Government balked at egg regulations

The United Egg Producers, a trade group, initially resisted regulations after President Bill Clinton made it a priority in 1999, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Then, the group caved. "We were going to be regulated. This was going to happen and the industry had to respond," said former chief lobbyist Ken Klippen.

Even then, regulations were delayed by philosophical differences and regulatory turf wars that held back regulations until 1,900 people fell ill with salmonella poisoning, the newspaper said.

Caroline Smith DuWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Post, "The government dysfunction over the salmonella problem really started with the turf issues."

For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for ensuring chickens are healthy. The Food and Drug Administration, however, is responsible for the egg.

Crack open the egg, however, and the FDA is, again, the regulator of choice. The USDA, similarly, is responsible for transportation of an intact egg, but the FDA oversees safety at restaurants.

Regulations then ran into the issue of body counts. Not enough people were sick to make regulating the industry a priority.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget held the trump card, deciding not to endorse regulations because they "didn't think there were enough bodies in the street," said William Hubbard, associate FDA commissioner from 1991 to 2005.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).