E. Coli Conservatives?

Al Gore, endorsing Obama:

If you care about food safety, if you like a T on your BLT, you know that elections matter. If you bought poisoned lead-filled toys from China or adulterated medicine made in China, if you bought tainted pet food made in China, you know that elections matter. After the last eight years, even our dogs and cats have learned that elections matter.

Sounds like he's been reading Paul Krugman on how Milton Friedman poisoned your food, and Rick Perlstein on "e. coli conservatives." So far the only attempt I've seen to actually quantify the Bush-era decline in food safety belongs to Alex Tabarrok, who pulls up numbers suggesting that, well, it hasn't declined at all. There are obviously a lot of variables at work here, and I wouldn't call Tabarrok's chart dispositive - but I'm curious if there are any actual numbers, as opposed to anecdotes, to support the Gore-Krugman-Perlstein thesis.

Comments

"I'm curious if there are any actual numbers, as opposed to anecdotes"

You really have no shame at all, do you? YOU have the audacity to start demanding numbers.

Posted by Douthat the Cunt | June 17, 2008 11:03 AM

DtC: You're pathetic. Get a life.

Posted by Norway | June 17, 2008 11:16 AM

Gotta like the thread title, considering the sort of sandwich Dumbya's been feeding the country since he stole the White House.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 17, 2008 11:22 AM

This is where blogging fails. Douthat, you're clearly a sharp guy; instead of tossing off a know-nothing one paragraph reposte, why not spend a few hours (or -- horrors -- even a whole day) trying to get the answer yourself?

Posted by matt | June 17, 2008 12:20 PM

The issue at hand is, have the Bush administration's policies and actions made these outbreaks more likely. Tabarrok's chart doesn't address that point.

The accusation, from Krugman's column, is that the FDA failed to follow leads and declined to issue any new regulations in the Bush era. Perlstein notes that "The Associated Press studied the records and found that between 2003 and 2006 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 47 percent fewer safety inspections. FDA field offices have 12 percent fewer employees. Safety tests for food produced in the United States have gone down by three quarters—have almost ground to a halt—in the previous year alone."

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 17, 2008 12:31 PM

"The Associated Press studied the records and found that between 2003 and 2006 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 47 percent fewer safety inspections. FDA field offices have 12 percent fewer employees. Safety tests for food produced in the United States have gone down by three quarters—have almost ground to a halt—in the previous year alone."

Is the goal to have more test or have fewer outbreaks? By combining your information with Tabarrok's we learn that under the Clinton administration there were more FDA employees, more safety tests and also MORE contamination outbreaks.

Posted by Sebastian | June 17, 2008 12:43 PM

I've spent a few hours on the subject, in addition to the subject of workplace safety, mine safety, airplane safety, and a raft of similar issues. It's fairly clear that incidents and injuries are down in each-- not just incidents that could perhaps be explained by less inspections or reporting, but also things like fatalities that would be much harder to cover up. In the case of mines and workplace safety, it has nothing to do with closing mines or decreasing manufacturing either; MSHA and OSHA show decreasing rates of injuries and deaths per hours worked and within individual fields as well. The data is absolutely unambiguous on this.

Posted by John Thacker | June 17, 2008 1:13 PM

Only fools believe in numbers released by government agencies. The Bush administration has tweaked the indices for inflation and unemployment to fool americans into thinking the American economy couldn't be better.

Posted by Stan | June 17, 2008 1:41 PM

Gore's thesis is that elections matter and can affect food and toy safety conditions. In this case, improving technology means it is possible for conditions to improve even with government doing a bad job, noting that the conditions fail to improve as much they should have if the government had done its job.

Ross may be thinking that improving conditions mean government is doing an adequate job and therefore disproves Gore's thesis. I don't think that's right.

Posted by Brian Schmidt | June 17, 2008 2:36 PM

Hey, that will make a great celebratory banner for GWB's speech to the Republican National Convention: "Food quality has not declined all that much, maybe; in any case, we would like to see such allegations quantified."

Posted by TKD | June 17, 2008 2:49 PM

Did Gore mention that it was the Clinton Admn. that granted MFN status to China, which is the reason we have all these crappy imports to begin with? No?

Posted by P | June 17, 2008 3:00 PM

P tells a Repiglican lie: "Did Gore mention that it was the Clinton Admn. that granted MFN status to China, which is the reason we have all these crappy imports to begin with? No?"

Why should he? It's not true. China was granted MFN status again in 1979 and it has been renewed every year since, including under Saint Reagan and Dumbya Bush.

Silly Repiglican!

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 17, 2008 3:22 PM

Well, I'm not a Republican, but the point I was getting at was when Al Gore goes on about "elections mattering" and bringing up China policy as an example, it seems that the Democrats and the GOP have been pretty equally crappy on that. If you are correct, even the worse, eh? That would mean every President since Carter has had basically the same (bad) policy. Which means "elections matter" a lot less than Gore seems to think...

Posted by P | June 17, 2008 4:00 PM

So far, despite the usual fevered Krugman style rhetoric, no one has answered Douthat's question as to whether Tabarrok's chart is faulty.

Most food producers and merchants are smart enough to have their own rigorous standards on such issues as EColi, as they are well aware of the disastrous consequences to their businesses of selling tainted food. One suspects that the issue with the FDA is similar to that of the FAA, which pretends to inspect airplanes for safety when in fact the airlines are way out ahead of it knowing where the real problems are.

Another factor is that when you buy food products from Mexico, China, et al you take your chances no matter how much the FDA pretends to be in control with whatever funds.

Krugman in the long run will be a cipher to Friedman in terms of stature as an economist.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | June 17, 2008 4:14 PM

P replies: "Well, I'm not a Republican, but the point I was getting at was when Al Gore goes on about "elections mattering" and bringing up China policy as an example, it seems that the Democrats and the GOP have been pretty equally crappy on that. If you are correct, even the worse, eh? That would mean every President since Carter has had basically the same (bad) policy. Which means "elections matter" a lot less than Gore seems to think..."

That only makes sense if you ignore the fact that the tainted product problem arose during the Bushpig administration, and that's what Gore was talking about. But I'm glad you're not a Repiglican.

Gore was absolutely right about elections mattering. This is a weaker country in every way that matters since 1-20-01, and I attribute a big part of that decline directly to the Bushpigs. Disagree all you want.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 17, 2008 4:51 PM

Most food producers and merchants are smart enough to have their own rigorous standards on such issues as EColi, as they are well aware of the disastrous consequences to their businesses of selling tainted food.

You never read The Jungle, did you?

Posted by Persia | June 18, 2008 9:31 AM