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All three networks assigned a reporter to cover the House hearings into food safety and the shortfalls in the Food & Drug Administration's system for quality control of food imports. The American diet is going global: NBC's Tom Costello offered the statistic that 15% of the nation's food supply is imported; ABC's Dan Harris told us that the volume of food imports doubles every five years. Costello reported that those imports enter through 326 separate ports yet only 91 are staffed by FDA inspectors; Harris found that there are 20m imports of food each year, of which the FDA inspects 1%.
On CBS, Nancy Cordes gave us a couple of ruses for avoiding FDA inspectors' suspicions: after the pet food problems with imported wheat gluten, Chinese shippers changed their labeling to use the logo of a Dutch windmill; and if products show signs of decay or contamination, "carbon monoxide in packaging can make meat and seafood look fresher.
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