Who Decides What's In Your Babies Food? | Helena Bottemiller Evich | TMR

Senior reporter at Politico and founder of Food Fix, Helena Bottemiller Evich, joins the program to discuss problems at the FDA. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took three months to announce a recall of infant formula after officials learned of positive bacteria tests at a major plant, mirroring the agency's slow response to similar issues in the past. Reckitt, a major formula manufacturer, issued a recall for 145,000 cans of Enfamil ProSobee Simply Plant-Based Infant Formula in late February due to potential cross-contamination with the deadly pathogen Cronobacter sakazakii, the same bacteria that led to last year's infant formula crisis, sparking coverage in dozens of news outlets.

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Want to Welcome to the program Helena Bottemiller Evich
founder of the publication food fix and a contributor to Politico. Helena is welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Let's start with there we're just I guess a day or two away from or we just saw a sizable reorganization at the FDA. What can you tell us about that? I'm curious as to how long has that need been building? What was the reorganization about? yeah, a lot of people I think a lot of consumers and eaters have not really been fully aware of the problems facing the FDA when it comes to their regulation and oversight of food. but really over the past year, we've seen a lot of scrutiny over the FDA's handling of food safety of nutrition. The infant formula shortage crisis. You know, reports of illnesses and deaths among infants really brought this into the national media. and so the FDA has been under a lot of pressure to have better leadership to have a better structure in place. We didn't know who was in charge of food. That there was a decentralized leadership structure there which created Power struggles and slowness and decision-making. and so the reorganization FDA announced yesterday is really aiming to try to put someone clearly in charge of food at the agency. and try to centralize some of the decision-making. It's gotten mixed reviews. a lot of people don't think it went quite far enough. But it is a big change. Two questions one being when you say in charge of food like what else are they in charge of? or I guess I mean drugs I imagine it would be the other. But how long is this D where did this how long has this problem been going on? In terms of like was there a structural change you know before this one that decentralized things like. What is the predicate to the need for this? Yeah, all great questions. I think the FDA has been dysfunctional on the food side for a long time for decades but we did see the leadership structure change during the Trump Administration. they eliminated a Deputy Commissioner position that helped sort of centralize decision-making at FDA. so it's been a few years that we have not had a Deputy Commissioner however I think the problems are a lot deeper than just the organizational chart. There are cultural problems at the FDA. There's a fear of taking on the food industry. There's a lot of bureaucracy to contend with and so we see you know really key safety and health issues. It takes years sometimes decades, to get out of that agency. And I think there's a broad recognition now that that slowness on things like food safety reduces sodium in the food supply setting. heavy metal limits for baby food. These are issues that consumers expect FDA to be handling.