The Bush administration has apparently finally realized that more money are needed to ensure the safety of our food and drugs, especially those drugs coming from abroad. Monday, a proposed $275 million increase to the already approved $2.4 billion budget for the FDA was announced.

FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach said the government regulator wants to base inspectors abroad and to increase the number and quality of inspections. Almost 500 new employees will be hired using the supplemental funds. The new sum adds to another supplement of $375 million approved in March. The money will be made available for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

The money will be used as follows: $125 million to protect the food supply, $100 million for the safety of drugs and medical devices and $50 million to prepare the FDA's workforce and laboratories for new types of challenges such as nanotechnology and gene therapies.

The CDC reported in April that U.S.' struggle to contain foodborne illness showed little progress in 2007, although they had a constant incidence between 2004 and 2006. According to the report, there were 17,883 confirmed cases of foodborne infections in 2007. Salmonella was by far the leader of all foodborne infections with an incidence rate of 14.92 per 100,000 people.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated as one of its goals the reducing of the overall number of food-borne infections by 2010, an objective which now seems hard to hit. There was also an apparent rise in the food-borne illness Cryptosporidiosis, but it is thought that there is a link between it and a new treatment which is making it more likely for doctors to send specimens in for testing.