For a decade after the egg industry agreed to be subject to federal regulation and inspection, the government failed to implement and enforce rules–in part because of Bush Administration antipathy to government oversight of business and in part because of rivalries and dysfunction at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, according to the Washington Post.
The government finally implemented regulations about egg production last summer, after some 1,900 people were sickened by salmonella traced to eggs, Lyndsey Layton reports.