Recall

About three weeks ago Beth went out to the grocery store. We were running low on a few things including some meds for the kids. An hour and two stores later, she texted me asking if we had enough to get the kids through the next few days. She couldn’t find any. Anywhere. And she never did. The first thing I did after checking to see if we did in fact have enough to coast a while was to start surfing the web looking for recalls. There were none.
Imagine my shock three weeks later when we saw on CNN that not only the allergy medication Mia is on was recalled but so was nearly every other medication commonly used to treat fevers and sniffles.
I don’t think the government is totally responsible or looking after my welfare as well as the health and well-being of my kids. That’s my job as an individual and as a parent. And if I was unwilling to take on such duties, I should have thought twice before using my penis. But our government has organizations in place tasked with consumer protection and the safety of the medication we take and give to our children. If they’re there, I expect them to do their jobs. But they’re not. The FDA had this to say about the recall:
“Our thought was because these over-the-counter products are so widely used and because it hit such vulnerable populations with infants and children, that we really needed to get the word out there to at least give consumers a heads’ up before we had all the specifics.”
That’s admirable but where was the FDA when the products mysteriously disappeared from store shelves? And did the manufacturer think we were all so stupid that we wouldn’t notice? What’s worse is that while the products were gone from store shelves, they were still sitting in medicine cabinets in millions of homes, dispensed to millions of kids, mine included.
A few weeks ago, I took Mia to the doctor. He recommended all kinds of prescriptions as well as some over the counter medications. Why? He and I shared a simple goal. “Let’s keep Mia out of the hospital this summer.” She regularly took one of those recalled medications to help do just that. I get that Beth and I have to be our kids’ best and biggest advocate. I get that the world isn’t orbiting the sun with the sole purpose of making sure my kids are fine and taken care of. And I get that there are kids who don’t have food much less medication. But I’ll admit to feeling a little betrayed by a company and a system who were in the business of making people better. Especially when the company pulls supply three weeks before disclosing that there’s a problem. Especially when they’ve had to recall similar products four times in the last seven months.
Some of us have kids who’ve been in the hospital. Some of us have goals for the summer that are as simple and desperate as keep my daughter out of the hospital.
What do you think is the government’s role here? Are they doing their job? How about the manufacturers?
(Sorry. I got a little carried away there. Obviously this just pisses me off.)