time, everyone thought this was a pretty big deal.

Today, President Obama signs a bill for the first major overhaul of the U.S.

It will give the Food and Drug Administration new powers to force mandatory recalls when food-borne illness or other hazards are found in the U.S.

If this law is a huge success, a lot of that success is going to be invisible.

You are not gonna be seeing as many people sick.

Yeah, it sounded great, except if all of that had actually happened, I wouldn't be doing this story right now, would I?

We'd be back to our regularly scheduled programming of hamster loneliness, or I don't know, fucking trout gout.

Spoiler alert, it's more common than you think, and Congress refuses to act.

There were just 2 small problems, though, with the Food Safety Modernization Act.

First, we didn't fund the FDA to do all the new things that we just asked it to do.

And second, the agency was still hamstrung by its glacial bureaucracy.

For instance, the law mandated that the FDA come up with a standard for water being used in agriculture.

Basically, a way to keep your salad from getting lightly misted with microscopic cow shit.

The problem is, it's 12 years later, and it still hasn't produced a final rule.

They did, in December 2021, unveil a proposed rule, but it had some major problems, including the fact that it didn't mandate any testing.

Instead, it asked producer growers to identify and address their own potential hazards, which is clearly less of a water standard and more of a self-graded water quiz.

And while it would be great if businesses could be trusted to keep themselves in check, that's not generally how things go.

For a good example of this, look at literally any business.

And look, some people might argue that the FDA simply needs to be funded better and that its lines of authority need to be clearer.

And to be fair, there has been some recent progress there.

Just last month, they established a new role at the agency, so 1 person could be in charge of the FDA's entire food safety program.

It's a bit incredible that that role didn't exist until just now, but still, I will take it.

The problem is, though, history strongly suggests that it won't be nearly enough.

A much bolder plan would be to actually break the FDA up completely, and in doing so, create a new agency solely devoted to food.

Now, that's a big move and 1 likely to face significant resistance, and it would need to be done very carefully, but I would argue it might be worth it.

So many experts we talked to for this story said that if we were to build a food safety system from scratch, it'd look nothing like the fractured system that we have today.

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