April 23, 2009
US sees strong support in Congress to upgrade food safety
Key US lawmakers said Tuesday (Apr 21) there is still broad support in Congress to make significant changes in the way the government oversees food safety, but little consensus on how to go about making improvements.
A food safety "overhaul" is needed, Sen Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said.
Consumer fears of peanut products are beginning to subside after a salmonella contamination sickened and killed consumers earlier this year, Chambliss said, but Congress is still hungry for change.
Chambliss, the ranking minority member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, praised the job the USDA is doing to oversee the safety of meat, but stressed that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is under-funded and does not have the resources it needs.
While the USDA is responsible for safety measures for the US meat supply, the FDA is responsible for virtually every other type of food, including peanut products.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., agreed with Chambliss' assessment of the FDA. "The problem is in the FDA," Peterson said.
Congress needs to either combine the food safety divisions of USDA and FDA or leave them separate and make dramatic improvements to the FDA, Peterson said, but expressed doubts that FDA's food division is salvageable.
"I'm not sure you can fix it," he said.
Most members of Congress do not understand food safety, Peterson said, but they know there needs to be change.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced his support for a single, combined food safety agency earlier this year, amidst the illnesses and recalls that came from the salmonella contamination of peanut products. But on Tuesday he told reporters that it will be a food safety working group convened by President Barack Obama that decides what the best fix will be.
The working group, of which Vilsack is a member, has begun preliminary discussions on what needs to be done to improve food safety in the US, he said.
"There needs to be better integration of what currently is taking place with all of the agencies that are involved in food safety," Vilsack said. "And there needs to be an examination of the organizational structure to determine whether or not two major agencies ... can most effectively and efficiently guarantee the safety and security of the food supply."
