[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 116 (Monday, September 18, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9672-S9673]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FOOD SAFETY

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last Friday the Nation's largest grower of 
organic produce announced a recall of fresh spinach products that they 
feared could be linked to the deadly e-coli outbreak. So far, the Food 
and Drug Administration has reported that a 77-year-old woman from 
Wisconsin has died, 14 persons have suffered from kidney failure, and 
at least 94 individuals have fallen ill after eating prepackaged 
spinach suspected of being contaminated with e-coli. That is a total of 
109 people in 19 different States.
  This is not the first time produce has been contaminated with e-coli. 
According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, between 
1998 and 2004, there were 492 e-coli outbreaks that were linked to 
fruits, vegetables, and fresh produce products such as prepackaged 
salads. In fact, there were 86 outbreaks in the year 2004 alone.
  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, estimates 
that as many as 76 million people suffer from food poisoning in our 
country each year. Of those individuals, 325,000 will be hospitalized, 
and more than 5,000 will die. Children and the elderly are especially 
vulnerable.
  Despite these statistics, our food supply is still the safest in the 
world. However, there are widening gaps in our food safety system due 
to the fact that food safety oversight has evolved over time and has 
spread across so many different governmental agencies. Several Federal 
agencies, all with different and sometimes conflicting missions, work 
to ensure that the food we eat is safe. The U.S. Department of 
Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service regulates meat, 
poultry, and processed egg products. The Food and Drug Administration 
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and Center for Veterinary 
Medicine regulate produce and other food products. Finally, the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention tracks food-borne illnesses.
  One stark example of the inconsistencies in our food safety system is 
the lack of standardization for food inspection. Processed food 
facilities may be inspected by the FDA once every 5 or 6 years, while 
meat and poultry operations are inspected every single day by the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture. This mismatch, piecemeal approach to food 
safety could spell disaster if we don't act decisively and wisely. That 
is why, since the 105th Congress, I have been pushing for a single food 
safety program. It is not a new idea. In fact, one of my predecessors 
is U.S. Senator Charles Percy, of Illinois, who raised this same issue 
several decades ago--and he wasn't the first.
  It doesn't take a person with an advanced degree in government to 
look at so many different agencies of our Federal Government doing some 
part of food safety and wonder why we don't put the whole 
responsibility under one roof, guided by science and an operation that 
is administered by true professionals. Instead, what we have done is 
watched as our food safety system has evolved. From Upton Sinclair's 
landmark novel ``The Jungle,'' which shamed America through the Teddy 
Roosevelt administration into creating the first food safety standards 
for our country, to the most recent outbreak, we are reminded time and 
time again of our vulnerability.
  We assume that the food we are eating and the food we are serving to 
our families and our children and our elderly parents is safe, and by 
and large it is the safest in the world. But we can do better, and this 
e-coli outbreak involving spinach is a reminder.
  This bill that I push would give that single food agency the 
authority to protect the food supply based on science. This agency 
would provide our country with the greatest hope of reducing food-borne 
illness and preventing or minimizing the possible harm from any 
bioterrorist attack involving our food supply.
  Former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson told reporters, when he resigned 
in December 2004, that he worries ``every single night'' about a 
massive attack on the U.S. food supply. Here is what he said. Tommy 
Thompson, a member of President Bush's Cabinet, said this:

       I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists 
     have not, you know, attacked our food supply, because it is 
     so easy to do. And we are importing a lot of food from the 
     Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that.

  We recognized the need for a unified Department of Homeland Security, 
but we have not taken the same step with our food supply.
  I might say, parenthetically, that it has been my experience in 
Washington that when I raise this issue with people currently serving 
in an administration, either as Secretary of Health and Human Services 
or Secretary of Agriculture, they have real problems with the idea of 
bringing all of these responsibilities under one roof and coordinating 
this effort and stopping the duplication and mismanagement. It is not 
until they leave Government, in their farewell speech, that they all 
say: And you know, one thing we should have done is we should have 
brought all that food safety under one roof.
  This is a problem for those who face the special interests groups 
that are afraid of change. But this change is a change America needs--
to have food safety based on science and an agency administered by real 
professionals.
  S. 729, the Safe Food Act of 2005, would create a single, independent 
Federal food safety agency to administer all aspects of Federal food 
safety, including inspections, enforcement, standards-setting, and 
research in order to protect the public.
  The components of the agencies now charged with protecting the food 
supply, primarily housed at the Food and Drug Administration and the 
Department of Agriculture, would be transferred to this new agency.

[[Page S9673]]

  The new Food Safety Administrator would be responsible for the safety 
of the food supply and would fulfill that charge by implementing the 
registration and recordkeeping requirements of the 2002 bioterrorism 
law.
  We would also ensure that slaughterhouses and food processing plants 
have procedures in place to prevent and reduce food contamination; 
regularly inspect domestic food facilities, with inspection frequency 
based on risk; centralize the authority to detain, seize, condemn, and 
recall food that is adulterated or misbranded; examine the food safety 
practices of foreign countries and work with States to impose various 
civil and criminal penalties for the serious violations of food safety 
laws; and, finally, require food producers to code their products so 
those products can be traced easily in the event of a food-borne 
illness outbreak in order to minimize the health impact of an event 
like the spinach contamination we presently face.
  In this most recent outbreak involving spinach, 22 days passed from 
the time the first illness was reported to the Centers for Disease 
Control to the time the Food and Drug Administration issued its 
warning. In this area of food safety, time is of the essence. It was 3 
weeks from the first serious outbreak and illness until there was a 
warning issued by the FDA. That is too long. Too many people were 
exposed to serious e-coli contamination, which can be deadly.
  It is time to create a single food safety agency in this country. The 
Government Accountability Office has been calling for it for more than 
25 years. In February 2005, a GAO report showed that Government 
officials in seven other high-income countries who have consolidated 
their food safety systems consistently state that the benefits outweigh 
the costs.
  In a 1998 study, the National Academies of Sciences concluded that 
``a model food safety system should have a unified mission and a single 
official who is responsible for food safety at the Federal level and 
who has the authority and the resources to implement science-based 
policy in all Federal activities related to food safety.''
  While I was speaking, a member of my staff handed me a note informing 
me that we now know there has been an Illinois case which has been 
reported of e-coli contamination, apparently from spinach. Now 20 
States across our Nation have been affected. In this Illinois case, an 
elderly woman has been hospitalized with kidney failure related to 
tainted spinach, marking the first confirmed illness in my home State 
of Illinois linking the outbreak of e-coli in the leafy green 
vegetable. Illinois State public officials announced today that this 
woman lives in north-central Illinois. She became ill late in August 
and is now hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a form of 
kidney failure which can be associated with this strain of e-coli 
linked to the tainted spinach, according to this report from the 
Illinois Department of Public Health.
  This is another example, and the numbers continue to grow. We are 
going to do our best to contain them and to inform the public to keep 
the food supply safe for everyone. But we can do better in Washington. 
It is time to sit down with the special interest groups who have 
stopped this change and to come up with a reasonable bipartisan 
approach. There isn't anything partisan about this issue, not in any 
way whatsoever.
  One of my closest friends from Chicago went out and bought some 
hamburger at a local grocery store years ago, took it home, and gave it 
to her 5-year-old boy. That poor boy was exposed to e-coli and died a 
few days later, a gruesome, horrible death. She became an advocate for 
food safety. She took her grief and turned it into energy to try to 
spare some family in the future from a similar tragedy. I hope it 
doesn't take the families of those who have been hit by this e-coli to 
form a group and push Congress into action. It is time that we took the 
initiative.
  Factors such as emerging pathogens, an aging population at high risk 
for food-borne illnesses, an increasing volume of food imports, and 
people eating outside their homes more than ever underscore the need 
for change.
  We need to change and shed the old bureaucratic shackles that have 
tied us to the overlapping and inefficient ad hoc food safety system of 
the past.
  I urge my colleagues who are undoubtedly going to hear about this e-
coli contamination and wonder how they can respond to take a look at S. 
729, the Safe Food Act of 2005. Please join me in cosponsoring this 
landmark legislation.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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