The FDA has initiated a recall of half a billion eggs, the most extensive in history, because of salmonella contamination that has already sickened 1,300. The head of the agency, Margaret Hamburg, said in interviews that regulators "need additional resources, we need additional authority [and] greater ability to trace back products to their source so that we can identify how the contamination occurred and what products are at risk."
A plea for more power and resources is bureaucrats' typical response to any crisis, but ironically, unwise FDA policies place obstacles in the way of technology to enhance disease resistance in eggs that could have prevented the outbreak in the first place.
