The FDA's sesame mishap

The Biden administration's approach to economic matters is to empower Washington bureaucrats to "guide" the private sector toward outcomes the White House feels are "equitable." Never mind that government central planners have a long and accomplished record of failure and inefficiency. Or, that, in many instances, they have no idea what they're doing.

Consider the Food and Drug Administration and its army of experts.

On Jan. 1, a new federal regulation went into place that added sesame to the list of major food allergens that previously included eggs, milk, shellfish, peanuts and a few other items. Any products that include sesame — seeds or flour from the plant, for instance — must be labeled to alert consumers who may be allergic to the product. The FDA estimates that 1.5 million Americans may have a reaction to sesame, which can include shortness of breath, vomiting and diarrhea.

The intention, of course, was to make it easier for those with a sesame allergy to avoid problems. But the real-world application of the regulation has accomplished precisely the opposite.

In order to avoid running afoul of the FDA — facing fines or worse — many suppliers began adding sesame to products that otherwise didn't include it. This helps them avoid repercussions — lawsuits, government fines — for potential cross-contamination between foodstuffs that contain the ingredient and those that don't.

"What they're basically saying is, we're not going to clean the line after the sesame products are run," Jason Linde of the Food Allergy Research & Education Organization told a Chicago television station. "Instead, we're just going to add sesame flour in every single loaf of bread we make, so we don't have to clean the lines."

Needless to say, the folks at the FDA never saw such ingenuity coming. "I don't think anyone envisioned there being a decrease in the availability of products that are safe choices for sesame-allergic consumers," FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf said in a statement.

But as Eric Boehm of Reason magazine noted, "What Califf means, of course, is that no one within the FDA considered this possibility. That's a telling statement. It indicates that the FDA likely didn't do a good job of investigating how the businesses affected by its rules would respond to the placement of sesame on the federal allergens list."

Nanny Staters are now calling on federal regulators to force food processors to stop adding sesame to various items. It's highly predictable: Many federal interventions require another intervention to address the unintended consequences of the initial intervention. So far the FDA has resisted.

Rather than issue more edicts, perhaps the agency should do what it should have done in the first place: Sit down with processors to come to a reasonable solution.