THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And it has just released a report that details the size and scope of the problem. Turns out that the problem is currently bigger than the FDA can handle.

A decade ago, the F.D.A. was responsible for policing 6 million separate shipments coming through 300 different ports. This year, that number is expected to grow to 24 million shipments, the report noted. Nearly two-thirds of all fruits and vegetables and three-quarters of all seafood consumed in the United States now come from outside the country.

The situation with drugs and medical devices is even more alarming. More than 80 percent of the active ingredients for drugs sold in the United States are manufactured abroad — mostly in manufacturing plants in China and India that are rarely inspected by the F.D.A. Half of all medical devices sold in the United States are made abroad. Many kinds of antibiotics, steroids, cancer medicines and even aspirin are no longer produced in the United States, or in many cases anywhere in the Western world.

Government investigators estimated in 2008 that the Food and Drug Administration would need 13 years to check every foreign drug manufacturing plant, 27 years to check every foreign medical device plant and 1,900 years to check every foreign food plant at its rate of inspections at the time. And with imports growing faster than the agency’s inspection force, those numbers have only grown.

Many popular over-the-counter medicines and vitamins are made almost entirely in Chinese plants that have never been inspected by the F.D.A. Domestic suppliers often boast that they test their imported ingredients rigorously, but such sampling is akin to testing a bucket of soil from a mountain and then declaring the entire mountain free of pollutants.

The Chinese situation is doubly risky because their manufacturers see nothing wrong with poisoning people if it turns a profit. And it will only get worse with each coming year. And this is the FDA that the Republican/Teabaggers want to cut the funding so they may "balance the budget" on the dead bodies of their fellow citizens.