February 20, 2008

US presidential candidates weigh in on beef recall

US presidential candidates reacted to a USDA-issued recall of 143 million  pounds of Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company , promising more food safety inspectors and a tightening of food safety laws to prevent a repeat of such occurrences.

The presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., issued a news release criticising the recall process. Of the 143 million pounds recalled, 37 million went to school lunch programmes, which officials believe most of which would have been already consumed by schoolchildren.

"This incident demonstrates yet again the inadequacy of the food recall process. Far too often, tainted food is not recalled until too late," Obama said.

Obama promised that if elected, he would provide more resources for food inspectors and call on the USDA to examine whether food safety laws need to be strengthened, especially for food going to school lunch programmes.

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, fighting neck and neck with Sen Obama for the Democratic nomination, announced more concrete measures, as is her style in the campaign so far. Clinton said if elected, she would immediately conduct a thorough audit of the nation's food-safety systems to locate weaknesses and gaps.

The current recall raises a number of questions, she said, including how USDA failed to detect violations at the Hallmark/Westland plant and what steps USDA should take to ensure all of the meat is removed from grocery stores and school cafeterias.

She also pledged to increase USDA food-safety funding by 50 percent to allow for better inspections. This meant a thumping budget of almost US$1.4 billion for food inspections. ( The budget for the Food Safety and Inspection Service is US$930 million in 2008). 

Clinton also promised to move toward a single Food Safety Administration responsible for all food products, with strong authorities to protect consumers. 

Clinton also said safety agencies would be given mandatory recall authority ( instead of an optional authority now) and she would direct them to create a national tracing system to determine the origin of tainted food. She also added that she would ban the slaughter of downed animals if elected.