Study: Politics trumps science in food inspections

A new survey today is suggesting that some food safety problems that led to recalls of more than 5 million eggs and numerous other products could be because government scientists felt pressure from political and business to "go along."

The survey was conducted starting in March by the Union of Concerned Scientists of 1,700 scientists and inspectors who work in the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

According to the survey, 38% of the scientists agreed or strongly agreed that "public health has been harmed by agency practices that defer to business interests; 27% said they had personally experienced "instances where public health has been harmed by businesses withholding food safety information from agency investigators" in the past year; and 25% said they personally experienced corporate interests forcing their agency to either withdraw or significantly modify a policy or action designed to protect consumers in the past year.