Food Safety
Recently, an outbreak of e-coli bacteria made more than 60 people ill and shut down Taco Bells all over the country. Several other outbreaks in recent months have brought calls for tougher regulation of the nation's food supply. It appears that there has been a collapse of the food safety system in America.
Each year, 75 million Americans get sick because of unsafe food. As many as 5,000 of those people die and more than 300,000 are hospitalized. Things have gotten so bad that companies like Taco Bell have taken the very unusual step of asking for government regulation.
Sen. Charles Schumer of N.Y. said: “Unless we overhaul our nation’s tracing and monitoring procedures, the FDA and the other agencies in charge will continue to act like a pack of blind mice.”
Democratic Congresswoman Rosa Delauro of Connecticut is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee and co- chair of the Congressional Food Safety Caucus. Rep. Delauro believes that we need to restore the oversight capacity of the federal agencies that deal with food safety. Our government is charged with protecting public health, and they’re no longer doing the job that they’ve been charged to do.
The Food and Drug Administration has about 2,000 inspectors to look at about 80 percent of our total food supply in this country. We’ve been importing more of our food, but only about one percent is inspected. Today, we have 12 different agencies that are looking at food safety. Perhaps lettuce or cheese caused the Taco Bell’s e-coli bacteria problem, but lettuce is regulated by FDA, and cheese by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A year and a half ago, Democrats introduced a Safe Food Act, but Republicans were too busy with flag burning and a ban on gay marriage legislation. Early, next year Rep. Delauro, Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin intend to reintroduce that food safety legislation, which would create a single federal agency responsible for food safety monitoring.
Each year, 75 million Americans get sick because of unsafe food. As many as 5,000 of those people die and more than 300,000 are hospitalized. Things have gotten so bad that companies like Taco Bell have taken the very unusual step of asking for government regulation.
Sen. Charles Schumer of N.Y. said: “Unless we overhaul our nation’s tracing and monitoring procedures, the FDA and the other agencies in charge will continue to act like a pack of blind mice.”
Democratic Congresswoman Rosa Delauro of Connecticut is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee and co- chair of the Congressional Food Safety Caucus. Rep. Delauro believes that we need to restore the oversight capacity of the federal agencies that deal with food safety. Our government is charged with protecting public health, and they’re no longer doing the job that they’ve been charged to do.
The Food and Drug Administration has about 2,000 inspectors to look at about 80 percent of our total food supply in this country. We’ve been importing more of our food, but only about one percent is inspected. Today, we have 12 different agencies that are looking at food safety. Perhaps lettuce or cheese caused the Taco Bell’s e-coli bacteria problem, but lettuce is regulated by FDA, and cheese by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A year and a half ago, Democrats introduced a Safe Food Act, but Republicans were too busy with flag burning and a ban on gay marriage legislation. Early, next year Rep. Delauro, Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin intend to reintroduce that food safety legislation, which would create a single federal agency responsible for food safety monitoring.
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