Panel says FDA lacks staff to protect food imports

WASHINGTON -- The US Food and Drug Administration doesn't have enough staff to protect Americans from tainted food imports, lawmakers and congressional investigators said.

The FDA inspects less than 1 percent of imported food and takes samples of only a fraction of those products, said Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of a House panel that held a food-safety hearing yesterday in Washington. The FDA plans to close seven of 13 labs that inspect food and other imports, posing new danger , he said.

The regulatory agency is under criticism from lawmakers who say the FDA didn't do enough to protect the public from contaminated spinach last year and tainted peanut butter and pet food this year. The agency also was slow to react to contaminated seafood from China being shipped to the United States, they said.

The FDA is working on a plan to bolster the U S food safety system, said Andrew von Eschenbach, the FDA's commissioner.