Editorial: Hire more food inspectors

Sunday, July 22, 2007 | 1:19 a.m.

Following the deaths of numerous dogs and cats earlier this year because of a tainted ingredient imported from China, the news got worse.

Reports of tainted imported human food were published, such as this one in May from The Washington Post:

"Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

"These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month ... For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught ..."

The news stories also focused on the staggering amount of foods and ingredients imported from China.

This all had to come as a shock to most Americans, whose trust in federal agencies to protect the country's food supply was so ingrained that it was apt to be relegated to the subconscious.

Responding to the emerging facts about tainted food, President Bush last week created a Cabinet-level Working Group to review all federal regulations and procedures related to the inspection of imported food and other consumer products.

It is a national scandal that federal agencies in charge of guarding our food supply, such as the FDA, have not been properly funded and staffed over the years. They have not been able to keep up with the explosion in imported food, driven by immense savings in labor costs.

We hope the Working Group recommends adding many inspectors, so we can get tough with countries that see us as an easy market for their unregulated and oftentimes purposely tainted products.