@Yehuda57 I went through RR's video again to remind myself why I had mistrusted his analysis the first time I heard it, knowing nothing about this case.
RR claims that the shortage of formula is due to FDA’s errors, but his arguments aren't persuasive because 1) he presents himself as highly biased against FDA, and 2) he fails to give a complete picture of what happened.
Let me emphasize that I’m not saying that FDA is blameless, and when I first started listening, I was even willing to accept that they were 100% at fault. But I ended up feeling that I couldn't trust RR’s presentation.
It’s especially ironic that it’s milk (or milk substitute) that’s the issue here, since it’s been the basis of another well-known scandal in the era before government regulations were established. In the 1850s, beer distilleries in NYC raised milk cows next door, feeding them mash left over from their manufacturing process. The milk from these malnourished and sickly cows was not the healthiest to start with, but to make it even worse, the businessmen diluted it with water so that they could sell more, and then added chalk to give it back a more natural color. Society had less understanding then about disease in general, so it took a while for people to realize why so many children were ill. But they eventually did, and it was estimated that some 8000 children had lost their lives from drinking this “milk”.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/swill-milk-scandal-new-york-cityEven with our modern knowledge, similar scandals occur in regions with less robust government regulation of food and drug production. In 2008 farmers in China were watering down milk and adding a white chemical to make it look natural. In that case 6 babies died and over 50,000 were hospitalized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandalWe may hear now and then about contaminated produce which sent a few people to the hospital, but we don’t hear extreme cases as in the past because of the relative success of the FDA, CDC, and USDA.
But RR gives no indication that he thinks the FDA can do anything right. He was “CEO of a pharmaceutical company and for 24 years I did battle with FDA.” He goes on to explain how the FDA works:
6:18 “FDA has a stranglehold on drug companies … if FDA decides to stop giving approvals then that drug company can just goes down and down it can even go out of business. So FDA has a stranglehold … and if you talk back to FDA they might just cut off your job …” 15:22 “That's how FDA speaks one little error and then they come, they slaughter” 34:20 “The number one priority of government agencies of people who work in government agencies is to protect their own jobs. They always want to get more money for their agency so they can hire more people”
Take a minute to consider another agency that protects our food, a Kashrus Agency (KA) and a Retired Restaurateur (RR) who wants to convince us that the KA is responsible for a restaurant losing business. How does he know this? “I ran a restaurant for 24 years, and always had to do battle with the KA.” “The Kashrus Agency has a stranglehold on restaurants… If they decide to withdraw their hasghacha, the restaurant can even go out of business!.. One little treif product, and they’re on your case…. The number one priority of kashrus agencies is to protect their own jobs. They always want to hire more mashgichim.”
Most of us will probably be thinking, “Uh… yeah… Isn’t that exactly how it’s supposed to work?” We
want our supervising agencies to supervise, whether it’s for kashrus or health and safety of our food and drugs.
RR seems to be so strongly biased against the FDA that he can’t admit they do anything right, so I don’t consider him a reliable interpreter of the current situation.
2. Dr. RR tells us that no cronobacteria were found in the formula and the crono found elsewhere in the factory were a different strain from that in the infants, so there was no reason to close the factory. This left me wondering why they
did close it, and what RR is leaving out. He only briefly mentions what else was found in the investigation: Abbott “did not establish a system of process controls covering all stages of processing” and “did not ensure that all surfaces that contact infant formula were maintained to protect infant formula from being contaminated.“
This is like a mashgiach checking out a complaint that the restaurant was cooking chicken in milk, and discovers it was non-dairy creamer, so all is good. So why would he remove hashgacha? While looking around, he finds that there was no system in place to ensure kashrus at all stages of purchasing, storing and cooking the food.
Okay, that seems like a good reason. There was clearly something important going on in the FDA’s decision, but RR wasn’t telling us.
