Monday, November 29 is our last best hope for the Senate to pass food safety reform. That's something I hope we can be thankful for next week.
Part of the point of Thanksgiving is to appreciate the incredible bounty of foods we enjoy and often take for granted. Imagine what the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock would have thought had they walked into a modern supermarket ... filled with an eye-popping variety of exotic fruits and vegetables from all over the world; abundant meat, poultry, and eggs; and what would likely have surprised them the most--the thousands of boxed, canned and frozen packaged foods to choose from.
But for all of our amazing advances in agriculture and food processing, eating--whether on Thanksgiving or any other day of the week--is still a surprisingly risky undertaking. Despite our heroic crop yields, far-flung transportation networks, and high-tech manufacturing systems, one nut seems hard to crack: keeping deadly germs out of our food.
Foodborne illness exacts a staggering physical and financial toll on Americans. It sends millions of Americans to their sick beds, 300,000 to hospitals, and about 5,000 to their graves each year. Most of the ones who succumb are the youngest and oldest of our fellow Americans. And the price tag for all of those foodborne illnesses totals about $152 billion each year, according to the Pew Charitable Trust.
About 80 percent of the people who get a foodborne illness ate a food that is--in theory, at least--regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. I say in theory, because as we often learn after a major outbreak, food processing facilities and farms can often go five or ten years without a visit from a FDA inspector.
That is on the verge of changing, if the Senate does its job. For the past 10 years, we at the 850,000-member-strong Center for Science in the Public Interest have led the fight for reform of our fossilized food safety laws. Victims of foodborne illness--or in some cases, their surviving family members--have provided their gripping testimony. And now the advocates for safer food comprise a broad coalition of health, medical, consumer, and even food-industry groups.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act represents the culmination of that long haul. This bill would transform the FDA from an agency that chases down the sources of outbreaks after people get sick into an agency focused on preventing contamination before it occurs. Think back on the headlines: A leaky roof sending bird droppings--and Salmonella--into peanut products at the infamous Peanut Corporation of America. E. coli contaminating fields of spinach. And unspeakably filthy conditions at the DeCoster farm that produced Salmonella-tainted eggs that sickened 1,800 people.
Food may never be totally free of germs. But so many of the horror stories we've read about could have been avoided if the facilities in question had been required to write and follow a food safety plan--and be regularly inspected by the FDA. The Senate food safety bill requires both of those things, and, importantly, it also gives the agency the mandatory-recall authority it now lacks.
Now that small and organic producers as well as big grocers and food manufacturers all support the bill, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have agreed on a time certain to debate and vote on the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. They intend to start debate in the late afternoon on Monday, November 29, and have a final, up-or-down vote at some point later that night.
American agriculture is never going back to the 1800s. But American food safety law must not remain stuck in the early 1900s. This week--whether you're still thawing your turkey--take a minute to call your Senators at 1-877-481-9966 and insist that they be in Washington to vote "yes" on S. 510 on Monday. Alternatively, use the sample email message you can send from here.
Whether you're a donkey or an elephant or a tea party patriot; whether you shop at the Walmart or Whole Foods, you can help ensure America's agricultural bounty is safer and safer for many Thanksgivings to come.
William Marler: Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan on the Food Safety Act
Senate Food Safety Bill Moves Ahead
Senate moves forward on food safety bill - Health - Food safety ...
Senate Reaches Agreement On Food Safety Bill To Exempt Small Farms
My husband works for a heavily USDA regulated chicken entre manufacturer - small by national standards but a major employer in our area. They are already forced to buy expensive machinery to manufacture, for large clients, fully cooked product. This is because although the box clearly says, "Raw Product - cook to an internal temp...", people do not cook it properly and become sick and sue the place where they bought the product.
The FDA and the USDA are underfunded, understaffed and heavily influenced by large food manufacturers/producers who can easily retool facilities. The Federal agencies have chosen to "dummy down" and not hold consumers responsible for their part in food-bourne illnesses.
Can you imagine going to a French market and finding only frozen foods because the French were too stupid to properly cook their own food?
This sounds somewhat "big brother-ish" to me. Soon, only manufactuers of federally approved food pellets will be available - safe and nutritious. Real food will be black marketed and only the elite will be able to eat it in secret.
Frankly, I prefer to go to the supermarket, buy a raw, organic chicken (if I choose) and look up in Joy of cooking to what temp I need to back it. Then I like to add real vegis, properly washed and cooked, a nice apple pie - voila, healthy meal!
~Thomas Jefferson, 1778. We will eat dirtier less nutritious foods . The FDA has shown a reluctance to act on either mercury fillings or BPA plastics watch how they plow the road for the big producers. It could even be against the law to grow your own tomatoes .
Anyone know what's up with this PEW? I see $369,098,876 worth of contributions, which seems quite large for a charity I've never heard of. When I looked at the IRS statement they posted, I didn't see the source of these contributions, so needless to say, I did wonder how much money they receive from corporations involved in the food industry.
As far as "It sends millions of Americans to their sick beds,..." millions? I don't know of a single one, other than me two years ago (I took 4 hours off from work) and me, 19 years earlier, 1 day off from work, suspected food borne illness.
I'd like to see some secondary verification about this "millions". Otherwise, I'm wondering whether "Salmonella-tainted eggs that sickened 1,800 people" is being used as a rationale to increase corporate control over food production. 1800 isn't a whole lot. I'd rather the egg producer be sued into oblivion than some government scheme to control food distribution.
According to Citizens for Health-- "For months trade organizations representing the interests of big Agribusiness have supported passage of S.510. - they would get a boost to their public image by appearing to improve food safety practices while protecting themselves from some legal liabilities. They can eliminate the competition: they can easily absorb the compliance costs while local producers and small farms would be levelled by the new regulations.
Local and organic food activists knew this all along, but late last week twenty AG hired-gun lobbying groups wrote the Senate stating that they would oppose S. 510 if it included the Tester-Hagan Amendment, saying "it sets an unfortunate precedent for future action on food safety policy by Congress that science and risk based standards can be ignored.”
Agribusiness opposes the Tester Amendment because it sets a precedent - that small, direct-marketing producers are different, and should be regulated differently, from the giants.
While the amendment is currently part of the updated bill agreed to by six bipartisan sponsors, until the final vote anything can change.
The Citizens for Health action is here: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/750/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5255
For regular health activism updates as, follow me on Twitter, FB, or at www.healthjournalist,cim
And don't get me started on the hundreds of thousands killed EVERY year by pharmaceutical drugs. Drugs that will never cure anyone of anything. Drugs that hinder or block natural bodily processes.
So, even though bacteria may be an issue sometimes, it pales in comparison to the real reasons people are sick.
Says "This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer's markets."
If that's true, then this bill is a no-go. I'm not vouching for the link, but, I like farmer's markets. So far, they're not broken, and don't need fixing. There's a place where my brother buys milk. He goes into a little building with a refrigerator where the milk is, and deposits the payment into a bucket. There's no one present. It's an honor system that works.
I hate to have to say it, but, by far, the most effective diet I had was in consuming bad Romaine lettuce. Salmonella is an effective weight loss strategy. That was good for 15 to 20 lbs. Gotta say, I've never bought it again. But, if I really had a problem with the lettuce, couldn't I have sued the lettuce producer? I didn't even see the doctor.
I'm not interested in this law, if it requires all food distribution to be corporate.
My chief concern is that a lot of food is sourced in corn. Farm raised fish, cow, pig and chicken all come from corn. I want to see an end to corn subsidies, to increase diversity. I'm a lot more concerned about diversity than I am about salmonella.
~Thomas Jefferson, 1778.
"There is No Right to Consume or Feed Children Any Particular Food; There is No Generalized Right to Bodily and Physical Health; There is No Fundamental Right to Freedom of Contract."
~US Dept of Health & Human Services and US Food & Drug Administration, 2010
"Now that small and organic producers as well as big grocers and food manufacturers all support the bill...."
Bulls, They don't ALL support the bill. This bill will put way to much power over our food supply in the hands of bureaucrats. It will do damage to Farmers Markets and the small, local growers that bring their supreior products.
And it will further impower the large industrial agri business. All done once again in the name of "protecting" the American people. S510 is another gov power grab from the Individual that make the wheels of the economy turn.
Write and call your Senators and STOP this dangerous and un-American bill.
This bill would stop a lot of the poisoning of big cats by people who use roadkill, downed animals and such to feed their backyard tigers, lions and other inappropriate pets. If the people who buy these big cats had to provide a proper diet, which runs about $1.50 per lb., it might reduce the number of them supporting the trade in wild cats. Carole Baskin, CEO Big Cat Rescue
Alison
www.healthjournalist.com
The bill would place responsibility for producing safe food directly on the businesses that make and sell food, and it would allow them to design the plans for achieving that purpose. Even so, the scope of the regulations is limited in the latest version of this bill to specifically ensure that small, local food production is able to thrive -- while still making safety a priority. It does this by exempting a processor or farm that is a very small business or has less than $500,000 in sales made primarily made directly to consumers or through local retailers. That does not mean they get a pass on food safety. Current federal food safety laws and State laws will continue to apply to these small businesses. It is time to put aside conspiracy theories that have bubbled around the Internet and often have no connection to provisions of S. 510.
Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress).
Despite all the compromises that one segment of industry or another forced into the bill, this legislation would provide tremendous benefits to consumers by requring that food companies and food importers ensure that the food they sell to us is safe to eat.