[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 26, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6052-S6054]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. MIKULSKI (for herself, Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. Durbin):
  S. 1126. A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Costmetic Act to 
improve the safety of imported food, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.


              Imported food safety improvement act of 1999

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Imported 
Food Safety Act of 1999.'' I am proud to be the sponsor of this 
important legislation which guarantees the improved safety of imported 
foods.
  The health of Americans is not something to take chances with. It is 
important that we make food safety a top priority. Every person should 
have the confidence that their food is fit to eat. We should be 
confident that imported food is as safe as food produced in this 
country. Cars can't be imported unless they meet U.S. safety 
requirements. Prescription drugs can't be imported unless they meet FDA 
standards. You shouldn't be able to import food that isn't up to U.S. 
standards, either.
  We import increasing quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables, 
seafood, and many other foods. In the past seven years, the amount of 
food imported into the U.S. has more than doubled. Out of all the 
produce we eat, 40% of it is imported. Our food supply has gone global, 
so we need to have global food safety.
  The impact of unsafe food is staggering. There have been several 
frightening examples of food poisoning incidents in the U.S. When 
Michigan schoolchildren were contaminated with Hepatitis A from 
imported strawberries in 1997, Americans were put on alert. Thousands 
of cases of cyclospora infection from imported raspberries--resulting 
in severe, prolonged diarrhea, weight loss, vomiting, chills and 
fatigue were also reported that year. Imported cantaloupe eaten in 
Maryland sickened 25 people. As much as $663 million was spent on food 
borne illness in Maryland alone. Overall, as many as 33 million people 
per year become ill and over 9000 die as a result of food borne 
illness. It is our children and our seniors who suffer the most. Most 
of the food-related deaths occur in these two populations.
  These incidents have scared us and have jump-started the efforts to 
do more to protect our nation's food supply. Now, I believe in free 
trade, but I also believe in fair trade. FDA's current system of 
testing import samples at ports of entry does not protect Americans. It 
is ineffective and resource-intensive. Less than 2% of imported food is 
being inspected under the current system. At the same time, the 
quantity of the imported foods continues to increase.
  What this law does is simple: It improves food safety and aims at 
preventing food borne illness of all imported foods regulated by the 
FDA. This bill takes a long overdue, big first step.
  First, it requires that FDA make equivalence determinations on 
imported food. This was developed with the FDA by Senator Kennedy and 
myself in consultation with the consumer groups.
  Today, FDA has no authority to protect Americans against imported 
food that is unsafe until it is too late. Last year, the GAO found that 
FDA lacks the authority to require that food coming into the U.S. is 
produced, prepared, packed or held under conditions that provide the 
same level of food safety protection as those in the U.S. This means 
that currently, food offered for import to the U.S., can be imported 
under any conditions, even if those conditions are unsanitary. The 
Imported Food Safety Act of 1999, will allow FDA to look at the 
production at its source. This means that FDA will be able to take 
preventive measures. FDA will be able to be proactive, rather than just 
reactive.
  That means that when you pack your childrens' lunches for school or 
sit down at the dinner table, you can rest assured that your food will 
be safe. Whether your strawberries were grown in a foreign country or 
on the Eastern Shore, in Maryland, those strawberries will be held to 
the same standard. You won't have to worry or wonder where your food is 
coming from. You won't have to worry that your children or families are 
going to get sick. You will know that the food coming into this country 
will be subject to equivalent standards.
  Secondly, this bill contains strong enforcement measures. Last year, 
the

[[Page S6053]]

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under the leadership of 
Senator Sue Collins, held numerous hearings on the safety of imported 
food. These enforcement measures are largely a product of those facts 
uncovered during those hearings. Senator Collins developed these 
enforcement provisions and introduced a bill which focuses on 
enforcement. I refer those with special interest in enforcement to also 
consider her bill.
  Finally, this bill covers emergency situations by allowing FDA to ban 
imported food that has been connected to outbreaks of food borne 
illness. When our children, parents and communities are getting 
seriously sick, the Secretary of Health and Human Services can 
immediately issue an emergency ban. We don't have to wait till someone 
else gets seriously sick or dies. We no longer have to go through the 
current bureaucratic mechanism that is inefficient and resource 
intensive. We can stop the food today, to protect our citizens.
  My goal is to strengthen the food supply, whatever the source of the 
food may be. This bill won't create trade barriers. It just calls for 
free trade of safe food. It calls for international concern and 
consensus on guaranteeing standards for public health.
  This bill is important because it will save lives and makes for a 
safer world. Everyone should have security in knowing that the food 
they eat is fit to eat. I'd like to thank FDA for their advice and 
consultation in developing this legislation. I also want to thank the 
Consumer Federation of America for their insight and recommendations.
  I look forward to working on a bipartisan basis to enact this 
legislation. I pledge my commitment to fight for ways to make America's 
food supply safer. This bill is an important step in that direction.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the statement of Ms. 
Carol Tucker Foreman, Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Food 
Policy Institute, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Statement of Carol Tucker Foreman, Distinguished Fellow and Director of 
                       the Food Policy Institute

       I am here today on behalf of the Consumer Federation of 
     America and the National Consumers' League to endorse the 
     Imported Food Safety Act of 1999. I thank Senators Mikulski, 
     Kennedy and Durbin and Congresswoman Eshoo for introducing 
     this very important legislation.
       It will improve the Food and Drug Administration's capacity 
     to protect American consumers from food-borne illness caused 
     by adulterated imported food.
       Food-borne illness is a serious public health problem in 
     the U.S. Food poisoning kills 9,000 Americans each year and 
     causes as many as 33 million illnesses. It costs us at least 
     $5 billion each year in medical costs and time lost from 
     work. The human toll is incalculable.
       Americans eat from a global plate. We want a wide variety 
     of foods available on a year round basis. Health experts urge 
     us to eat more fruits and vegetables. Imports make fresh 
     fruits available to us even in the middle of February.
       But no one wants imported foods served with a side helping 
     of food poisoning. We want all our food, domestic and 
     imported, to be safe.
       We have not had that assurance. In recent years there have 
     been a number of incidents of food-borne illness arising from 
     imported food products. Last year, the Senate Permanent 
     Subcommittee on Investigations revealed serious problems with 
     the Food and Drug Administration's capacity to protect 
     Americans from unsafe food.
       The General Accounting Office reported that FDA can't 
     protect us because the agency has no authority to require 
     that foods coming into the United States be produced and 
     packaged under circumstances that provide the same level of 
     health protection required for domestic food producers and 
     processors.
       Most American consumers, and frankly most food producers 
     and processors as well, would be shocked to learn that 
     imported food is not required to be produced in a manner that 
     provides the same level of health protection as domestic 
     products and that FDA has no authority to check, in advance, 
     for adequate public health safeguards. FDA can act only after 
     the fact--after adulterated food has been found or someone 
     has gotten sick.
       The USDA inspects meat, poultry and egg products. GAO noted 
     that USDA has the necessary power to protect consumers. The 
     Department has the authority to require that meat and poultry 
     produced abroad and imported into the U.S. be produced in a 
     system that provides a level of health protection equivalent 
     to that imposed on U.S. producers. That level of protection 
     may include limits on bacteria that cause human illness. In 
     addition, USDA has federally sworn inspectors who examine the 
     foreign systems and check food at the docks.
       The Food and Drug Administration has jurisdiction over all 
     other food products, including the fresh fruits and 
     vegetables that are so susceptible to contamination. FDA has 
     no similar authority, no inspectors who visit foreign plants 
     and virtually no inspectors to check food at the docks. Last 
     year, FDA checked only two percent of the food imported into 
     the U.S. In fact, FDA has established only a limited number 
     of performance standards for domestically produced foods.
       That point bears repeating. If you eat meat and poultry 
     produced in another country and imported into the U.S., you 
     can do so knowing they were produced under circumstances at 
     least as clean and sanitary as meat, poultry and eggs 
     produced in the U.S. If you consume fresh fruits and 
     vegetables produced in another country, you have no such 
     assurance, even though you will cook your meat, poultry and 
     eggs but may well eat the fruits and vegetables raw, 
     increasing the chance that you will consume disease causing 
     bacteria.
       In a recent study, the Center for Science in the Public 
     Interest surveyed 225 food-borne illness outbreaks that 
     occurred between 1990 and 1998. Foods regulated by the FDA 
     caused over twice as many outbreaks as foods regulated by the 
     USDA. Fruits, vegetables and salads caused 48 outbreaks. 
     Seafood, both finfish and shellfish, caused 32 outbreaks.
       USDA's more rigorous system of inspection has certainly not 
     stopped foreign produced meat products from entering the 
     country. We import hundreds of millions of pounds of meat 
     each year from Australia, to Argentina and Denmark and a host 
     of other countries. Neither foreign nor domestic producers 
     have suffered any loss of trade.
       The Imported Food Safety Act sets up a system for the 
     Secretary of Health and Human Services to use in establishing 
     equivalency; gives FDA more authority to visit other 
     countries; provides important enforcement authority and 
     controls over imported foods; prohibits port shopping and 
     increases penalties for importing contaminated foods and 
     authorizes new funding for FDA to carry out these functions.
       Americans do care about food safety. The Food Marketing 
     Institute, the nation's super market trade association, 
     recently released its annual survey of trends among super 
     market shoppers. Ninety percent of those surveyed said food 
     safety was very important or somewhat important to them in 
     making food selections. The Imported Food Safety Act will 
     increase assurance among consumers that the food supply is 
     safe.
       The Imported Food Safety Act is an important part of a 
     package of food safety legislation which Congress should 
     address this year. Other parts of the package include 
     legislation to promote the use of specific microbial 
     standards for both domestic and foreign produce, introduced 
     by Senator Harkin; require registration of importers, 
     introduced by Senator Dorgan. Congress should act now before 
     confidence is diminished.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a privilege to be a sponsor of this 
important bill, and I commend Senator Mikulski for her leadership on 
this legislation to close the critical gaps in our imported food safety 
laws.
  Citizens deserve to know that the food they eat is safe and 
wholesome, regardless of its source. The United States has one of the 
safest food supplies in the world. Yet every year, millions of 
Americans become sick, and thousands die, from eating contaminated 
food. Billions of dollars a year in medical costs and lost productivity 
are caused by food-borne illnesses. Often, the source of the problem is 
imported food.
  We've heard recently about the thousands of cases of illness from 
Cyclospora in raspberries from Guatemala. But this high profile case is 
by no means the only case.
  In 1997, school children in five states contracted Hepatitis A from 
frozen strawberries served in the school cafeterias. Fecal 
contamination is a potential source of Hepatitis A, and the 
strawberries the children ate came from a farm in Mexico where workers 
had little access to sanitary facilities.
  Earlier this year, cases of typhoid fever in Florida were linked to a 
frozen tropical fruit product from Guatemala. Again, poor sanitary 
conditions appear to be at the root of the problem.
  Gastrointestinal illness has been linked to soft cheeses from Europe. 
Bacterial food poisoning has been attributed to canned mushrooms from 
the Far East.
  The emergence of highly virulent strains of bacteria, and an increase 
in the number of organisms that are resistant to antibiotics, make 
microbial contamination of food a major public health challenge.
  Ensuring the safety of imported food is a huge task. Americans now 
enjoy a wide variety of foods from around the world and have access to 
fresh fruits

[[Page S6054]]

and vegetables year round. In 1997, the Food Safety Inspection Service 
of the Department of Agriculture handled 118,000 entries of imported 
meat and poultry. The FDA handled far more-- 2.7 million entries of 
other imported food. Current FDA procedures and resources allowed for 
less than two percent of those 2.7 million imports to be physically 
inspected. Clearly, we need to do better.
  The authority of the FDA is not sufficient to prevent contaminated 
food imports from reaching our shores. The Agency has no legal 
authority to require that food imported into the United States is 
prepared, packed and stored under conditions that provide the same 
level of public health protection as similar food produced in the U.S. 
Under current procedures, the FDA takes random samples of imports as 
they arrive at the border. The imports often continue on their way to 
stores in all parts of the country while testing is being done, and it 
is often difficult to recall the food if a problem is found. 
Unscrupulous importers make the most of the loopholes in the law, 
including substituting cargo, falsifying laboratory results, and 
attempting to bring a refused shipment in again, at a later date or at 
a different port.
  The legislation we are introducing today will give the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services the additional authority needed to assure 
that food imports are as safe as food grown and prepared in this 
country.
  It will give the FDA greater authority to deal with outbreaks of 
food-borne illness and to bar further imports of dangerous foods until 
improvements at the source can guarantee the safety of future 
shipments. This authority covers foods that have repeatedly been 
associated with food-borne disease, have repeatedly been found to be 
adulterated, or have been linked to a catastrophic outbreak of food-
borne illness.
  It will close loopholes in the law and give the FDA better tools to 
deal with unscrupulous importers.
  It will authorize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to 
target resources toward enhanced surveillance and prevention activities 
to deal with food-borne illnesses, including new diagnostic tests, 
better training of health professionals, and increased public awareness 
about food safety.
  Too many citizens today are at unnecessary risk of food-borne 
illness. The measure we are proposing is designed to reduce that risk 
as much as possible, both immediately and for the long term. We know 
that there are powerful special interests that put profits ahead of 
safety, but Americans need and deserve laws that better protect their 
food supply. This is essential legislation, and I look forward to 
working with my colleagues to see that it is enacted as soon as 
possible.
                                 ______