EPA vs. FDA

December 14, 1:33 AMDC Corporate Ethics ExaminerJim Cunningham

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC Corporate Ethics Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

It’s a bad sign when government agencies can’t agree on issues of our health. But when the EPA, a formerly non-political agency that’s been politicized and dragged kicking and screaming to the right by a Republican administration long plagued by its habit of putting politics before science or competence – when THAT agency raises the red flag about human safety it tends to raise eyebrows.

The FDA released a draft report stating that they would like pregnant women, children to begin eating fish again because, they say, the health benefits of eating nutrient-rich fish outweigh the dangers of consuming mercury in said fish. While I don’t question the nutritional benefits of seafood I would like to know how much the commercial fishing lobby paid for this sudden revelation.

The food industry is praising the FDA's shift. One organization, the Center for Consumer Freedom, called it "long overdue and a huge public-health victory" that "just might be the best Christmas present health-conscious Americans could hope for.”

The EPA says no and claims the FDA used an "oversimplified approach" and this reversal in fish feasting advise could actually result in more people being exposed to mercury with children being the most susceptible to its harmful effects. In something of a symptom rivalry, the FDA report claimed that “nutrients in fish, including omega-3 fatty acids, selenium and other minerals could boost a child's IQ by three points.” While the EPA insists that “high levels [of mercury] in the bloodstream can damage the nervous system of developing fetuses and young children, causing learning disabilities and other problems.”

So far this is only a draft report and we can expect a battle when it comes up for review among government agencies when they will also invite public comments.

It's a commentary on how low FDA has sunk as an agency. It was once a fierce protector of America's health, and now it's nothing more than a patsy for polluters.”

I’m resisting the urge to utilize fish puns as I ponder this decision’s relation to past finagling regarding mercury levels by these agencies. The EPA has previously been very polluter friendly when deciding what they consider safe mercury levels, choosing to error on the side of big business and profits. Could the EPA, now, be fearing this new advise to consumers, when compounded with their previous failure to create a big enough safety cushion, create more risk than they’re comfortable with?

I realize that, under a Republican administration, these agencies are going to move to the right, and this administration in particular has gone to fresh new lengths to politicize these agencies and make them very business friendly – the opposite of the public health wardens they’re intended to be – but when each of them push their own pro-profit bounderies right up to the edge of what public safety will allow it doesn’t allow us much of a safety cushion. When one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, what then? When two agencies, feeling ideological pressure from their conservative leadership, start carving the stuffing out of our cushion from two different sides, what happens when they meet in the middle?

Oops! Time to cram the stuffing back in the cushion. And I think that’s what the EPA is doing.