During Congressional testimony today, former Senator Tom Daschle said regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates one out of every four products consumed by Americans, vowed that the FDA would make decisions based on science not politics under his leadership.  The FDA has been battered by criticism that it did too little to prevent and then investigate outbreaks of foodborne disease such as a Salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people from April to August of 2007.

He expressed concern that the FDA lost the confidence of the public and Congress.

"I want to reinstate a science-driven environment," Daschle said. "I want to take ideology and politics as much as humanly possible out of the process and leave the scientists to do their job."

Daschle is very smart and a good guy (with interesting glasses), who I met in 1999 when he was recruiting me to run for the US Senate.  It will be interesting to see how he walks the mine fields between public safety and the food supply.