It's fairly straightforward. The U.S. is an importing nation and it simply is too onerous (see time-intensive and costly) a process to inspect everything that comes into the country's ports. That's why food ingredient shipments are allowed in, with port authorities assuming companies on the receiving end of the shipment will do the necessary testing to make sure the product and, ultimately, consumers are safe. As now appears evident, that "system" did not work in the recent case that saw pets become sick and in 16 cases die from pet food tainted with wheat gluten containing melamine.
According to The Associated Press, imports from China (where the melamine came from), India and Mexico often fail Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections but the sheer number of imports from those and other countries prevents most food ingredients coming into the U.S. from ever being inspected. The FDA said it checked about one percent of imported food shipments into the country last year.
Michael Doyle, a microbiologist at the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety and former member of federal task forces on food security, said, "You don't have to be a Ph.D. to figure out that ... if someone were to put some type of a toxic chemical into a product that's trusted, that could do a lot of damage before it's detected."
In the meantime, U.S. imports of food ingredients grew to $7.6 billion last year up from $4.4 billion in 2001. Other food imports grew from $38.3 billion to $63 billion over the same period.
The FDA looks to other countries to assist it by providing oversight of products being exported to the U.S. but that is low on the priority list of foreign governments.
Discussion Questions: Is the current system sufficient to protect the safety of the imported food supply to the U.S.? Do the economic realities mean we continue on as-is or is there a real need to change our approach to the whole system of inspecting foods and ingredients being brought into the country?