The Clueless FDA

For the last four years, I have been trying to sell compressed air filters to various plastic factories that produce food packaging, without much success.

These filters are used to remove compressor oil from compressed air and prevent it from contacting the packaging. If it is present, this oil could be a potential health risk in the long run for the consumers as this oil is always mineral based and not food grade. This is almost like eating the oil in your car engine, after you have used it to drive the car for 6000km.

I must say that I was not very surprised when not a single plastic factory bought from me, or anyone else for that matter. After all, the health of the average consumer is not worth 500JDs per year.

And I must say that it does not surprise me either that the Jordanian FDA does not know anything about this. Having dealt with the Ministry of health(and the Jordanian FDA) both as a business owner and when I represented the Dairy industry at the Jordanian Institute for Standards, I knew that these people do not know their asses from their elbows, all they know is that the material is food grade, therefore the final package is food grade.

Of course, for anyone who knows anything about the food industry, this is a clear case of non sequitur. The Jordanian FDA should be ashamed of itself for not knowing anything about this matter, but also for not knowing so many things.

The greatest problem with the Jordanian FDA is that the stuff are lacking both in experience and technical knowledge. And while they can be a bit excused for the former, in the age of the internet and electronic documents, the latter is an excusable crime.

IMHO, the Jordanian FDA is a partial waste of the tax payers' money and is only partially effective.