[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 150 (Wednesday, November 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7917-S7921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FDA FOOD SAFETY MODERNIZATION ACT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I know my colleague, Senator Harkin, will
be on the floor momentarily to speak about the Food Safety
Modernization Act. I wish to preface my remarks by thanking him
personally. Tom Harkin has been not only a great colleague and friend,
he has been such an exceptional leader when it comes to this important
issue. It is no surprise for those of us who know Tom Harkin's
congressional and Senate career. He has always been an extraordinary
leader.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, which literally has changed the
face of America and opened doors for the disabled across our Nation, is
not only one of the most dramatic steps forward when it comes to human
rights and civil rights in my time, it was led by Senator Tom Harkin of
Iowa and Senator Robert Dole, Republican of Kansas, who then served in
the Senate.
So Tom Harkin has been our conscience and our leader when it comes to
issues involving safety, human rights, and expanding the reach of
freedom in our Nation to those who otherwise might have been denied.
I will tell you why I am passionate about the food safety issue. It
goes back to a note I received as a Congressman. It was almost 16 years
ago. It was a note from a woman who did not live in my congressional
district. She was from Chicago and I was 200 miles away. Her name was
Nancy Donley, and she told the story of her 5- or 6-year-old son Alex.
She brought some hamburger home from the local grocery store to fix it
for her son. She made his dinner. He ate it, and then he got sick,
terribly sick. In a matter of a few hours, he was at the hospital, and
in a matter of a few days he had passed away.
He was a victim of E. coli. Trust me, his mom would never have done
anything to harm him, and she thought she was doing the right thing to
cook his meal and bring it to him at the dinner table. Unfortunately,
that family decision, which is made millions of times across America
every single day, was a fatal decision.
Nancy Donley--heart broken, her life shattered by the loss of that
little boy she loved so much--could have shrunk away in despair and
anger over what had happened but did not. She made it her passion and
her crusade to gather others like her in behalf of the cause of food
safety. She started an organization called Safe Tables Our Priority--or
STOP--and started lobbying Members of Congress, even a Congressman 200
miles away, to do what they could to make our laws stronger and better
across America.
I have kept in touch with Nancy. It has been over 16 years. We are
close friends now. I have to tell you that in my pantheon of heroes,
Nancy Donley is right up there for what she has done with her life. If
we are fortunate enough today and successful in passing this bill--at
least moving it forward procedurally--I wish to say I am doing that in
her name and in the memory of her son Alex and the thousands, tens of
thousands, maybe even more, across America who are victims of
contaminated food.
For some people, it is just a simple case of indigestion or diarrhea
that goes away after a few days. It may be mistaken for the flu. For
others, it gets more serious. The number of Americans who die or become
severely ill due to preventible foodborne illness is unacceptably high,
and it has been that way for a long time.
Every year, 76 million Americans suffer from preventable foodborne
illness. Mr. President, 325,000 of our family members, friends, and
neighbors are hospitalized each year because of food contamination and
5,000 die--100 a week. That means that every 5 minutes 3 people are
rushed to the hospital because the food they ate made them sick, and at
the end of the day 13 will die.
Throughout the debate on this bill, I have shared the heartbreaking
stories of victims such as Alex Donley and his family. Some of these
victims who were courageous enough to share their stories will suffer
chronic symptoms that do not go away for a long time, if ever. The
victims who have died would have wished they were lucky enough to be
alive, even with these long-term illnesses.
Today, as we vote to move to this bill, I will be thinking about how
much it means to so many of us. I talked about Nancy Donley and her son
Alex. They are not the only ones. There are people all across America
who understand, when they go shopping at the food store and buy
groceries or buy produce, there is a sort of built-in assumption it is
safe. Would our government let things be put on the shelves in a store
that have not been inspected, that are not safe?
Most people assume that if the government is doing its job like it is
supposed to, they should not have to worry about those things. Well, to
a great extent, they are right. We have extraordinary resources in the
Federal Government dedicated toward food safety. But the simple fact
is, there are wide gaps when it comes to food safety in America, and
those gaps need to be closed by this bill.
The vast majority of Americans understand this. According to a recent
poll commissioned by Pew, 89 percent of Americans want us to modernize
our food safety system. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Harkin and
Senator Enzi, our Republican colleague, our food safety bill passed the
Health, Education and Labor Committee unanimously more than a year ago.
This bill has substantial bipartisan support. Twenty Republican and
Democratic Senators are already committed to it. It is supported by a
broad group of consumer protection interests, including those at the
Grocery Manufacturers Association and those at the
[[Page S7918]]
Food Marketing Institute and other places that actually market the
products and are willing to accept the new legal burdens of this bill
in order to give their customers peace of mind in terms of what they
are going to buy and consume.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act will provide the FDA with the
authority it needs to prevent, detect, and respond to food safety
problems.
The bill will increase the frequency of inspection at all foreign and
domestic food facilities according to the risk they present.
One of the issues we have to be aware of is that a global economy
means food is moving across borders more frequently. It is rare that we
have the resources in place in some foreign country to make sure what
is in that can or in that package is safely prepared. This bill moves
us toward this goal. We pick the things that are the most dangerous
when it comes to food imports and say they will be the highest
priority; we will start the inspection now on food imports coming into
the United States. The FDA doesn't currently have the resources or
statutory mandate to inspect more frequently, and what they do inspect
in terms of imports is very limited. We expand that to the most high-
risk, dangerous food products that might come in.
Most facilities are inspected by the Food and Drug Administration,
though only once every 10 years. Think about it. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture is in place every single day at meat and poultry and
production facilities with the inspectors in place to do the job. When
it comes to the FDA, an agency with such a broad responsibility--in
fact, much broader: 1 inspection every 10 years--if it is your son or
daughter, your baby, someone you love, is that enough? I don't think it
is. This bill significantly increases the frequency of inspections at
all domestic and foreign food production facilities according to the
risks they present. The bill gives the Food and Drug Administration
long overdue authority to conduct mandatory recalls of contaminated
food.
It is hard to believe today, but if we know something is contaminated
and has been sent out to the grocery shelves across America, our
government has no legal authority to say: Bring it in. The best we can
do is advertise the fact that it is dangerous and hope that the
manufacturer, the distributor, and the ultimate retailer will get the
message and move on it and do the right thing. It is voluntary. It is
not mandatory, even if we know that something is dangerous. This bill
gives that authority to the Food and Drug Administration. That means
that if a company refuses to recall contaminated food, the most
expedient action the FDA can take is to issue a press release right
away, and we have to get beyond that. We have to give them authority.
Many companies do cooperate with the FDA, and I salute them. It is not
only the sensible thing to do; it certainly maintains the
representation of them as food producers.
Some, such as the Peanut Corporation of America, which distributed
thousands of pounds of peanuts and peanut paste contaminated with
salmonella, didn't fully or quickly recall food that made people sick.
The Food Safety Modernization Act is going to change that by ensuring
the FDA can compel a company to recall food that can cause serious
adverse health consequences or death.
Experts agree that individual businesses are in the best position to
identify and prevent food safety hazards at their own facilities. The
people who run a facility know where the vulnerabilities are on the
assembly line and they know which hazards their foods are most
susceptible to. That is why our bill requires each business to identify
the food safety hazards at each of its locations and then implement a
plan that addresses those hazards and keeps the food safe and free of
contamination. The bill gives the FDA the authority to review and
evaluate these food safety hazard prevention plans and hold companies
accountable.
I see the chairman of the committee on the floor and I will end in a
moment.
Finally, our bill gives the FDA the authority to prevent contaminated
food from other countries from entering the United States. If a foreign
facility refuses U.S. food safety inspection, the FDA has the authority
to deny entry to their imports. Think about that. This is now going to
be put into the law that if you are producing food overseas and you
will not allow us to inspect your facility, we can stop exports to the
United States. Is there any Member of the Senate, any family, who
doesn't think that is a good idea? That is what this bill is all about.
I wish to thank Senator Harkin for his extraordinary leadership on
this bill. I can't tell my colleagues how many times we have come
together, Democrats and Republicans, trying to work out differences. We
are very close. I think there is one item of disagreement going into
it. That is pretty good for Senate work--only one item of disagreement.
I say to my friends: Bring this bill to the floor. Let's vote on that
particular item--Senator Tester's concern--up or down. Let's do it. But
let's not go another day without providing the protection families
across America expect and deserve when they buy food. Let's do this on
behalf of Nancy Donley and moms and dads all across America who ran the
risk and, in her case, went through the bitter experience of losing her
little 6-year-old boy Alex because of contaminated food. This is
something that should be totally nonpartisan.
I urge my colleagues: Let's give a strong vote today to move forward
on this important bill and help ensure that the food on America's
tables is safe.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is
recognized.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I intend to defer to Senator Harkin for I
understand 15 minutes. I wish to offer a brief unanimous-consent
request that following Senator Harkin's speech for up to 15 minutes I
be recognized for 5 minutes, and that any remaining time on our side be
reserved for Senator Enzi, the Senator from Wyoming.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa is
recognized.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for
yielding.
I wish to thank Senator Durbin for all the work he has done on food
safety for so many years. He has been a leader. He has prompted us and
prodded us to get to this point, and we have a good bipartisan bill. I
wish to take a few moments to talk about it before the vote that will
be coming up in the next hour.
The aim of the Food Safety Modernization Act, as it is called, is
very simply to bring our Nation's antiquated and increasingly
inadequate inspection service into the 21st century. This bill takes a
comprehensive approach to reforming the current system. I am pleased to
report that this bill is a product of strong bipartisan collaboration
on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Again, I wish
to particularly thank Senator Durbin and Senator Gregg who have worked
together over many years to produce this excellent bill. I also wish to
thank our ranking member, Senator Enzi, for his leadership in helping
to bring this bill to the floor, as well as to my good friend Senator
Dodd who has been working on this bill also from the beginning and
adding his expertise, especially on food allergies. I also thank
Senator Burr, who has been personally involved in this entire process.
Senators often speak about the importance of addressing kitchen table
issues here in the Senate--the practical, everyday concerns of working
Americans and their families. Well, food safety is a kitchen table
issue and it couldn't be more urgent or overdue. It is shocking to
think that the last comprehensive overhaul of our food safety system
was in 1938, more than seven decades ago. Think about how our food
system has changed in those 70 years. On the whole, Americans enjoy
safe and wholesome food. We know that. But the problem is that ``on the
whole'' is not good enough any longer.
As my colleagues can see from our first chart, they will see that
recent foodborne illnesses have been wide in scope and have had a
devastating impact on public health. When people get
[[Page S7919]]
sick from eating bagged spinach, we have a problem. When kids take
their peanut butter sandwiches to school and they get sick from it and
go to the hospital, we have a problem. We had 90 deaths and 690
reported cases in 46 States. We have found salmonella in tomatoes, in
peppers, and even in cookie dough. When families eat cookie dough and
they are getting E. coli, we have a problem. Recently, of course, we
had the salmonella outbreak in eggs. So it is widespread. It is not
just in bagged spinach or eggs, it is in peanut butter, cantaloupes,
tomatoes. It is widespread. So we know we have a real problem.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that
foodborne illnesses cause an estimated 76 million illnesses a year; 325
Americans every year are hospitalized because of foodborne illnesses;
and 5,000 Americans die every year due to a foodborne illness. These
are not my figures. These figures are from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. According to a Georgetown University study, the
cost to our society is about $152 billion a year in medical expenses,
lost productivity, and disability. So the numbers are staggering, not
only the number of people who get sick, but the number of people who
die and the cost to our society.
I checked in my own State of Iowa, and the cost alone in Iowa--we
have over 800,000 cases every year. Each Iowan has to spend about
$1,800 in annual health-related expenses, and about $1.5 billion in
total related costs. My colleagues can look at their States and see the
impact. So these are intolerable, but somehow we tolerate them. No
longer can we do that. Our current regulatory system is broken. It does
not adequately protect Americans from serious widespread foodborne
illnesses.
Our meals have grown more complex with more varied ingredients and
more diverse methods of preparation and shipping. By the time raw
agricultural products find a way to our dinner plates, multiple
intermediate steps and processes have taken place. Food ingredients
travel thousands of miles or, as Senator Durbin said, from other
countries to factories here and then to our tables. They are
intermingled and mixed along the way. Yet, despite all of these
changes, our food safety laws have not changed in 70 years.
What we need to do for starters is improve processes to prevent the
contamination of foods and methods to provide safe foods to consumers.
To achieve this, more testing and better methods of tracking food can
be utilized and verified that the processes are working.
Here are some interesting figures. Thirty years ago, we had 70,000
food processors in this country. The FDA made 35,000 visits a year. So
we had 70,000 food processors and we made 35,000 visits a year. Today,
a full decade into the 21st century, we have 150,000 food processors--
over twice as many--but today FDA inspectors make 6,700 visits each
year, one-fifth as many as they did 30 years ago, with twice as many
plants. So is it any surprise we are getting more and more foodborne
illnesses throughout this country? Referencing what Senator Durbin said
earlier, more and more of our food is coming from other countries. All
we are saying in our bill is you have to adopt the same kind of food
safety processes and prevention methods that we have in this country to
be able to ship your food in. I don't think that is unreasonable, to
say that their processes and their safety procedures have to be at
least the same as ours or as adequate as ours.
As this chart shows, our bill overhauls our food safety system in
four critical ways. First is prevention. We have had some success in
our Agriculture Committee in the past on what is called a program of
finding out where are the points where contamination can come in and
then address those points in a preventive manner. Well, we are now kind
of extending that beyond meat and poultry to all food to get the
prevention in place. We improve the detection and response to foodborne
illness outbreaks with better detection services and better response
times. We have a mandatory recall in here that the Department has never
had, ever. We enhance the U.S. food defense capabilities, and we
increase the FDA resources in order to take care of this.
This bill today will dramatically increase FDA inspections at all
food facilities. It will give FDA the following new authorities: It
will require all food facilities to have, as I said, preventive plans
in place, and the FDA can have access to those plans. So they have to
have preventive plans that the FDA gets access to. We have better
access to records in case of a food emergency to try to find out what
happened. It requires, as Senator Durbin said, importers to verify the
safety of imported food. It strengthens our surveillance systems. It
requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services
to establish a pilot project to test and evaluate new methods for
rapidly tracking foods in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak. As
I said, it gives the FDA the authority to order a mandatory recall of
food. A lot of people don't know this: If there is an outbreak of
illness because of foodborne diseases, pathogens, FDA does not have the
authority to recall that food.
You might say that the companies do that. Well, they do. Most of them
see it in their best economic interest to do that. But you might have
fly-by-night operators out there that will take the money and run. You
might have some foreign-based companies--and I don't mean to pick on
them--that are offshore and they may have some food in this country
that has caused foodborne illnesses, and they may not want to recall
it. We cannot go after them. The FDA doesn't have the authority to
recall that food. This bill would give them that authority.
This is a bipartisan bill, strongly supported by consumer groups and
industry. I have letters from the Grocery Manufacturers Association,
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Restaurant Association, Pew
Charitable Trusts, Consumers Union, Center for Science in the Public
Interest, and Trust for America's Health, to name a few. I think it is
a rarity when I can say both the Chamber of Commerce and the Center for
Science in the Public Interest are on the same page. That is true here.
I have several letters, and I ask unanimous consent that they be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
September 8, 2010.
Senator Richard Durbin,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Senator Judd Gregg,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Durbin and Gregg: Trust for America's Health
(TFAH), a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health advocacy
organization, would like to express our strong support for
immediate Senate passage of the FDA Food Safety Modernization
Act (S. 510). Although every American depends on the safety
of the food they serve to their families, the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) lacks the tools to ensure that safety.
S. 510 would finally help bring the FDA into the 21st
century.
Approximately 76 million Americans--one in four--are
sickened by foodborne disease each year. Of these, an
estimated 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die. A recent
study by Ohio State University found that foodborne illnesses
cost the U.S. economy an estimated $152 billion annually.
With multiple severe food outbreaks in recent years, it is
urgent that the Senate take this step to keep Americans safe.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act would place more
emphasis on prevention of foodborne illness and give the FDA
new authorities to address food safety problems. Under this
legislation, food processors would be required to identify
potential hazards in their production processes and implement
preventive programs to eliminate those hazards. Additionally,
the bill would require FDA to inspect all food facilities
more frequently and give FDA mandatory recall authority of
contaminated food. S. 510 is a bipartisan bill, with
widespread support from industry, consumer groups, and public
health organizations. The bill passed the Senate HELP
Committee with a unanimous voice vote, and food safety
legislation passed the House last year with overwhelming
bipartisan support.
We thank you for your strong leadership on this
legislation. If you have any questions, please do not
hesitate to contact TFAH's Government Relations Manager.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Levi, Ph.D.,
Executive Director.
[[Page S7920]]
____
September 8, 2010.
Hon. Dick Durbin,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Judd Gregg,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Durbin and Senator Gregg: Consumer Federation
of America strongly supports passage of the FDA Food Safety
Modernization Act (S. 510). CFA is an association of nearly
300 nonprofit consumer organizations that was established in
1968 to advance the consumer interest through research,
advocacy and education.
Foodborne illness strikes tens of millions of Americans
each year, sends hundreds of thousands to the hospital, and
kills approximately 5,000 of us. The diseases are more than
``just a bellyache.'' Many victims suffer long-term chronic
health problems including reactive arthritis, kidney failure
and Guillain-Barre syndrome. Children under the age of 5 are
the most frequent victims of foodborne illness. People over
age 60 are most likely to die after contracting a food-
related illness. The economic costs are enormous. A recent
study estimated the annual cost of all foodbome illnesses to
be $152 billion.
The suffering and heartbreak and deaths are pointless.
Foodbome diseases are almost entirely preventable. They
continue to rage because our nation's primary food safety
agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, operates under
the constraints of a 70-year-old law that is largely
extraneous to current threats to food safety. The Food, Drug,
and Cosmetic Act does not give the FDA a specific statutory
mandate, appropriate program tools, adequate enforcement
authority or sufficient resources to stop foodborne disease
before it strikes us and our loved ones.
S. 510 changes the paradigm for fighting foodbome illness,
directing the FDA to prevent foodbome illness rather than
just reacting to reports of illnesses and deaths. It requires
food companies to establish processing controls to avoid food
contamination, gives the FDA authority to set food safety
standards, and requires the Agency to inspect food processing
plants regularly to assure controls are working as intended.
On behalf of CFA's millions of members, we thank you for
your strong leadership in developing S. 510 and your
determination to ensure its passage. We look forward to
continuing to work with you to get a final bill to the
President as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Carol L. Tucker-Foreman,
Distinguished Fellow, Food Policy Institute.
Chris Waldrop,
Director, Food Policy Institute.
____
The Pew Charitable Trusts,
Washington, DC, September 14, 2010.
Hon. Richard Durbin,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Judd Gregg,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Durbin and Gregg: The Pew Charitable Trusts
urges the Senate to vote at the soonest possible date on S.
510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, and
encourages you to continue the important support and
leadership you each have provided for this crucial
legislation over the past year. The HELP Committee
unanimously approved a strong, bipartisan bill in November,
and a manager's package of amendments was released in mid-
August. With the limited time left for legislative action
this year, a vote by the full Senate on S. 510 is necessary
as soon as possible to ensure that a final bill arrives on
the President's desk for enactment before this Congress
adjourns.
This country has experienced a seemingly endless number of
foodborne-illness outbreaks and recalls of contaminated
products, demonstrating the clear need for this legislation.
S. 510 fundamentally shifts the government's approach in this
area to preventing food-safety problems, rather than just
reacting to them. The bill requires food companies to develop
food-safety plans that identify possible sources of
contamination and implement measures to minimize them. This
legislation also provides the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) with much-needed enforcement tools, such
as mandatory recall authority and better inspection.
Enactment of FDA food-safety legislation could
significantly reduce the burden of foodborne illness in the
United States, both for families and businesses. A Pew-funded
study estimates the annual health-related costs of foodborne
illness at $152 billion. For this reason, a wide range of
stakeholders--consumer advocates, public health
organizations, and major industry groups--support this bill.
We thank you for your leadership on S. 510 and ask you to
continue your efforts to secure its passage.
Sincerely,
Shelley A. Hearne,
Managing Director, Pew Health Group.
____
Consumers Union,
Yonkers, NY, September 10, 2010.
Hon. Richard J. Durbin,
Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Judd Gregg,
Russell Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Durbin and Senator Gregg: Consumers Union, the
non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, writes in
support of S. 510, the bipartisan FDA Food Safety
Modernization Act. This legislation will finally bring our
outdated food safety laws into the 21st century, and will
help protect consumers from deadly recalls like last month's
recall of half a billion eggs for Salmonella contamination.
Consumers expect that the food they eat and serve to their
families will not make them sick, or worse. We applaud your
leadership on this vital consumer protection legislation, and
hope that S. 510 comes to the floor of the Senate for a vote
in September.
S. 510 will protect consumers by:
Requiring the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to inspect
food processing plants on a regular basis;
Giving FDA the power to order recalls of contaminated food;
right now, the agency can only request that the food be
recalled and hope that companies respond in the public
interest;
Requiring food producers to identify where food can become
unsafe, and requiring them to take steps to prevent
contamination by Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, and other
pathogens;
Improving methods of tracing contaminated food back to its
source, so that consumers can act in a timely and
knowledgeable fashion to protect their families from unsafe
food; and
Requiring imported food to meet the same safety standards
as food produced in the U.S.
S. 510 also takes steps to address the concerns raised by
small food producers that they be regulated in a scale-
appropriate manner.
We also urge you to support Senator Feinstein's proposed
amendment to ban Bisphenol-A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor,
from baby bottles, sippy cups, baby food, and infant formula.
BPA has been linked to a wide range of health problems.
Numerous studies have shown BPA effects on the brain,
prostate, hormonal and reproductive systems, and it has been
linked to an increased risk of insulin resistance and even
cancer.
The health impact is even more pronounced on babies and
children. Seven states and several cities have already taken
action to ban BPA from food and beverage containers used by
children and babies, as have three nations, including Canada.
In addition, packaging and containers already exist on the
market today without this chemical. We urge you to support
the Feinstein amendment, and to provide all American children
with BPA-free food and drink.
Again, we thank you for your strong leadership on this
vital public health legislation. We look forward to working
with you to send a final bill to the President's desk for
signature this fall.
Sincerely,
Jean Halloran,
Director, Food Policy Initiatives.
Ami V. Gadhia,
Policy Counsel.
____
September 15, 2010.
Senator Harry Reid,
Office of the Senate Majority Leader, Capitol Building,
Washington, DC.
Senator Mitch McConnell,
Office of the Senate Minority Leader, Capitol Building,
Washington DC.
Dear Majority Leader Reid & Minority Leader McConnell: Our
organizations are writing to urge you to schedule a vote on
S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, at the
soonest possible date. The HELP Committee approved a strong,
bipartisan bill in November, and we believe that a vote would
keep the momentum going for enactment of landmark food-safety
legislation.
Strong food-safety legislation will reduce the risk of
contamination and thereby better protect public health and
safety, raise the bar for the food industry, and deter bad
actors. S. 510 will provide the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) with the resources and authorities the
agency needs to help make prevention the focus of our food
safety strategies. Among other things, this legislation
requires food companies to develop a food safety plan; it
improves the safety of imported food and food ingredients;
and it adopts a risk-based approach to inspection.
Our organizations--representing the food industry,
consumers, and the public-health community--urge you to bring
S. 510 to the floor, and we will continue to work with
Congress for the enactment of food safety legislation that
better protects consumers, restores their confidence in the
safety of the food they eat, and addresses the challenges
posed by our global food supply.
Sincerely,
American Beverage Association, American Frozen Food
Institute, Center for Foodborne Illness Research &
Education, Center for Science in the Public Interest,
Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Food
Marketing Institute, Grocery Manufacturers Association,
International Bottled Water Association, International
Dairy Foods Association, National Association of
Manufacturers, National Coffee Association of U.S.A.,
Inc., National Confectioners Association, National
Consumers League, National Restaurant Association, The
PEW Charitable Trusts, Trust for America's Health,
Snack Food Association, S.T.O.P. Safe Tables Our
Priority, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Public
Interest Research Group.
[[Page S7921]]
____
Department of Health and
Human Services,
Washington, DC, September 10, 2010.
Dear Member of Congress, The events of the past two weeks
have illustrated a pattern that is all too familiar. Local
health officials around the country begin to see an uptick in
illnesses from a particular source. As they notify the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, epidemiologists
begin to see a pattern in the illness and outbreak reports,
identify a food as the likely cause, and notify the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA). FDA, state health and local
officials then deploy investigators across the country,
furiously searching for the source of the illness, knowing
that every day more people are getting sick, some seriously.
In the meantime, the public must be warned to avoid the food
of concern, creating anxiety for consumers and economic
losses for farmers, food processors and retailers.
This time we're seeing this pattern play out with
Salmonella Enteriditis in eggs, with illnesses in 22 states
and more than half a billion eggs being recalled. But in
recent years it has been spinach, salsa, peanut butter, bean
sprouts, cookie dough, green onions--the list goes on and on,
covering many of our most common foods. Many people are left
wondering: heading into the second decade of the 21st
century, why can't we prevent and react more effectively to
the threat from foodborne illness?
Sadly, the answer is simple. As President Obama said during
last year's peanut butter outbreak, caused by a different
form of Salmonella, we have a food safety regulatory system
designed early in the 20th century, one that must be
overhauled, modernized and strengthened for today.
Under the current system, FDA is often forced to chase food
contaminations after they have occurred, rather than
protecting the public from them in the first place.
Difficulties in tracking the movement of food from its origin
to its eventual sale to the public (often far across the
country) can frustrate efforts to identify contaminated food.
The biggest surprise to most people: FDA cannot order a
recall of contaminated food once it is found in the
marketplace. Although government has a crucial role in
ensuring the safety of our food supply, strong regulation has
been missing. An overhaul of our antiquated food safety
system is long overdue.
Proposed food safety legislation would give FDA better ways
to more quickly trace back contaminated products to the
source, the ability to check firms' safety records before
problems occur, clear authority to require firms to identify
and resolve food safety hazards, and resources to find
additional inspections and other oversight activities.
Pending legislation would also give the agency mandatory
recall authority, and other strong enforcement tools, like
new civil penalties and increased criminal penalties for
companies that fail to comply with safety requirements. In a
world where more and more food is imported, the legislation
also would strengthen FDA's ability to ensure the safety of
imported food.
The good news is that a bipartisan majority in the House of
Representatives passed major food safety legislation last
year that would move the United States from a reactive food
safety system to one focused on preventing illness. Likewise
in the Senate, a bipartisan coalition has developed a strong
food safety bill that is ready for the Senate floor. This
legislation has the support of a remarkably broad coalition
of public health, consumer and food industry groups. We
commend both chambers for their hard work.
Now it's time to finish the job. We encourage Senators to
support a critical and commonsense piece of public health
legislation. And, we urge the House and Senate to quickly
deliver a modem food safety bill to the President's desk.
It's time to break the pattern of foodborne illnesses and
economic loss. It's time to give FDA the modem tools and
resources it needs to meet the challenges of the 21st
century.
Kathleen Sebelius,
Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services.
Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D.,
Commissioner of Food and Drugs.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have said many times that to say that
food safety in this country is a patchwork is giving it too much
credit. Food safety has too often become a hit-or-miss gamble, with
parents obliged to kind of roll the dice when it comes to the safety of
their kids' food. It is frightening and unacceptable. It is past time
to modernize our food safety laws and regulations--70 years past time.
We need to give FDA the resources and authority it needs to cope with a
growing problem that threatens today a more abundant and diverse food
supply. We need to act now.
I urge my colleagues to join the bipartisan sponsors to pass this
important legislation and vote for cloture this afternoon on the motion
to proceed. Hopefully, we can get on the bill and pass it as soon as
possible, so that the families of America will have more assurance that
the food they eat, no matter what the source, or from where it comes,
has more safety procedures attached to it, and so that we have a new
process for prevention in place for all facilities in this country and
in foreign countries, and so we can raise the bar and say to our
families that you can have more assurance in the future that the food
you buy, whether it is the fresh fruits you buy in the middle of
winter, shipped from Chile, Argentina, or Mexico, or Guatemala, or the
fresh fruits you get in the summertime from California, Washington
State, and Canada, or the produce, the lettuce, the bagged spinach, or
whatever it might be, will be more safe for you and your family. That
is what this is all about--protecting our families and making sure our
food safety laws are adequate for the 21st century and not the 18th
century.
I yield the floor.
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