The Food and Drug Administration or FDA is a government
program, which attempts to protect the American public from many different fields.
The FDA is responsible for protecting us by checking the safety of drugs, biological
products, medical devices, food, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation for
both humans and animals. That’s a lot of responsibility for a single government
program. On top of all these regulation responsibilities, the FDA is in charge of
manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco, and protecting the
public from health risk resulting from tobacco. Also the FDA takes part in our counter-terrorism system as they are in charge of protecting the security of our food, and to
help encourage the development of drugs to protect public health. So to
summarize, the FDA regulates and protects.
First
regulation, what does the FDA regulate and what powers do they have to do this?
The FDA regulates the areas of food, drugs, biologics, medical devices, electronic
products, cosmetics, veterinary products, and tobacco products. To make matter
more confusing in Government regulation and inspection of our food, not all our
food is regulated and inspected by one agency. The Department of the
Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau regulates alcohol. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service regulates
meat and poultry products. And while vaccines for humans are regulated by the
FDA, animal vaccines are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service which at the same time does not
regulate veterinary drugs. And in another confusing turn of regulation, drinking
water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency while bottled water
is regulated by the FDA. In the food category, the FDA regulates dietary
supplements, bottle water, food additives, infant formulas, and food products. In
the drugs category, the FDA regulates prescription and non-prescription drugs. In
the biological category, the FDA regulates vaccines, blood, cellular and gene therapy
products, tissue and tissue products, and allergenics. In the medical devices
category, the FDA regulates everything from tongue depressors to pacemakers. In
the electronic products category, the FDA regulates anything that gives off
radiation such as microwave ovens and x-ray machines. In the cosmetics
category, the FDA regulates nail polish, perfume, skin cleansers, and color additives
in makeup. In the veterinary products category, the FDA regulates livestock
feeds, pet foods, and veterinary drugs.
The
FDA has been accused in recent years of many things. They have been accused of being
too lax with inspections and regulations, allowing sub-par products to go
through their system un-touched. They have also been accused of being bias
toward corporations and companies. Since the FDA is government program, they are
subject to Congress, and congressmen can be bought. Many claims have come from
people including the former Commissioner of the FDA, Herbert L. Ley, Jr that
the FDA gets corrupted by drug lobbyists and politicians in the pockets of
companies.
In
conclusion, while doing my research I found the website of the FDA very hard to
navigate with many links crashing the page or not loading at all. I believe
that the Food and Drug Administration has the potential to be a great
government agency, but where they are currently will not continue to work. They
need leaders that are not influenced by the companies, whose products are
subject to review by the FDA.
