ARE YOU POISONING YOUR FAMILY?

"Eat your spinach," Mary admonished a very reluctant 7-year-old Jonah. "And put some salad on your plate. And you haven't even touched that nice, healthy catfish I bought!"

"But, Ma, it doesn't taste good."

"Never mind the taste. You can't live your whole life on cheeseburgers. Why, look at little MacDuffy. He eats everything I put in his doggy bowl."

"I think that's why they call them dumb animals."

"Don't sass me. Eat your dinner. It's good for you."

But is Mary right? Is a meal of catfish, spinach and salad good for Jonah?

Not necessarily.

That catfish may have been imported from China, which has been found to pump up its farmed fish with illegal antibiotics. Finding the U.S. administration asleep at the food safety switch, Alabama and Mississippi have banned the import of these potentially dangerous fish.

And Jonah may have been right about MacDuffy being a dumb animal. The Chinese have been hyping up the protein content of their wheat gluten and rice protein by mixing in hefty doses of melamine, a dangerous industrial chemical. Dogs and cats have been dropping dead all over America from eating pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten and rice protein.

It's even more dangerous in China. If Mary takes Jonah to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, she'd better watch what she eats. Some food vendors, lacking refrigeration, have been using formaldehyde as a food preservative. Formaldehyde, which is good for embalming stiffs and preserving dead frogs for biology class, tends to cause cancer in live humans. But, as one Chinese food vendor put it, "Legal preservatives only work for 24 hours. Formaldehyde keeps my food good for five days."

Back in this country, last September E.coli outbreaks caused by contaminated bagged spinach killed three people. More than 200 more got sick. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) thinks contaminated water caused the problem. But with little staff and a small budget, it couldn't come up with a definitive answer. (Spinach's great folk hero, Popeye, never ate bagged spinach. He took his strictly from the can. Which is probably why he survived so long.)

Later, in November 2006, two lettuce E.coli outbreaks put 150 people into their sickbeds. While most people can throw off the bacteria, old people and children are particularly hard hit. Kidney failure is a common result of E.coli poisoning.

Contaminated Peter Pan peanut butter made over 400 people sick in early 2007. So it isn't just the fresh stuff you have to look out for.

But why should you have to look out for bad food? Isn't the FDA supposed to do that for us?

It's trying, and wants to do more. But the current administration seems to be more worried about cutting taxes than cutting down on contaminated food. Rankled by the recent food scandals, the FDA has proposed plans to sharply increase food monitoring activity. And it's proposing new, stiffer, food regulations.

But big-time opposition has emerged.

Surprisingly, the food industry isn't the bad guy in this. Stung by declining sales, the United Fresh Produce Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and other groups have called for tough FDA rules to replace the rarely observed voluntary rules currently in effect.

And Congress has been yipping at the heels of the administration to protect consumer food safety.

So who's stalling the process of protecting consumers from bad food?

It seems the FDA reports to the Department of Health and Human Services, which seems totally uninterested in the problem. HHS Acting Deputy Eric Hargan gave the FDA proposal two big, hairy thumbs down. (Although the press has been trying to get an explanation from him, he seems to be hiding behind the sofa in his office.)

Money seems to be the root of all this evil behavior. President Bush pats people on the head when they cut budgets. A look at the numbers exposes the extent of the administration's latest incompetence:

• The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for the safety of meat and other items which amount to 20 percent of the nation's food. Its budget is $268 million for meat inspection, food emergencies and food safety.
  
  
• The FDA is responsible for the safety of 80 percent of the nation's food. Its budget is less than $11 million – in a government that thinks in terms of billions.
  
  
• Thus, the FDA gets just three percent of the food safety budget to protect us from 80 percent of the food. An impossible task.

And the results prove it.

Since 1993, FDA-related food cases have increased more than 50 percent.

Since 1993, USDA-related food cases have decreased 38 percent.

When it comes to food safety, money talks.

The only practical way to get the proper funding for food safety is to push the Department of Health and Human Services out of the way and have the FDA report directly to the Defense Department, where everything seems to cost more than a billion.

If a Pentagon General ever requested a measly FDA-sized $65 million appropriation, he'd probably be demoted back to Lieutenant Colonel.

You want to protect your family from bad and contaminated food? Get the Pentagon on it.

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