Press Conference With Senators Dick Durbin And Judd Gregg

Press Conference

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SEN. DURBIN: Thank you for coming by this afternoon. I'm happy to be joined with my -- by my colleague Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. We have an announcement of legislation we'll be introducing today, bipartisan legislation, relative to the Food and Drug Administration.

Since the first recalls were announced in January, not a week has gone by that we haven't heard about another recalled food product or another person sick as a result of food-borne illness. To date, nine people have died, more than 650 have taken ill, as a result of salmonella-laced peanut butter. And more than 300 of those victims were children.

Over 2,600 products have been recalled, and those recalls could continue for a long time to come, making this one of the largest food recalls in our nation's history.

Sadly, this isn't the first time -- maybe -- I hope it will be the last time, but I'm sure it won't -- that we've seen a nationwide food-safety problem. In the last few years, we've seen peppers spiked with salmonella, spinach laced with E. coli and chili loaded with botulism.

These high-profile outbreaks are only the tip of the iceberg. Each year, 76 million Americans become sick because of food-borne illness. Three hundred and twenty-five thousand end up in a hospital; 5,000 die.

And it happens every single year in America, a country that we believe has the safest food supply in the world but can clearly do better.

It's clear that the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, the agency charged with protecting nearly 80 percent of our food supply, in this nation, simply can't keep up with the challenge. It's time that we make sure it can. That's why Senator Gregg and I are introducing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. It's a bipartisan bill that gives the FDA new authority and resources to stop food safety problems before they start.

It improves the FDA's capacity to prevent, detect and respond to food safety problems, whether it's salmonella-tainted peanut butter from Georgia or melamine-spiked baby formula from China. It's a first step toward building a food safety system that is science-and-risk- based, accountable to consumers, more transparent and focused on prevention.

Briefly this bill improves FDA's ability to prevent food safety problems, by giving the FDA access to food facility records, in the event of a food emergency, requiring importers verify the safety of foreign suppliers and imported food, giving the FDA the ability to deny entry to food that is from a foreign facility that has refused U.S. inspectors.

It improves the FDA's ability to detect and respond to foodborne illness outbreaks, by increasing FDA inspections at all food facilities, giving the FDA mandatory recall authority and by empowering the FDA to suspend a food facility's registration, if there's a reasonable probability that food from a facility could pose a threat to consumers.

Finally our bill gives the FDA needed resources, through increased authorizations and targeted fees for domestic and foreign facilities. Reforming our food safety structure takes partnership, not partisanship. Our bill is solidly bipartisan. I want to thank my co-sponsors, of course, Senator Judd Gregg, Ted Kennedy, Senators Burr, Dodd, Alexander, Klobuchar and Chambliss.

Our bill is supported by a broad coalition that has rarely come together. But they have for this modernization bill. The Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumers Union, Trust for America's Health, Grocery Manufacturers of America, American Feed Industry Association, the Food Marketing Institute and the National Fisheries Institute.

I hope our Senate colleagues will join us in quickly passing this much-needed legislation.

Senator Gregg?

SEN. GREGG: Thank you. It's a pleasure to join the assistant majority leader in offering this bill. And I also especially want to thank Senator Kennedy for his support of this effort -- and he leads this committee so well -- in addition to the other co-sponsors of the bill.

You know, when you go to the grocery stores in America, you expect that what you buy you're going to enjoy eating. You don't expect to get sick. And unfortunately, we've had a lot of instances recently where people have gotten sick because of a systemic breakdown in how we protect our food supply.

And so this bill is a recognition by myself and Senator Durbin that the FDA simply doesn't have the authorities, nor does it have the resources, to adequately police the food supply.

As Senator Durbin says, it's a step down the road towards correcting these problems. It's not the entire solution, but it is a major bipartisan initiative to try to produce the foods -- be sure that the American people when they purchase food will be confident that those foods are not adulterated.

The effort really builds on the approach we should take, which is to essentially say to the processors of food, listen, you've got to set up regimes which make sense for you, in your unique processing procedure, to test and be sure that that food is not contaminated. And then, it has the FDA come in on top of that -- those regimes, and basically double-check and make sure that those regimes work, and work well.

In the international area, where we're getting so much of our food from overseas now -- I think almost 70 percent of our products are coming in from overseas -- it sets up a system which will allow us to trace where these products come from, and hopefully over the years build up an even more effective system so that we can follow back quickly if we find a contaminated food. And that is very important.

This is a step on the right direction towards making sure that when Americans go to the grocery store they can be absolutely sure that the products that they are buying they'll enjoy eating, and they won't get sick.

Thank you.

SEN DURBIN: Thank you, Judd.

Questions?

Q (Off mike).

SEN. DURBIN: It does, and let me just read it to you, because it's fairly specific in what it says. Make sure I get it here. "FDA has the authority to order a mandatory recall of a food product when a company fails to voluntarily recall the product upon FDA's request." Okay?

Q Now, one of the issues on the peanut case is that the peanut company -- (off mike) -- tests that showed positive for salmonella and they were not required to report that to the FDA. Is there any change in the legislation -- (off mike)?

SEN. DURBIN: In terms of that reporting, I don't see that in here.

Is it -- Candace, is that included?

MS. : Yes, it is.

SEN. DURBIN: They have to report all the test results? Glad you could join us.

MS. : Sure. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Law expands FDA's actions for testing and sampling in several key ways. The first is that all testing for regulatory purposes has to be done by an FDA- accredited lab, and all of these results must be sent to FDA.

The second important way is that if a company does testing or sampling in order to implement a preventive control plan that addresses identified hazards, this testing and sampling needs to be made available to FDA upon request.

SEN. DURBIN: Glad you came, Candace (sp). (Laughs.)

SEN. GREGG: (Laughs.) We knew that.

SEN. DURBIN: Yeah, we -- I -- (laughs.)

Yes?

Q How will this bill be (targeted ?)?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, there's increased authorization -- I -- looked in here for the notes on the authorization level -- what is that?

STAFF: Eight hundred and twenty-five million (dollars).

SEN. DURBIN: From the current -- what is the current?

STAFF: And the FY '09 -- or the omnibus provides 775 million (dollars).

SEN. DURBIN: So --

STAFF: And -- as far as -- (off mike) -- and the related field activities.

SEN. DURBIN: So the --

Q Will there be any user fees?

SEN. DURBIN: No user fees, but there are targeted fees, I think, on importers. It -- yes?

STAFF: Correct. There are targeted fees for reinspection and recall, so for facilities that fail to comply with the safety laws, as well as for importers who would like to fast-track their products because they're going above and beyond and they'll -- (off mike).

Q Would those targeted fees be the only -- (off mike) -- used for this, as far as financial --

SEN. DURBIN: There are no user fees in the bill. We know that that's a controversial issue we're trying to avoid. We think that this bill really charts a bipartisan course that can pass. And that's why we tried to construct it this way.

SEN. GREGG: Well, it does set up regimes, with the -- industries have to set up processes for making sure that they're testing and maintaining the quality of their supply. And that may cause them more expense, but it's not a direct expense for the -- from the government.

SEN. DURBIN: Yes?

Q We -- obviously in the past we've had other issues with spinach and then lettuce and -- what makes you confident that, even though we've had the peanut butter -- or the peanut recall problem, that you're going to be more -- (off mike) -- and make something pass this year?

SEN. DURBIN: I -- I'll let Judd --

Q Or are -- or are you?

SEN. DURBIN: I'll let Judd address this from his perspective, but I want to tell you, the -- if you sit down with a family that's been affected by this, who's had somebody hospitalized or lost a child, it makes you a real believer. And you realize as a father, as a grandfather, as a person concerned about the safety in all of our stores, this is something we need to do. We can do better. And this moves us toward a science-based, risk-based approach that is more comprehensive and thoughtful.

I've been kind of a long-time critic of the current system, because there are so many different standards. Working my way through college in a meat-packing plant in East St. Louis, Illinois, I saw the USDA inspectors on the job in their white frocks and helmets every single day -- going up into Boston to a seafood processing -- or seafood facility, and inspectors may show up once a year.

I mean, that's the reality and you say what's the difference here? And you have to have some consistent standards, science-based standards and we're moving in that direction finally.

I think the members of the Senate and is evidenced by the co- sponsors here realize this has nothing to do with partisanship. We need to give this agency the power and resources it needs to keep America safe.

SEN. GREGG: Well, I think Senator Durbin has to be congratulated for bringing together a really broad cross section of the community, both the producers and the consumers and in the Senate, a broad cross section of members so that there's momentum for this. The simple fact is, as far as I know, there's no significant opposition to this because its been basically vetted in a way that's been extremely constructive and everybody (inaudible) discuss it. We think there's a likelihood that it will pass and certainly Senator Kennedy's support is critical, too, and he's there with us.

Q (Off mike) -- and some of the recalls -- (inaudible). How will this bill -- (inaudible).

SEN. DURBIN: Well, dietary supplements was kind of a separate discussion and debate I had with Senator Hatch a few years ago and we ended up agreeing again on a bill that required adverse event reporting so we could keep track of what was happening.

We just had a report from the GAO that came in yesterday, which I'd like to share with you if you haven't seen it, which talks about some of the things we've learned from the first year or so. We had more events being reported, but we think there should be even more considered.

We also think that there needs to be, at least GAO suggests there needs to be a clear disclosure on some of these products, the component elements in the product. I'm wondering if we don't need a standardized label that points out some things to consumers as we get into these dietary supplements and we cross a line between food and dietary supplements here that's not clearly defined in the law.

We have to try to find a way to bridge that. If you're selling an herbal tea, for example, and say that it has some health benefits to it, is it a food? Is it a dietary supplement? What is it?

So there's a lot more that needs to be done in this area. We don't address that per se in this bill, but we have to return to it.

I want to salute the dietary supplement industry. You know they resisted this for the longest time and then said basically our products are safe and we're prepared to go along with it and they did. So now we have more information, more statistical information to base any additional changes in the law.

SEN. GREGG: There's a vote on. Thank you very much.

SEN. DURBIN: Thanks all.

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