Food safety moves up on Americans' agenda

of inspection and enforcement is spread out so widely among so many people that it is difficult for different parts of our government to share information, work together and solve problems. And it’s also because the FDA has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, leaving the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of our 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses each year.”

In early July, at a ceremony announcing its key findings, Vice President Joe Biden said, “Our food safety system must be updated — 1 in 4 people get sick every year due to food-borne illness, and children and the elderly are more at risk.”

On the same day the administration announced its plans to clean up the food safety mess, Gardner Harris, who covers food safety issues for the New York Times, called the proposed measures “more aspirational than actual.”

Focusing on the safety of eggs, he noted that jurisdictional turf wars among federal agencies redundantly charged with food safety had kept sensible regulations off the plate since the Reagan administration (or even the Clinton administration, when the president’s Council on Food Safety “identified egg safety as one component of the public health issue of food safety that warrants immediate federal, interagency action”)

With that lethargy in mind, Harris wrote on the new initiative, “The Agriculture Department promised to develop new standards to reduce salmonella in chickens and turkeys by the end of the year. The Food and Drug Administration promised to advise the food industry by the end of the month on how to prevent contamination of tomatoes, melons, spinach and lettuce. And within three months, the FDA plans to release advice about how farmers, wholesalers and retailers can build systems to trace contaminated foods quickly from shelf to field.”

Observers on all sides of the food aisles are nodding, cautiously, in approval at the signs of changes to come. Scott Faber, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, told the New York Times, “We are re-laying the foundation for our food safety system.”

Corbo is also complimentary of the Obama administration’s first steps, but with reservations: “I think the FDA has recognized that it needs additional authority to properly regulate food safety in this country, and has actually asked Congress to give it additional authority - mandatory recall authority, the power to order things off the shelf, and additional authority to regulate produce - so that they can do their jobs more effectively.

“There are various bills now before Congress that would give them that authority,” Corbo told Miller-McCune.com. “However, we’re still waiting for final congressional action.” He pointed to Rep. John Dingell’s Food Safety and Enhancement Act, which recently passed the House on a 283-142 vote and is in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

“It’s important that the White House has food safety on its radar, but what’s really needed are changes in the law. The attitude is different and there is a recognition that something needs to be done, but at the moment nothing is really happening.”

In the interim, Hanson has some practical advice: “Have as much contact with the producers of your food as you can. It won’t keep you from getting sick, but at least you’ll know who made you sick. The more stops there are in the production chain, the more likelihood there is for something to go wrong. I know that the steak I buy from my local butcher has been in his place, the butcher shop or his stand at the farmers market, and my freezer.”

There is an added bonus in going local, especially in these straitened times. As Food and Water Watch points out, in addition to great food safety, buying locally grown food will also stimulate the local economy. Wat is more, says the watchdog group, local food usually costs 30 to 40 percent less than grocery-store brands because of the savings on delivery costs.