The Food and Drug administration is one of the most important regulatory agencies in the United States. The agency is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for regulating the safety measures for most types of foods, dietary supplements, drugs, vaccines, biological medical products, blood products, medical devices, radiation-emitting devices, veterinary products, and cosmetics.

 

Recently, the Grocery Manufacturers Association stated on Thursday that the President-elect, Barack Obama and the new Congress should seriously consider increasing the spending for food safety measures and also significantly reduce subsidies to corn-based ethanol.

 

The group is concerned about how high the food prices may rise. In addition, the group is also worried about food safety, especially after the occurrence of several high-profile contamination scares.

 

The Grocery Manufacturers Association urged Obama and his new administration to help boost the FDA’s spending on food-related issues to $900 million by fiscal year 2012, from the current $585 million.

 

The problem is that although the spending has indeed increased in the past few years, it has never managed to keep up with the rapidly-escalating inflation. The result has been a loss of scientists and inspectors and the inability to keep up with the expanding amount of food imports and all the alterations in the consumers’ preferences.