Designed to Fail: Why Regulatory Agencies Don’t Work

William Sanjour*

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been “reforming” regulatory agencies over and over again, and over and over again they have failed. Yet, as a result of the recent catastrophic failures of regulatory agencies, politicians and pundits are talking about the same old “Regulatory Reform” again.  “Fill the regulatory agencies with honest people who won’t cave in to special interests.”  “Give them more money, more authority and more people.”  But my experience has shown that by concentrating all legislative, executive and judiciary authority in one regulatory agency just makes it easier for it to be corrupted by the industries it regulates.

I worked for the US Environmental Protection agency for 30 years and lived through many cycles of “Regulatory Reform,” doing the same “reforms” over and over again and expecting different results. I’ve learned that the way to achieve true regulatory reform is to give regulatory agencies less money, less authority, fewer people but more intelligent regulations. The theme of this article is that by dispersing regulatory authority, rather than concentrating it, we would make corruption more difficult and facilitate more sensible regulation.
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The AquaBounty Salmon: Will the World’s First Commercial GE Animal Be an Albatross?

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson (Photo Credit: Yodod)

Is it unrealistic to expect the scientific approval process for the world’s first commercial genetically engineered (GE) animal, the AquAdvantage salmon, to be rigorous and complete? Or for the applicant to present experiments that fully meet regulatory expectations? If you expect these things, it seems, you expect too much. Despite the biotech industry’s “dedication to rigorous science-based risk assessment”, the science of the AquAdvantage salmon is full of holes. Its maker, AquaBounty Technologies, has failed to provide key data on which the safety assessment process depends.

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Strangely like Fiction: Sponsored Academics Admit Falsely Claiming Dairy Hormone Safety Endorsements

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

The fight over rbGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) continues, even under new ownership.

After acquiring rbGH from Monsanto, Elanco (part of Eli Lilly) has stepped up efforts to convince milk processors and the wider food industry that milk from rbGH-injected cows is safe. Central to their new campaign is a paper, commissioned through PR company Porter-Novelli, from eight prominent experts and academics in medicine and dairy science (Recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST): a safety assessment).
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Transgenic High-Lysine Corn LY038 Withdrawn After EU Raises Safety Questions

Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson

A Monsanto/Cargill joint venture has quietly withdrawn its application for high-lysine transgenic corn after EU regulators on the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) GMO panel raised questions about its safety for human consumption.

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European Community Law and Nanotechnology: A Risky Business?

Naomi Salmon, Department of Law and Criminology, Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK

Following hot on the heels of the ‘Biotechnology Revolution’, the ‘Nanotechnology Revolution’ is now gathering steam. After twenty or so years of basic and applied research, industry players are now seeing the fruits of their R&D investments incorporated into all manner of products ranging from high performance tennis rackets and anti-odour socks to self-cleaning glass, food packaging materials and sunscreen lotions¹.

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US: Private Food Safety Labs Hide Negative Tests

Some private U.S. laboratories are under investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for withholding samples of tainted food and allowing importers to continue to bring their contaminated products into the U.S., the Chicago Tribune reported last week. A letter by the Congressional committee to the labs suggests that importing companies pressured them to toss out results that failed Food and Drug Administration standards. “We’re gathering information from both the FDA and private industry about the labs almost being complicit in helping importers game the system,” investigations subcommittee chairman Bart Stupak (D-MI) told the Tribune. “Someone told us you pay for the result you want to get from the labs.”
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