"At age 2, Kyle Allgood of Chubbuck, Idaho, became sickened by a deadly strain of E. coli O157:H7, from contaminated spinach. When Kyle's abdominal pains would not subside, he was flown to a Salt Lake City hospital, where his downward spiral ended in kidney failure, a heart attack and, ultimately, death.
The tragedy the Allgood family endured is far from rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year, food-borne illness strikes tens of millions of Americans, hospitalizes hundreds of thousands and kills several thousand—mostly young children like Kyle, the elderly or others who are especially vulnerable.
Despite these shocking numbers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration—which regulates about 80 percent of the nation's food supply — does not require food companies, or the agency's own inspectors, to test products for bacteria. The FDA also has no authority to mandate that food companies recall products, or directly penalize those that violate the law.
A strong federal food-oversight bill was passed last summer by a bipartisan majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet since then, there have been more than 60 separate recalls of FDA-regulated products that were known or suspected to be contaminated.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate food-safety bill was unanimously approved by its key committee before last Thanksgiving.
It is time for a final vote.
The need for Congress to pass this legislation is highlighted by the fact that the vast number of food-borne disease outbreaks in recent years were linked to FDA-regulated products such as spinach, peppers, peanut butter products and cookie dough. Any significant update to FDA food-safety law would be the first in more than 70 years.
When that outdated law was enacted, Americans ate less processed food, and meals often came from local producers. In the 21st century, any given meal can contain ingredients from across the nation and many countries around the globe. Yet the FDA annually inspects only about 1 percent of shipments of imported foods before they come into the United States.
FDA oversight of domestic food facilities is also in need of significant improvement. A recent Department of Health and Human Services inspector general report found that inspections of food companies' plants have decreased over the last several years, and that 56 percent of facilities did not receive an FDA inspection over a recent five-year period. The report recommended that FDA seek more effective enforcement tools and get better access to food facility records—both of which the agency supported in its response.
Furthermore, a recent study authored by a former FDA economist and published by the Produce Safety Project—an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University—estimates the health-related impact of food-borne illness across the nation to be a combined $152 billion annually. This cost, coupled with the public health impacts of pathogens in the food supply, makes a vote on the Senate bill even more important.
The longer it takes Congress to pass food-safety legislation, the greater the likelihood that more Americans will unnecessarily suffer or die as a result of the nation's outdated food-protection authorities.
As Kyle's mother, Robyn Allgood, has said, it might be too late for her son, but 'no family should have to go through this—we can save other children.'"
Full Article''The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that could significantly delay implementation of sweeping new food safety legislation designed to reduce food-borne illnesses.''
More infoIn January 2011, President Barack Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law, signaling the first major update to our nation’s food safety oversight framework since the Great Depression. Despite widespread support for the legislation and its implementation, the Obama administration still has not issued all of the proposed rules under FSMA.
More info"Being a Minnesotan, Jeff Almer searched for a polite term to describe how he feels about a congressional push to roll back the new food safety laws his family fought for when his elderly mother died after eating salmonella-laced peanut butter in late 2008."
More infoAs a pediatrician, my No. 1 concern is to keep children safe and healthy. Inside the walls of my office, I can provide services and counseling to help do just that, whether by giving an infant her first childhood vaccine, providing a mental health screening to an adolescent patient or counseling parents about how to keep their homes as safe as possible. Unfortunately, there are some threats to children's health that are beyond my control, including the food they consume.
More infoCDC Data Show Alarmingly High Rate of Listeria Infections for Expectant MomsFrom 2004 2009, 29 percent of cases during pregnancy ended in miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death Data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Foodborne
More info"The Food and Drug Administration will not reduce food inspections because of budget cuts, despite warning earlier that it could be forced to eliminate thousands of inspections by Sept. 30."
More info"Twenty-two weeks. That’s how long it took federal health officials to determine the contaminated food source after the first person was infected in a 2011 outbreak of salmonella that swept across 34 states, sickened 136 people and led to one of the largest national recalls of ground turkey."
More infoAn examination of a Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak linked to ground turkey illustrates that health authorities must be more aggressive in their efforts to detect and respond to foodborne illnesses, according to a new report by The Pew Charitable Trusts, titled “Too Slow: An Analysis of the 2011 Salmonella Ground Turkey Outbreak and Recommendations for Improving Detection and Response.” In all, the contaminated food sickened a reported 136 people in the United States, hospitalized 37 and killed one, according to government data.
More info"Six years ago, Bend resident Chrissy Christoferson's ten-month-old son suffered a ten-day struggle with what first appeared to be a touch of the flu."
More info"Portlander Joe Day tearfully recalled the year his family spent Thanksgiving in a hospital cafeteria, as his sister, suffering from e coli, fought for her life several floors above."
More info''Several hundred farmers, regulators and consumers from Alaska to North Dakota to California gathered in Portland on Wednesday to listen to federal plans to overhaul the food safety system."
More infoThe Obama administration has taken an important step by releasing the draft rules central to implementing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), but it must do more. Important draft regulations focused on the safety of imported foods are still awaiting release. These rules are especially important since about two-thirds of fruits and vegetables and 80 percent of seafood consumed in the United States come from abroad.
More info"Several months ago, my life was changed forever when I fell severely ill after eating imported ricotta cheese contaminated by the dangerous bacteria Listeria. Protections in a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) law could help prevent infections, like mine, from harming other Americans. But they need to be fully implemented to help anyone."
More info"The announcement earlier this month of proposed federal food safety regulations certainly took long enough — the authorizing legislation, the Food Safety Modernization Act, was passed two years ago with bipartisan support. Between then and now, the nation has seen a number of incidents (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified 15 multistate outbreaks) in which thousands of people took ill, even died, because of illness carried in contaminated food."
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