Bye-Bye Bush!

I've been thinking for a long time about how horrible the Bush administration has been—the worst in United States history to date, as far as I can tell—but to my surprise I realize I can say something good about it in terms of celiac disease and food allergies.

Yes, I have to recognize that it was under Bush's watch that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued its Consensus Statement on Celiac Disease (2004) and other publications devoted to increasing public awareness. Also during this period, the FDA improved food labeling and enforced rules preventing marketers from presenting spelt products as wheat-free or gluten-free.

None of that makes up for the damage done to the country and the world by the Bush-Cheney regime. Even where progress was made for people with celiac disease, health care suffered and under-regulated food marketers still got away with irresponsible labeling. But it's interesting to note that some progress was made, and encouraging to imagine that much more progress might be made under Barack Obama and Joseph Biden.