US President Barack Obama has ordered a “complete review” of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after it failed to detect shipments of salmonella-contaminated peanut products that have sickened more than 500 people and may be linked to as many as eight deaths, according to a report by NBC.
In a televised interview with NBC’s Today Show co-host Matt Lauer on 2 February, President Obama said the agency’s failure to recognize and intercept the products was only the latest of numerous “instances over the last several years”.
“The FDA has not been able to catch some of these things as quickly as I would have expected them to catch them, so we’re going to be doing a complete review of its operations,” President Obama told Mr Lauer. “At a bare minimum, we should be able to count on our government keeping our kids safe when they eat peanut butter.”
Hundreds of peanut products have been recalled because of possible contamination traced to a plant in Blakely, Ga., operated by Peanut Corp. of America, based in Lynchburg, Va.
The FDA is currently being run by an acting commissioner, but a White House spokesperson told reporters late last week that President Obama was expected to announce a new agency chief “in the next few days.”
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