WASHINGTON - The huge salmonella outbreak from peanut butter represented a failure of the Food and Drug Administration, that agency's new chiefs declared Tuesday - one they hope to fix.
Expect a "modern food-safety system focused on prevention of contamination," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and her deputy, Joshua Sharfstein, wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Even its defenders acknowledge the FDA - the nation's chief consumer protection agency - is struggling, given increasing responsibilities overseeing ever-more-complex health industries but not a budget sufficient to do the job. An independent review in 2007 concluded lives were at risk, and morale plummeted as the agency's own scientists charged their safety concerns were dismissed by leaders too cozy with industry.
Hamburg, who was just sworn in on Friday and Sharfstein have pledged to restore the FDA's credibility. The two physicians introduced themselves to the country's doctors Tuesday in an article published online by the respected medical journal - and they didn't underestimate the work ahead.
One priority: Working with the Agriculture Department to improve food safety, following some high-profile crises including the peanut butter outbreak earlier this year that sickened nearly 700 people and is blamed for at least nine deaths. Peanut Corp. of America is under criminal investigation for allegedly shipping peanut butter and another ingredient used in thousands of other products that it knew to be tainted.
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