If We Were All as Obtuse as the Food and Drug Administration, Our Genes Would Have Died Out Long Ago ─ The FDA Rejected the Idea of Emulating Britain’s Success in Reducing Egg Salmonella

24 August 2010

The Food and Drug Administration declined to follow Britain’s path to success in virtually eliminating egg-induced salmonella food poisoning

The New York Times reported today that the FDA refused to mandate vaccinating hens against salmonella ─ despite a vaccine’s success in reducing Britain’s egg-induced salmonella poisoning by 96 percent.

We’re Amer-uh-kuns. Nobody knows better un us.

Why the salmonella issue matters

The F.D.A. estimates that each year, 142,000 illnesses in the United States are caused by consuming eggs contaminated with the most common type of salmonella.

Why food safety matters today

Federal investigators have descended on Iowa to try to figure out the cause of a salmonella outbreak that may have sickened thousands of people and led to the recall of a half billion eggs.

Facts about Britain’s success in preventing egg-caused salmonella illness in people

In 1997, there were 14,771 reported cases in England and Wales of the most common type of the bacteria, a strain known as Salmonella Enteritidis PT4. Vaccine trials began that year, and the next year, egg producers began vaccinating in large numbers.

The number of human illnesses has dropped almost every year since then. Last year, according to data from the Health Protection Agency of England and Wales, there were just 581 cases, a drop of 96 percent from 1997.

“We have pretty much eliminated salmonella as a human problem in the U.K.,” said Amanda Cryer, director of the British Egg Information Service, an industry group.

It is true that Britain does not mandate vaccination, but in practice, its supermarkets do

There are no laws mandating vaccination in Britain. But it is required, along with other safety measures, if farmers want to place an industry-sponsored red lion stamp on their eggs, which shows they have met basic standards. The country’s major supermarkets buy only eggs with the lion seal, so vaccination is practiced by 90 percent of egg producers, according to Ms. Cryer.

The FDA’s excuses for not following the British example

Another F.D.A. food safety official, Nancy S. Bufano, said that despite the success of vaccination in Britain, the agency thought that because the vaccines used in the two countries were not identical, it made comparisons difficult.

[T]he F.D.A. said that only large-scale field trials could prove that a vaccine would work in the real world of commercial henhouses.

The FDA’s reasons for ignoring Britain’s public health experience are so weak that an eighth-grader could see through them

Americans could not buy the British vaccine, if our own don’t work? (Obviously not, if the FDA has a say.)

Britain is not in the real world? (That must be a shock to the Brits. But it must be true, the Americans said so.)

Britain has non-commercial hen houses? (How does that work for a British population of 60.8 million people?)

Why do so many American egg-producers use American-made salmonella vaccines, if the American vaccines don’t work?

One-half to two-thirds of American farmers already inoculate their flocks, according to industry estimates, and that number is likely to increase.

What is really going on at the FDA?

The F.D.A. began working on its new egg rules more than a decade ago, and a review of agency documents suggests that officials formed a negative opinion about the effectiveness of vaccines early on. That opinion failed to change as time passed and evidence mounted that vaccines significantly reduced the occurrence of salmonella.

Yes, that makes sense ─ everybody knows that science and medicine stand still for long periods. Therefore, there is no need for an allegedly scientific body like the FDA to keep up with advances.

Even by the FDA’s own estimate, the costs of vaccination are comparatively trivial, especially for the large commercial egg-producers the agency is apparently trying to protect

The F.D.A. has estimated that it would cost farmers about 14 cents a bird to vaccinate, or about $31 million to cover hens at all the large farms in the country. But vaccine company executives said the cost can be just a few cents a bird, depending on the type of vaccine and how many doses are given. A single bird can lay about 270 eggs in its lifetime.

The FDA’s rejection of the British hen vaccine experience reveals that the American agency camouflages industry control of its regulators with the pretense of adhering to scientific methods

It is highly unlikely that the FDA actually is so laggard that it does not recognize its duty to keep up with medical and public health advances.

Instead, the agency, like so many in Washington, is controlled by the industry it has been mandated to regulate.

Given the above facts, how can one conclude otherwise?

PeteFree.com

If We Were All as Obtuse as the Food and Drug Administration, Our Genes Would Have Died Out Long Ago ─ The FDA Rejected the Idea of Emulating Britain’s Success in Reducing Egg Salmonella