The Food and Drug Administration would see a 6 percent jump in its budget to $2.51 billion. The agency’s total resources would reach about $4 billion because of user fees it expects to collect from food, tobacco and drug industries. This story, The agency would hire 1,251 additional full-time employees, bringing the workforce total to 13,586. A large chunk of the additional funds would be spent on food safety, which has been flagged by Obama as a domestic priority. The FDA is reorganizing the way it monitors the production of food, with plans to step up inspections of domestic and foreign food suppliers, expand its laboratory capacity, and improve its ability to trace the source of an outbreak of food illness, among other things. Some say the budget is overly optimistic because it depends on $250 million in user fees from food producers that have not yet been approved by Congress. The user fees are part of a bill passed by the House last year but which seems stalled in the Senate.

The bill would also give significant new legal powers to the FDA to stop tainted food from getting to market. Some say however, that the F.D.A. already have too much power as it is. With back room deals with various pharmaceutical companies, making people wait 15 to 20 years for generic version of there prescriptions. Mean while, the drug companies rack in billions, not millions, billions in revenue. On over priced medications that these people need to survive. Frankly I believe it’s a crime against humanity. A report came out that last year that drug companies actually make more then all the oil producers combined.