[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 20 (Tuesday, February 7, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S379-S381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FOOD AND PRODUCT SAFETY ENFORCEMENT

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, products that are labeled ``Made in 
China'' can be found in our cars, in our closets, and in our cupboards. 
So too are the ingredients in the foods we eat often, the medicine we 
take, the candy our children enjoy, and the toys they play with. But 
how many times have we heard in the last few years of illness and death 
from contaminated foods or drugs or toys that were made in China? In 
Toledo, OH, patients died after taking contaminated Heparin to treat 
their heart conditions.
  Drug manufacturers have acknowledged that they turn to countries such 
as China to buy ingredients to put into pharmaceuticals. U.S. companies 
often move production to China, buy ingredients there, put these drugs 
together, and sell them back into the United States with ingredients 
that may not pass some of the safety inspections they should. One 
company acknowledged that 17 percent of its active ingredients in 
manufacturing are outsourced, often to countries with weaker drug 
safety standards.
  When high lead levels were discovered in toys several years ago, I 
urged stronger oversight to help keep our children safe. Four years 
ago, I asked Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer of Ashland University in north 
central Ohio to test lead levels. He had already begun testing with the 
students, and we asked him to do it again, to test the lead level in 
Halloween toys, including the

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cups and the buckets that Ohio children would be eating out of and 
decorations families would be using that children often put into their 
mouths during the holidays. He tested products in the fall of 2007 for 
Halloween and the spring of 2008 for Easter toys. He identified 12 of 
97 products contaminated with high quantities--much higher than what is 
considered safe by our government--high lead contents in this lead-
based paint on our toys; among them, candy buckets, drinking cups, fake 
teeth, and other Halloween props. At Easter, it was eggs and baskets 
and other things. It included products bought at leading national 
retailers.
  At the same time, it was clear that our trading system, patterned in 
many ways and with businesses following this business plan of shutting 
down production in places such as Rhode Island, which the Presiding 
Officer represents, and Ohio, shutting down production in our country 
and moving it to China, manufacturing products there, and selling 
products back here, that trade system has failed basic consumer and 
public safety standards.
  There is nothing free about trade that puts children in the hospital 
for playing with a toy or eating candy or brushing their teeth. That is 
why Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. The 
act sent a simple message to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 
which is charged with protecting consumers: Protect American children, 
protect families, protect companies from unsafe and possibly fatal 
products.
  That job has gotten a lot harder to protect the American public on 
food products, on toys, on pharmaceuticals, and on pet food, which I 
will discuss, because the business plan for so many companies has been 
to shut down production in Canton, OH, and move it to Guangzhou, China, 
shut down production in Toledo or Dayton, OH, and move it to Wuhan or 
Shiyan, China, in order to save money, in order to cut worker safety 
costs, in order to evade environmental and consumer regulations 
sometimes.
  The new law that we passed meant that hundreds of thousands of toys 
and food and other imports from China and elsewhere can be recalled 
when they are unsafe. The key is inspection of these products, and the 
key is making the companies liable that outsource the jobs to China in 
order to save money. We don't want more court cases and more 
litigation, but if these companies are going to move production to 
China, they need to take responsibility for the toys if the toys have 
been painted with lead-based paint. They need to take responsibility 
for the pharmaceutical ingredients--sometimes dangerous ingredients 
that somebody has somehow put in these pharmaceuticals when production 
comes from China. They need to be careful about food safety. They need 
to be careful about treats for pets that have been contaminated.
  That act has been a success. Last year, Dr. Weidenhamer conducted 
another test and found no lead-based paint contamination in Halloween 
items.
  But there is a gap in our trade system that threatens public health 
and public safety. We passed a law to close that gap. Public safety has 
benefited, and companies are still able to make and sell their products 
in this free market.
  One year ago, Congress passed and the President signed into law the 
bipartisan Food Safety Modernization Act. The law provides the FDA with 
the tools needed to better protect our food supply, to recall tainted 
or adulterated food, and to respond more effectively to foodborne 
illness outbreaks. It empowered the FDA with new authority to establish 
a traceability system; that is, when a product comes to your table, 
whether it is food in this case, a pharmaceutical, or whether it is a 
toy, the company that sells that product needs to be able to trace back 
all the ingredients, all the components, where they came from, how they 
were produced, and under what conditions they were produced. It is that 
type of public safety infrastructure that is so important.
  Yet, as we have seen with food and toys and drugs imported from 
China, now we are seeing it with pet food. Yesterday I met with Kevin 
Thaxton of Cuyahoga County--the Cleveland area--whose wife Candance 
wrote to me after one of their dogs, a 9-year-old pug, died from kidney 
failure. They thought it was the pug simply getting older. I had a pug 
once, and they don't usually live much beyond 10 years. Then, as they 
got another dog that got sick immediately, they figured out it was 
likely from eating Chinese-made chicken jerky treats. Until the second 
dog, they didn't make the connection between the pet food and the pet 
illness, when the second dog, the puppy, had a life-threatening 
illness.
  Another Ohioan, Terry Safranek, joined us at our meeting 2 days ago. 
Terry lost her 9-year-old fox terrier earlier this year. She did not 
realize that tainted chicken jerky treats could be responsible for her 
dog's death until she saw the Thaxton's story on the evening news.
  These two families, the Thaxtons and the Safraneks, and the 62 
percent of U.S. households who own a pet shouldn't have to worry about 
the safety of the food they give their pets. It is an example again of 
a trade issue transforming into a safety issue.

  To explain this, so many companies in the United States as part of 
their business plan decide--in order to save money, in order to evade 
consumer protection laws, food safety laws, worker safety laws, and 
environmental laws, or for whatever reason--to move their production to 
China, with significantly cheaper labor. They shut down in Columbus or 
Cincinnati, OH, and they move to China to manufacture these products 
they sell back into the United States.
  Probably unprecedented in economic or world history is where 
companies shut down one place, move overseas, produce the same item, 
and then sell them back into the home market. We know that with that 
whole trade regimen, that whole construct of that business plan of 
shutting down production and moving overseas and selling back in, there 
are significant health and safety problems. Again, there are problems 
with lead-based paint and there are problems with the safety of other 
consumer items. There are problems with food safety, there are problems 
with pharmaceutical ingredients contamination, and now there are 
problems with pet foods.
  The Food and Drug Administration has logged more than 350 reports of 
pet illnesses thought to be connected to chicken jerky treats made in 
China. Although the FDA has already issued a warning about illness, 
they have not yet for sure identified a contaminant. The treats remain 
on market shelves in stores across the country.
  I would never on this Senate floor suggest people buy something or 
boycott something else. I would suggest, though, that people look at 
the product when they buy something for their pet and that they look at 
where it is made and make the judgment based on that.
  I am calling on the FDA to accelerate its investigation of imported 
pet food, especially food imported from China, where the possibility of 
food contamination is higher. That is the FDA's job.
  Earlier this week, I sent a letter to Dr. Hamburg, the FDA 
Commissioner, urging her agency to act swiftly to make sure that 
products found to be harmful are pulled from retail outlets. I have 
asked the FDA to improve its notification system so pet owners know 
about items under investigation for pet food safety breaches. The FDA 
should promptly pursue efforts to find the contaminant in these pet 
treats and ensure they are pulled from store shelves to prevent any 
unnecessary pet deaths.
  Contaminated toys, hard-to-trace medical ingredients, and now pet 
food have all forced Americans to turn to the government to ensure the 
safety of the products we import. It is a problem with trade law that 
we have set this up to happen far too often.
  It is an example of when government works when we stepped in on lead-
based paint, kept those products off the market, and made sure that 
products coming in now are safer because we passed the consumer 
protection revision. It shows that government stepping in, in the right 
way, can make a difference in saving the lives of children, protecting 
people's pets, protecting pharmaceuticals--making sure that 
pharmaceutical safety is guaranteed as much as possible.
  We have been down this road before. There is nothing free about trade 
that

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undermines basic health rules. There is nothing free about trade that 
weakens safety rules, the very rules that help keep food safe to eat 
and water and air safe to drink and to breathe. The FDA should take 
action now to protect American pet owners from tainted products that 
can harm the health of their pets.
  It has been a longtime victory for the American people that the air 
we breathe, the water we drink, the food we take, the toys we buy for 
our children, the treats we buy for our pets--we have done a good job 
in this country in the last several decades of the government 
partnering with businesses to make sure these products are generally 
safe for our families--for ourselves, for our children, and for our 
pets. Now, these holes in our trade laws--these trade laws that 
encourage companies to go overseas and produce products and sell them 
back here--clearly have undermined so much of what we have accomplished 
bipartisanly for so many years for the health and safety of the 
American public.
  Thus the role of government can be important to show that we do know 
how to do this to protect our families. I urge the FDA to step in here 
on this issue and help American families.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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