Senator Clinton Urges Administration to Strengthen Food Safety

Press Release

Senator Clinton Urges Administration to Strengthen Food Safety

Calls for Stricter Testing and Monitoring of Imported Food and Feed Materials

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to account for their apparent failures to test, track and monitor food and feed materials coming from overseas and called on them to develop and implement a national food safety strategy. In a letter to the heads of the FDA and the USDA, Senator Clinton called for a comprehensive and integrated monitoring and regulation plan to ensure the safety of the nation's food supply.

"This Administration is clearly failing all of us when it comes to food safety," Senator Clinton said. "There are countless problems with our current monitoring program including outdated practices, internal fragmentation and inadequate resources that have resulted in a situation where we simply do not know what kind of food or feed material is coming in from overseas and what kind of risks it poses to our livestock and our safety. It is tragic that we have seen again and again how vulnerable our nation's food supplies are without proper regulation and inspection and yet we haven't learned any lessons from our past mistakes. I am extremely concerned about the recent instances of food contamination and I strongly urge the FDA and the USDA to create a proper food safety program, especially when it comes to imported food and feed materials."

Recent illnesses involving E. coli in spinach and lettuce, the discovery of Salmonella in peanut butter, and the importation of unsafe pet food ingredients from China illustrate the continued vulnerability of the American food supply and the failure of FDA's food safety program to protect consumers. In the latest case, a chemical used in plastic manufacturing was placed in feed material from China.

FDA is severely hampered by obsolete statutes enacted in 1938 that keep it stuck in a reactive mode rather than working to prevent food safety problems as well as declining and completely inadequate resources that result in limited inspections and little capacity to discover and implement preventive solutions to food safety problems.

Senator Clinton supports strengthening the nation's food safety program by initiating a plan that modernizes food safety laws to give FDA a clear mandate to prevent food safety problems, ensures substantial and stable food safety funding for FDA through an establishment registration fee on food manufacturers, processors and storage facilities, and integrates the efforts of the FDA, CDC, USDA and state and local food safety agencies. The Senator also supports restructuring FDA to unify and elevate its food safety program under a senior, empowered and accountable leader reporting directly to the Secretary of HHS as well as empowering FDA to elevate food safety standards.

The Honorable Mike Johanns
Secretary
United States Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20250

The Honorable Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D.
Commissioner
United States Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857

Dear Mr. Secretary and Dr. von Eschenbach:

I am deeply concerned, as are many Americans, by gaping holes in monitoring practices when it comes to our nation's food supply, especially imported food and feed materials.

In the most recent incident, a component found in animal feed, imported from China and tainted with melamine, has resulted in an unknown number of pet deaths and still has the potential to threaten humans. This episode is the latest in a series of incidents involving executive branch agencies and the nation's food supply. Recent illnesses involving E. coli in spinach and lettuce and the discovery of salmonella in peanut butter also illustrate the continued vulnerability of the American food supply and the failure of the Federal Drug Administration's (FDA) food safety program to protect the American people.

I am particularly concerned by the regularity with which the FDA and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) test and track food and feed materials from foreign countries. It appears that food and feed products entering our country are not checked, tested or monitored to nearly the same degree as domestic products.

With respect to melamine tainting, the FDA has admitted being unable to ascertain how long the United States has imported food and feed materials from China with melamine or other chemicals not meant for consumption. In fact, the USDA also cannot tell us the degree to which the contaminated feed has entered the food chain through livestock consumption. The fact that it has taken more than a month to uncover even the most basic facts about the melamine tainting, including where the tainted products have been consumed, is troubling.

On top of the direct threat to human health, this contamination also threatens our agricultural industries. It is unconscionable that America does not have proper mechanisms in place to adequately test and track food and feed materials from overseas. I am deeply concerned that our federal officials still can not verify the risk to humans. We saw the frightening impact on both consumers and farmers with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "Mad Cow" disease. Yet we seem to have learned little from that experience. Our agencies need to become a proactive force rather than a reactive one when it comes to preventing food safety problems.

I have joined my colleagues in requesting that your agencies form a joint task force and develop recommendations on how to effectively address the problem of food borne illnesses. I am pleased to learn that the FDA has taken a step in the right direction by creating the position of Commissioner for Food Protection.

Specifically, I would also like information on:

1. What procedures you plan to put in place to test food and feed products coming in from overseas, especially countries with lax food safety standards;

2. How you can improve the monitoring and tracking of products once they enter into the United States; and

3. How you will alert the public to these problems in the future.

We must ensure that we have adequate testing, tracking and monitoring mechanisms in place to ensure the health of our livestock, our farmers and our consumers nationwide. Our citizens need and deserve to have confidence in their food supply.

Sincerely yours,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

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