Self policing alone will not keep us safe

How many million dollars have been spent in the last quarter century lobbying against the very idea of any government regulation is anybody’s guess. There’s no question about the results, though. In a Washington Post poll done in August, 44 percent of Americans believed that government regulation of big business and corporations does more harm than good.

Maybe what we need is the kind of jolt to the national consciousness provided by Upton Sinclair’s expose of the meatpacking industry, The Jungle, back in 1906. After reading about workers falling into rendering vats and ending up mixed with animal parts that were sold as “Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard,” most people decided the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1908 was quite a palatable piece of legislation.

We can now depend on our ground beef to be beef, but regulators are still needed to avoid salmonella contamination (most recently, 30,000 tons of ground beef were recalled in July). In the past few months, disparate food items such as peanut butter, eggs, and melons have caused salmonella outbreaks. Regulators have found listeria in bagged salads and E. coli in spinach.

The Center for Disease Control estimates there are 5,000 annual food related deaths in the United States, 325,000 food related hospitalizations, and over 76 million cases of food related illnesses.

That’s with the level of regulation we have enjoyed. But in a straight party line vote in 2011, the House of Representatives voted to cut the FDA food safety budget by $87million and cut another $35 million from the USDA’s food safety and inspection service. Representative Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), chairman of the House subcommittee that wrote the agriculture appropriations bill, said, “Do we believe that McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken and Safeway and Kraft Food and any brand name that you think of, that these people aren’t concerned about food safety? The food supply in America is very safe because the private sector self-polices, because they have the highest motivation. They don’t want to be sued; they don’t want to go broke. They want their customers to be healthy and happy.”

I can remember some eerily similar things being said back before September 2008. Something like “Do we believe that Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Bear Stearns and any financial institution that you think of, that these people aren’t concerned about safety? The financial system in America is very safe because the private sector self-polices, because they have the highest motivation. They don’t want to be sued; they don’t want to go broke. They want their customers to be successful and happy.”

Arguing against the food safety inspection cuts, Representative John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) pointed out that the agencies presently had the funds to inspect only one percent of imported food after it reaches the U S. “China is the Wild West,” he said. “The stuff they are exporting to us, I’m not sure I would feed my hogs. It’s time to stand up and say we’re going to spend what it takes to keep people safe.”

Of course I don’t believe that McDonald’s or Kraft Foods would knowingly sell dangerous products. But far smaller operators, many of them relying on foreign products, are involved in our gigantic food industry. Large or small, companies that know regulators are at work have an extra incentive to worry about safety.

Self-policing alone simply doesn’t work.

Not in the financial industry, where a lack of meaningful regulation helped cause the 2008-2009 meltdown. And certainly not in industries like food and drugs, where human error or pressure to maximize profits in complicated production and distribution systems can cause serious illness or death.

Arguing for government regulation isn’t easy for any politician these days. When you do, you don’t get thanked with much in the way of campaign contributions, and you guarantee a barrage of big-money ads against you in the next election.

No one I know who believes that government regulation is necessary in a complex economy doesn’t also believe there should be a constant effort to get rid of regulations that are burdensome rather than effective. But without honest and able regulators, things can get out of hand very quickly. If you think our food, drug, or financial industries can operate in your interest without experienced referees, remember what happened when the National Football League tried that.

Originally published 20 October 2012 on delawareonline.com