As you think about who to vote for next week, consider this. The Milwaukee Journal reports that the FDA, which ruled in August that the plastics additive BPA is safe, was influenced heavily and guided by plastics industry representatives. In a pattern similar to what we've seen at the Consumer Products Safety Commission relating to toy safety, the Bush administration's FDA has deliberately allowed industry to determine its policy. The result is that baby bottles, water bottles, toys and hundred of other products continue to be made with BPA, despite mounting evidence of the chemical's harmful effects on the endocrine system.
Environmental Working Group (EWG) President Ken Cook said, "An agency that once epitomized independent, impartial expertise in the service of public health has degenerated to a disgraced stenographer for the chemical and plastics industry." You can read here a more extensive criticism of the FDA under Bush from the Organic Consumers Alliance.
I'm sure we'll continue to find fault with government agencies no matter who is president. But, nothing more than regime change can reorient these important government agencies so that they fulfill their mandates and protect public health rather than promote the interests of industry.
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