Food & Health

Research

The Unintended Consequences of Safety Regulation Sherzod Abdukadirov \| Jun 03, 2013 This study examines how risk trade-offs undermine safety regulations. Safety regulations often come with unintended consequences in that regulations attempting to reduce risk in one area may increase risks elsewhere.	Evaluating OSHA's Effectiveness and Suggestions for Reform John Leeth, Nathan Hale \| Apr 23, 2013 Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) to create a safer working environment. The Act created two federal agencies: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which establishes and enforces workplace safety and health standards, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which researches the causes and remedies of occupational injuries and illnesses. OSHA is the fourth pillar of the US safety policy system, the others being the legal system, state workers’ compensation insurance programs, and the labor market.
OSHA's Role in Promoting Occupational Safety and Health John Leeth \| Dec 10, 2012 When OSHA was established, proponents believed it would dramatically improve the safety and health of American workers. During the forty years of its existence, workplace fatalities and nonfatal injuries and illnesses have fallen but OSHA is not the major cause of this decline. Changes in the industrial mix of workers and improvements in safety technology have combined with expanded employer incentives unrelated to OSHA to decrease worker injuries and illnesses. The financial incentives for employers to expand expenditures on worker safety and health created by the labor market, states' workers' compensation insurance programs, and the legal system swamp the meager incentives created by OSHA.	OSHA's Role in Promoting Occupational Safety and Health John Leeth \| Nov 13, 2012 This paper examines OSHA in light of the other forces affecting workplace safety in the United States to generate a set of policy recommendations for how it can best use its limited resources to improve worker safety and health. No evidence exists that expanding the total number of inspections or the average amount of fines for noncompliance would improve its effectiveness significantly.
RegData: The Industry-Specific Regulatory Constraint Database (IRCD) Omar Ahmad Al-Ubaydli, Patrick McLaughlin \| Oct 15, 2012 The Industry-specific Regulatory Constraint Database (IRCD) is a new database that quantifies federal regulation. IRCD offers a novel and objective measure of the accumulation of regulations in the economy overall and for all the different industries in the U.S. IRCD uses text analysis to count the number of binding constraints in the text of federal regulations, which are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). In addition, it measures the degree to which different groups of regulations target specific industries.	Baselines Jerry Ellig, James Broughel \| Jun 22, 2012 This Mercatus on Policy explores the importance of baselines in assessing the benefits and costs of federal regulations.

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Testimony & Comments

Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption Michael L. Marlow \| May 21, 2013 There is insufficient effort to establish the current state of food safety practices and little to no connection is made between those practices and public health. The FDA has not even presented a careful economic modeling of what an optimal set of rules for food safety practices would look like. Rather, the FDA wants to impose a “shotgun” approach on all covered foods rather than one that focuses on those foods or farms that pose the greatest risks. The FDA has acknowledged that it is required by law, by the Food Safety Modernization Act, to pass these standards. However, it is also required by OMB guidelines to analyze options that are not currently legal so as to inform the President and Congress when there are more efficient ways of solving a particular social problem than Congress had envisioned. The FDA should rethink its proposed regulation since there is little to suggest that it is the most efficient or effective option to improve public health.	Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food Michael L. Marlow \| May 21, 2013 The FDA has failed to conduct a thorough and quantitative analysis. The FDA admits it is unable to quantify health benefits derived from this rule. Instead, the FDA has developed a qualitative assessment that describes how implementing this rule would likely reduce the level of foodborne illness. The FDA estimates the “breakeven illness percentage” for each of three closely related regulatory options that are not developed within a model of optimal food safety. The FDA thus does not conduct an in-depth benefit-cost analysis of this major revision of our nation’s food safety regulations.
Comment on USDA Mandatory Inspection of Catfish Richard Williams \| Jun 20, 2011 This comment analyzes the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s proposed rule concerning mandatory inspection of catfish and catfish products.	Comment on Methyl Mercury Risk Assessment Richard Williams \| Jun 09, 2009 In this Public Interest Comment, Managing Director of the Regulatory Studies Program Richard Williams suggests that the benefit/risk approach is the best method to assess the risk of methyl mercury…
Food Industry Marketing to Children Report Todd Zywicki \| Dec 21, 2006 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to create a report on food industry marketing activities and expenditures targeted to children and adolescents. The report is meant to analyze the…	Public Interest Comment on the EPA's Proposed National Emissions Standards For Mercury \| Jun 29, 2004 This comment analyzes the EPA's proposal to regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired power…

More Testimony & Comments

Research Summaries & Toolkits

Can Washington 'Fix' America's Obesity Problem? Fat Chance

Michael L. Marlow, Sherzod Abdukadirov | Mar 01, 2012

Obesity is not the result of market failure. Americans do not lack the knowledge, rationale, or motivation to improve their health. Thus, pursuing regulations intended for a market failure will not solve the problem.

Haste Made Waste: The Health Care Law's Rushed Regulations

| Jan 09, 2012

This research summary discusses a new Mercatus Center study finding that in 2010, in the rush to implement key provisions of the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the federal government used a fast-track process of regulatory analysis that failed to comply with its own standards and produced poorly substantiated claims about the ACA’s benefits and costs.

Do More Regulations Equal Less Safety?

| Nov 30, 2011

This research summary addresses whether more regulations lead to less safety. Psychology, economics, and organizational science suggest that too many regulations—particularly highly detailed regulations—may make society less, rather than more, safe.

Speeches & Presentations

Solving Food Safety Problems Without Antiquated Regulation and Inspection

Richard Williams | Jul 08, 2012

The United States system of ensuring food safety (FS) is more than 100 years old and, until very recently, was the primary system designed to ensure FS. The system assumes that primarily federal regulators have the necessary knowledge to instruct food manufacturers on producing safe food, with both federal and state governments enforcing their respective regulations. While there have been notable successes in the last century — such as mandatory pasteurization for milk and other products, low acid canned food rules, and basic sanitation requirements — much of this progress was achieved in the first half of the 20th century. In the last 30 years, the incidence of foodborne disease has changed very little.

Regulation and High Reliability Organizations

Jerry Ellig | May 28, 2009

Jerry Ellig presents before the Department of Energy, Office of Health, Safety and Security in the Visiting Speakers Program about regulation in high reliability organizations, such as…

Mercatus Regulatory Studies

Charts

Cronyism In the Sugar Industry: Comparing U.S. to World Prices

As a result of these government actions, U.S. consumers and businesses have had to pay twice the world price of sugar on average since 1982.

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Experts

Sherzod Abdukadirov

Sherzod Abdukadirov is a research fellow at the Regulatory Studies Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Susan Dudley

Susan Dudley directs the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and is a Research Professor in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration.

Michael L. Marlow

Michael L. Marlow is an affiliated senior scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and professor of economics and distinguished scholar at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Alexander Tabarrok

Alex Tabarrok is Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of research for The Independent Institute. He is the co-author with Tyler Cowen of the popular economics blog MarginalRevolution and co-founder of the online educational platform Marginal Revolution University.

Richard Williams

Richard Williams is the director of policy research at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His primary research interests are risk analysis, benefit-cost analysis, regulation, food safety and nutrition, and excise taxes.

Videos

Richard Williams Discusses Food Safety Standards and the Role of the Food and Drug Administration on C-SPAN

Richard Williams | July 30, 2012

Michael Marlow Says Obesity Prevention Programs Miss the Mark on ReasonTV

Michael L. Marlow | June 06, 2012

Podcasts

Hester Peirce Discusses Regulatory Oversight Essentials at Regulation University

Hester Peirce | February 21, 2013

Hester Peirce discusses how regulations bring laws to life at this Regulation University event.

Download the MP3

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Recent Events

Regulatory Oversight Essentials, Part II: Keeping a Congressional Eye on the Ball

Please join the Mercatus Center for Regulation University’s 2013 series. Hester Peirce, J.D., senior scholar the Mercatus Center, will discuss skills and tools essential to conducting regulatory oversight.

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Books

Regulation: A Primer

Susan Dudley, Jerry Brito | Aug 14, 2012

Federal regulations affect nearly every area of our lives and interest in them is increasing. However, many people have no idea how regulations are developed or how they impact our lives. Regulation: A Primer by Susan Dudley and Jerry Brito provides an accessible overview of regulatory theory, analysis, and practice.

More Media Clippings

The Unintended Consequences of Safety Regulation Sherzod Abdukadirov \| Jun 03, 2013 This study examines how risk trade-offs undermine safety regulations. Safety regulations often come with unintended consequences in that regulations attempting to reduce risk in one area may increase risks elsewhere.	Evaluating OSHA's Effectiveness and Suggestions for Reform John Leeth, Nathan Hale \| Apr 23, 2013 Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) to create a safer working environment. The Act created two federal agencies: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which establishes and enforces workplace safety and health standards, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which researches the causes and remedies of occupational injuries and illnesses. OSHA is the fourth pillar of the US safety policy system, the others being the legal system, state workers’ compensation insurance programs, and the labor market.
OSHA's Role in Promoting Occupational Safety and Health John Leeth \| Dec 10, 2012 When OSHA was established, proponents believed it would dramatically improve the safety and health of American workers. During the forty years of its existence, workplace fatalities and nonfatal injuries and illnesses have fallen but OSHA is not the major cause of this decline. Changes in the industrial mix of workers and improvements in safety technology have combined with expanded employer incentives unrelated to OSHA to decrease worker injuries and illnesses. The financial incentives for employers to expand expenditures on worker safety and health created by the labor market, states' workers' compensation insurance programs, and the legal system swamp the meager incentives created by OSHA.	OSHA's Role in Promoting Occupational Safety and Health John Leeth \| Nov 13, 2012 This paper examines OSHA in light of the other forces affecting workplace safety in the United States to generate a set of policy recommendations for how it can best use its limited resources to improve worker safety and health. No evidence exists that expanding the total number of inspections or the average amount of fines for noncompliance would improve its effectiveness significantly.
RegData: The Industry-Specific Regulatory Constraint Database (IRCD) Omar Ahmad Al-Ubaydli, Patrick McLaughlin \| Oct 15, 2012 The Industry-specific Regulatory Constraint Database (IRCD) is a new database that quantifies federal regulation. IRCD offers a novel and objective measure of the accumulation of regulations in the economy overall and for all the different industries in the U.S. IRCD uses text analysis to count the number of binding constraints in the text of federal regulations, which are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). In addition, it measures the degree to which different groups of regulations target specific industries.	Baselines Jerry Ellig, James Broughel \| Jun 22, 2012 This Mercatus on Policy explores the importance of baselines in assessing the benefits and costs of federal regulations.

Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption Michael L. Marlow \| May 21, 2013 There is insufficient effort to establish the current state of food safety practices and little to no connection is made between those practices and public health. The FDA has not even presented a careful economic modeling of what an optimal set of rules for food safety practices would look like. Rather, the FDA wants to impose a “shotgun” approach on all covered foods rather than one that focuses on those foods or farms that pose the greatest risks. The FDA has acknowledged that it is required by law, by the Food Safety Modernization Act, to pass these standards. However, it is also required by OMB guidelines to analyze options that are not currently legal so as to inform the President and Congress when there are more efficient ways of solving a particular social problem than Congress had envisioned. The FDA should rethink its proposed regulation since there is little to suggest that it is the most efficient or effective option to improve public health.	Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food Michael L. Marlow \| May 21, 2013 The FDA has failed to conduct a thorough and quantitative analysis. The FDA admits it is unable to quantify health benefits derived from this rule. Instead, the FDA has developed a qualitative assessment that describes how implementing this rule would likely reduce the level of foodborne illness. The FDA estimates the “breakeven illness percentage” for each of three closely related regulatory options that are not developed within a model of optimal food safety. The FDA thus does not conduct an in-depth benefit-cost analysis of this major revision of our nation’s food safety regulations.
Comment on USDA Mandatory Inspection of Catfish Richard Williams \| Jun 20, 2011 This comment analyzes the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s proposed rule concerning mandatory inspection of catfish and catfish products.	Comment on Methyl Mercury Risk Assessment Richard Williams \| Jun 09, 2009 In this Public Interest Comment, Managing Director of the Regulatory Studies Program Richard Williams suggests that the benefit/risk approach is the best method to assess the risk of methyl mercury…
Food Industry Marketing to Children Report Todd Zywicki \| Dec 21, 2006 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to create a report on food industry marketing activities and expenditures targeted to children and adolescents. The report is meant to analyze the…	Public Interest Comment on the EPA's Proposed National Emissions Standards For Mercury \| Jun 29, 2004 This comment analyzes the EPA's proposal to regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired power…