Gregg: It's High Time For Food Safety Reform

Press Release

Today, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) held a hearing on the importance of food safety entitled "Keeping America's Families Safe: Reforming the Food Safety System." This March, Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) along with Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), introduced bipartisan legislation that would dramatically improve the way the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) protects the safety of the nation's food supply. S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, would give the FDA new authorities, tools and resources to comprehensively reform the nation's food safety systems. After the hearing, Senator Gregg issued the following statement.

Senator Gregg stated, "In the past year we have seen far too many cases of people becoming extremely ill due to an unsafe food supply. Food safety needs to be a high priority. It is now time to act on our bipartisan legislation to provide the FDA with the tools they need to ensure that families know that the food they are eating is safe and also give the FDA the ability to respond quickly and effectively when outbreaks occur. This bill is the right fix to effectively address the challenges facing the safety of our food safety system and will go a long way to keep Americans healthy."

"The CDC estimates that there are around 76 million cases of illness from food-borne agents, with 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. This summer this House passed their version of food safety legislation - the Senate should not wait for another serious illness or even worse death before acting on this bipartisan legislation which is so critical to improving public health."

S. 510 is also cosponsored by Senators Burr, Dodd, Alexander, Klobuchar, Isakson, Chambliss, Udall, Burris, Gillibrand, and has received the support of a wide range of stakeholders including; American Feed Industry Association, American Frozen Food Institute, American Spice Trade Association, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Food Marketing Institute, Grocery Manufacturers of America, National Association of County and City Health Officials, National Fisheries Institute, National Restaurant Association, and Trust for America's Health.

The bipartisan bill focuses on four key areas where FDA's authorities and resources need to be improved: food-borne illness prevention; food-borne illness detection and response; food defense capabilities; and overall resources. Specifically, the bill:

Improves Our Capacity to Prevent Food Safety Problems

• Hazard analysis and preventive controls: Requires all facilities to have in place preventive plans to address identified hazards and prevent adulteration, and gives FDA access to these plans and relevant documentation.
• Access to records: Expands FDA access to records in a food emergency.
• Third party labs and audits: Allows FDA to recognize laboratory accreditation bodies to ensure U.S. food testing labs meet high quality standards and requires food testing performed by these labs to be reported to FDA. Allows FDA to enable qualified 3rd parties to certify that foreign food facilities comply with U.S. food safety standards.
• Imports: Requires importers to verify the safety of foreign suppliers and imported food. Allows FDA to require certification for high-risk foods, and to deny entry to a food that lacks certification or that is from a foreign facility that has refused U.S. inspectors.

Improves Our Capacity to Detect and Respond to Food-borne Illness Outbreaks

• Inspection -- Increases FDA inspections at all food facilities, including annual inspections of high-risk facilities and inspections of other facilities at least once every four years.
• Surveillance --- Enhances food-borne illness surveillance systems to improve the collection, analysis, reporting, and usefulness of data on food-borne illnesses.
• Traceability -- Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a pilot project to test and evaluate new methods for rapidly and effectively tracking/tracing fruits and vegetables in the event of a food-borne illness outbreak.
• Mandatory Recall -- Gives FDA the authority to order a mandatory recall of a food product when a company fails to voluntarily recall the product upon FDA's request.
• Suspension of Registration -- Empowers FDA to suspend a food facility's registration if there is a reasonable probability that food from the facility will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

Enhances U.S. Food Defense Capabilities -- Directs FDA to help food companies protect their products from intentional contamination and calls for a national strategy to protect our food supply from terrorist threats and rapidly respond to food emergencies.

Increases FDA Resources -- Increases funding for FDA's food safety activities through increased appropriations and targeted fees for domestic and foreign facilities.

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