FDA Reform, But what About The Tea Tasters?

The US Senate has voted to end the Board of Tea Experts, which has been sipping imported tea since 1897 to make sure it tastes right. No similar panel exists for coffee or other foods.

Two years ago the Senate thought it had eliminated the board when Congress voted to forbid any money for it, say Associated Press reports. But the board survived. In separate legislation, Congress voted to raise the fee paid by industry for tea-monitoring. The industry also began paying the $50 annual fee, travel costs and daily expenses for each of the board's six outside experts when they meet in Brooklyn to sample tea for two days.

Democratic Senator Harry Reid says that taxpayers are still paying the $68,600 salary of Robert Dick, the Food and Drug Administration chemist who has run the board for 56 years, and those of the FDA staffers who support the program, and the room used for tasting, or about two-thirds of the program's $200,000 annual cost.