What is The Food and Drug Administration

         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.