Hearing of the Subcommittee on Health of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce - H.R. 3610, The Food and Drug Import Safety Act

Interview

Hearing of the Subcommittee on Health of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce - H.R. 3610, The Food and Drug Import Safety Act

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REP. JOHN DINGELL (D-MI): Mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you for holding this hearing today. I appreciate your leadership and I commend you for your vigorous efforts in this matter.

Our nation's consumers are experiencing a significant crisis in confidence in the imported food products and other products they import. For months, Americans have been inundated with reports of about tainted products shipped from abroad: melamine-tainted pet food, antibiotic-tainted sea foods, lead-tainted toys, tainted counterfeit drugs and counterfeit drugs that do nothing, that we know of, beneficial, and so on.

As these reports have surfaced, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, led by our able colleague Mr. Stupak, its chairman, intensified its investigation into how the Food and Drug Administration works to protect the public health against tainted food and drug and appliance imports.

The preliminary results of these ongoing investigations revealed an underfunded importation safety system equivalent in the terms of holes to a block of Swiss cheese. It is clear that Food & Drug cannot and is not doing its job for want of money, for want of staff, for want of resources.

We hear periodically about how they're going to be a leaner and meaner organization and how they're going to do more with less. I've been listening to that since I came on this committee long years ago, and I must say that today it is as much fooey as it was then.

Last week, Mr. Chairman, you and Chairman Stupak joined me in introducing H.R. 3610, the Food (and) Drug Import Safety Act, and I would urge my colleagues here in the committee and others of our colleagues in the Congress to join us in co-sponsorship with it.

This legislation takes a vigorous, pro-active step towards correcting the problem of tainted food and drug imports. It closely resembles the discussion draft which I released earlier in August.

I would point out, in response to comments I have heard from my colleagues on both sides, it is my full intention that this matter will be pursued both vigorously and in a bipartisan fashion. And I invite my colleagues on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, to join in that undertaking. And I assure them that we are anxious to hear what they have to say about this because this committee will work best when we cooperate on matters of this importance.

The legislation that we're discussing aims to increase Food and Drug Administration inspections both at the border and abroad by instituting a small user fee. That's something we have found is necessary because without this kind of financing there will be no adequate performance by Food and Drug, no adequate resources, no adequate staff or funding.

The fee would also fund laboratory analysis to ensure that imports are safe to enter our stream of commerce. And I would observe that the efforts of Food and Drug to close its laboratories have been met with uniform condemnation, particularly from this committee.

Next, it grants the authority to ferret out bad actors that seek to game the current regulatory system and pass off bad products as safe for consumption, a problem which we read about almost daily in the press.

As our committee staff stated in their July 2007 report, FDA's current regulatory approach, which relies on voluntary guidelines for most foods, is inadequate to assure the safety of our modern food supply. I would observer that the credo down there and the mechanism under which this appears to be done is to "trust us." And we have found, to our regret, that we simply cannot trust that kind of activity to an agency so poorly funded and so poorly staffed.

Finally, the bill seeks to attempt a balance by rewarding those who employ best practices, allowing them to participate in a voluntary program that gives expedited movement of food imports through the food inspection system.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the comments of my colleagues today, to the testimony of our witnesses today as the committee seeks to protect the public health from tainted food and drug imports.

I would urge that we be vigorous. I want this to be a bipartisan effort. We will build upon the things which we did in the earlier legislation on this matter, and the commitments I made to my colleagues that we would hear all members when we commence this process remain as good today as they were when we made them earlier.

So I urge my colleagues to work together; this is a serious effort to protect the public health, the public safety and the public welfare from serious wrongdoing which is now hurting us.

I thank you for your recognition.

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