An FDA economist discovers that solutions for food safety and nutrition lie in the hands of entrepreneurs—not government regulation and education.
In this book you will learn how FDA controls oversight of their activities and misuses science and economics to support regulations that do not work.
Fixing Food takes you inside the FDA and explores the inner workings that drove failed strategies. Following his tenure at the FDA, Dr. Williams spent more than a decade investigating new sciences—including genetic and microbial sciences—that are leading to innovative foods and products. With one of the greatest public health crises in American history ongoing, this research aims to solve our issues with food—once and for all.
“It’s a meticulous work, written from extensive, concrete experience, and clearly motivated by genuine concern for the general welfare.”
Media Appearances
Deep Dive 201—Fixing Food: An FDA Insider Unravels the Myths and the Solutions
Richard Williams on The Federalist Society’s Fourth Branch Podcast
Former FDA Economist Critiques the Agency's Approach to Safe and Healthy Food
Richard Williams on Jefferson Public Radio
Inside the FDA, its Inner Workings its Failed Strategies
Richard Williams on the Alain Guillot Podcast
Latest Blog Posts
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About Me
Richard Williams is a 27-year veteran of the Food and Drug Administration who specializes in economic and risk analyses in food safety and nutrition. He believes in one thing:
Public health without politics.
That boils down to: no matter whose policy it is, if it works, he’s for it, if it doesn’t, he’s against it.
While at FDA, he created a series of risk analysis classes that have now been taught to government employees around the world. He also was responsible for estimating the benefits of the food label and helped to craft a better exemption for small businesses from those rules. While at FDA, Williams examined the costs and benefits of hazard analysis critical control points (HACCP) for seafood and juices. While the benefit-cost analyses helped to make some of the rules better at a lower cost to consumers, FDA’s food safety and nutrition rules have mostly failed to make food safer or provide consumers with useful guidance in choosing healthy foods.
Currently serving on advisory boards to the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) and the chairman of the board for the Center for Truth in Science, Dr. Williams previously served on the Science Advisory Board for the U.S. EPA. He has lectured on economics and risk analysis in several countries including Australia, Korea, Yugoslavia, and England.
After a combat tour in Vietnam in 1970, Richard attended Old Dominion University majoring first in English, then detouring to economics. He earned his Ph.D in economics from Virginia Tech.
Williams’ editorials on food safety, nutrition and risks have been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Politico, US News and World Report, Chicago Sun Times, and the New York Daily News and has appeared on both radio stations and television in the U.S.
After nearly a decade as a Vice President for Policy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Richard decided to go back to English and write Fixing Food. Between being an avid traveler, reader, biker, hiker, and poor golfer, he finds time for a little amateur woodworking. Richard lives with his wife Christine in McLean, Virginia.
Stay in the Loop
Part exposé, part memoir of his time at the Food & Drug Administration, Richard's book is coming soon.
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