FDA Product Liability
An article in May 16's Food and Dining section of the New York Times brought up an issue that interests us greatly: the reliability of the FDA's regulations. As anyone who bought contaminated lettuce, spinach, peanut butter or pet food last year knows, the FDA is not as good at its job as we might like. This quote from Elizabeth Armstrong of Indiana, the mother of two-year-old Ashley, whose kidneys failed after she ate contaminated spinach, is telling:
“You live in the United States of America and this isn’t supposed to happen. There is an assumption that everything is going to be O.K., that someone must have checked this out, but it is not the case.”Armstrong is absolutely right on both counts. Most Americans assume a product wouldn't be sold if it were dangerous. We make that assumption because we have laws saying manufacturers have a legal duty to offer safe products, and because we have regulatory agencies that are supposed to ensure that products really are safe.
Unfortunately, neither the companies nor the government do their jobs right all the time. The main point of the article seems to be that the FDA is both underfunded and not aggressive enough. Even a representative of an agricultural trade group -- the companies the FDA regulates -- is quoted as saying the agency needs to issue mandatory rules! While we agree, we also know that the ultimate fault lies with manufacturers who negligently or (in the case of the pet food) perhaps even knowingly let unsafe products go to markets, often just to save a few bucks. By the time a regulatory agency catches it, someone may already have been seriously hurt. At that point, your only recourse is a products liability lawsuit. Litigation won't give Ashley Armstrong her healthy kidneys back, but at least it can provide the money her family needs to pay the steep medical bills for the treatments she now must have -- possibly for the rest of her life.
