Food Safety in a Vegetative State

A favorite read of mine, The Progressive, has a particularly interesting article in the December issue about food safety. The CDC says that breakdowns in food safety cause 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths each year in the U.S.

Our own Sen. Tom Harkin has taken the lead and introduced legislation to step-up inspections to diminish the likelihood that food from the field will be dangerous to consumers, but as Harkin points out "the Food and Drug Administration lacks the resources and the authority to ensure the safety of the U.S. food supply." The FDA regulates about 80 percent of the food supply, mostly fruits and vegetables and the U.S. Agriculture Department is responsible for the rest, including meat, poultry and eggs. Currently the USDA gets twice as much money for animal diseases as the FDA gets for produce safety.

As the Progressive article points out, raw vegetables have passed meat as the "primary culprit for food-borne illness. 'Produce caused nearly twice as many multistate outbreaks than meat from 1990-2004, but the funding has not caught up with this trend.'"

In addition to Harkin's bill, Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Rosa DeLauro introduced the Safe Food Act of 2007 which would put all food safety under a single federal administrator, as currently the USDA and the FDA split the duty. Center for Science in the Public Interest staff attorney Ken Kelly says, "When one cabinet secretary is responsible for pepperoni pizza and another is responsible for cheese pizza, you know something's wrong."

Not surprisingly, food lobbying groups are the biggest hold up as they have pushed for self-regulation. But, according to the article, under their own guidelines are not subject to penalty or punishment under state law and may continue to sell their product. With millions of Americans likely to become ill because of food that is unsafe, it would seem prudent to move it up the legislative agenda.

Where do the candidates stand on food and product safety?

Joe Biden: Not Known
Hillary Clinton
Chris Dodd
John Edwards
Mike Gravel: Not Known
Dennis Kucinich
Barack Obama: Not Known
Bill Richardson