With the President and Congress both being "raked" in public opinion polls, often the bureaucracy is blamed. But yesterday, the Federal Food and Drug Administration cut through the red tape and took action.
Pediatricians and other medical experts say the removal of infant cough and cold medicines from store shelves comes not a moment too soon, and nearly all agree that any benefits of the drugs do not outweigh their risks.
Linked is ABC News story on the recall of the meds. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Drugs/story?id=3718265&page=1
Recently, before the latest recall, the 2 Regular Guys posted about the benefit of government:
Performance ratings for our government are at historic lows.
According to a recent CBS poll, President Bush’s job approval rating has sunk below 30 percent. The marks for Congress are even lower.
Conservative talk show host Dennis Prager recently said, "More harm was done in the 20th century by faceless bureaucrats than tyrant dictators." Ouch.Can our government do anything right?
Look in your daily paper or listen to your nightly newscast and you just might RECALL . . .
Recently you may have noticed that numerous toys, cribs and other commonly used products have been recalled. This is your government at work. Bureaucracies like the Consumer Product Safety Commission have come to our rescue. Lives have been saved. Our government works.It was a hundred years ago that Upton Sinclair wrote his muckraking classic The Jungle (1906). In this novel, Sinclair tells the story of Lithuanian immigrants working in the Chicago stockyards. The horrendous working conditions and filthy practices of making sausauge were exposed.
President Teddy Roosevelt read the book and became sick to his stomache. This led to the Meat Inspection Act, the Pure Food and Drug Act and ultimately the Food and Drug Administration.
As we send back our toys, cribs and other household items let's be reminded that despite our mistrust of government these days, it is not all bad.The government has been charged with protecting us.
We hear a lot about what they are doing to secure our borders from terror. Many doubt even this responsibility. Many claim we are less safe today than we were before 9.11. Thankfully, as the news has reported recently, our stomaches are definitely safer.It would not hurt us to thank our government every now and then. It is something else worth recalling.
11 comments:
A few weeks ago I went with my dad to Wal-Mart to return something. By the customer service desk I saw a bulletin board with Recall bulletins on it. There was about 25-30 recalls on it. The one thing I noticed was that all of them, except for two, had to do with infants. Strollers, bedding, toys, clothes, and infant medicine were among the things being recalled.
I agree that a majority of the population may not agree with what certain politicians or the president say, but when it comes to the things that are coming into this country, safety of the population is the prime concern. I believe that government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration are doing a satisfactory job at keeping us safe.
I completely disagree. If the government was protecting us, they wouldn't let lead get into our children's toys; if the government was protecting us, they would have never let these medecine, or strollers, bedding, clothes on to the market. This is just the government monitoring its self, which is not necissarily a bad thing. But to say that after letting these things onto the market, is completely rediculous.
But the fact is that part of the government's job is to investigate the products that are on the market. We don't have state-run industries; companies are required to follow certain standards, but sometimes they don't. That's not the government's fault, but it is their job to find out when companies have cut corners or overlooked something. The government does deserve credit in many areas, and I feel that sometimes the government is unnecessarily villainized by the media, when in reality they really are working for us.
i don't even understand what was wrong with the medicine to begin with. is it just because there was something harmful or wrong with the way it is made or do they not want to make it available to people without a perscription? if the latter is the case then i am definitely against this recall.
however i think that it is definitely a good thing that the government is paying attention to products that enter this country and our stores. im glad the FDA is working hard because it only keeps us safer.
Every time the government recalls something, someone always says, "Well, why did you let it in in the first place?" There is a saying: Hindsight is always 20/20. You can never fully evaluate the risks of a product or a procedure until something bad happens. I hate to display this "graveyard mentality," but the truth is we can worry ourselves sick about whether something is safe or not, and even then we probably won't catch the fault. The idea that inspectors should catch 100% of the problems in 100% of our products 100% of the time is ridiculous (not that they shouldn't try).
Besides, at least the government is catching these various problems before they become serious. One thing I notice about recalls, self-imposed or government-imposed, is that the death toll, if there is one, is never very high. Take the Tylenol poisoning scare in 1982 or the Magnetix issue this summer. In each case, recalls were imposed before the death toll got very high. It's sad people die from unsafe products, but at least we are willing and able to catch issues before they get out of hand.
In response to Amina's question, the cold medicine recall is in response to potentially harmful effects on toddlers' systems. When I was little, every time I got a cold I was put on Ceclore(sic?), an antibiotic. Although I never suffered any serious complications, my teeth are permanently decalcified and therefore much more vulnerable to cavities because of this drug. I think this and other complications are what the FDA had in mind.
What? Our government is working? When was this?
I completely disagree that our current government, under the Bush administration is functioning to its capability. A government should always be watching out for these types of things and making sure that lead and other harmful substances don't even make it to the stores. But I guess this makes too much sense for Bush. In fact, he even reduced the budget for the FDA and other regulatory departments because he has to fund his wars.
This type of neglegence is also seen in the pharmacutical world. There are numerous drugs (exact number not released by the government) that are not FDA approved that are prescribed to patients. The excuse the FDA gives is that it does not have enough manpower and money to oversee everything. This type of answer is not acceptable to the American public...
A clarification in response to Sreeharsha's post, "Government" in my context refered to the institution, not necessarily the current (or any) administration that runs the government. That part, I would define as politics. There is a subtle, but substantial difference.
The late Texas journalist critic of President Bush, Molly Ivins (author of "Shrub") once said, "Bush enjoys politics, but hates governing."
A good rule of thumb to tell the difference in this context is:
"Telling people that only you can protect them is politics. Actually protecting them is governing."
In this case, I think the FDA was governing.
Of course, when it comes to pointing fingers, it is always easiest to point one at the current administration. The government is working for us. That is why these products are being recalled and pulled off the shelves. Yes, the percentage of Americans who approve the Bush administration and Congress is at an all-time low, but it's based more largely on other issues, such as the war. Either way, he government didn't "let lead get into our children's toys", or medicine. The manufacturers' did. The government or FDA did what it needed to make sure that the industries are in check without fully having to regulate them.
I guess that's how the world works. When a kid act up and does something wrong, we blame the parents despite that fact that what the kid did was his own decision.
I think that it's extremely easy to criticize government for all its "wrongdoings"--but really what does that even accomplish? I think that Americans, especially now under Bush, have become so caught up in complaining about bush, that complaining has become a national pastime, something that binds the US citizens together. To me, that seems extremely ridiculous. Yes, the government should keep an eye on companies to ensure that faulty products are not put on the market--but their power is limited in numerous ways that makes this investigation very difficult. Although things like the patriot Act enrage me and make me think that the government is making matters ten times worse, I have to remember the practicality that complaining and criminalizing the government constantly really gets nothing done.
Objectively and relatively to other nations around the world, the U.S. government is functioning well in ensuring the safety of its citizens. Like what everyone else said, the criticism to the government mostly directs at divisive issues and decisions made by the current administration. As an institution, our government is successful, organized, and systematic (sometimes too complex) in accomplishing what should be done to protect the citizen's basic interests, like sanitariness of products. The fact that the government has been able to establish the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)when seen as necessary, and the fact that such administration has been operating actively and effectively, provides enough reason to give some credit to our government, for its institutional structure and function.
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