The food we eatNew U.S. food safety law goes into effect
On 15 December the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its first estimate since 1999 of the toll of food-borne diseases in the United States: 48 million people sick each year, 128,000 hospitalized, and 3000 deaths; in the biggest overhaul of food safety in the United States since the 1930s, President Barack Obama yesterday signed a law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more power to inspect and shut down food producers yesterday, President Obama; critics say the law does not go far enough
In the biggest overhaul of food safety in the United States since the 1930s, President Barack Obama yesterday signed a law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more power to inspect and shut down food producers.
Critics, however, say that the changes will have little effect on food-borne infections such as salmonella. “Will fewer people barf as a result of this bill? No,” says Doug Powell, a food safety specialist at Kansas State University in Manhattan.
New Scientist reports that the bill follows an unprecedented series of food poisoning scandals in the United States in recent years, including the recall of half a billion eggs last August because of Salmonella bacteria, and peanut butter that sickened more than 600 people and may have killed nine in 2009.
On 15 December the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its first estimate since 1999 of the toll of food-borne diseases in the United States: 48 million people sick each year, 128,000 hospitalized, and 3,000 deaths.
This is down from 5,000 deaths in 1999, but it could be even lower if the FDA inspected food producers more often, says Michael Jacobson, head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food-safety pressure group in Washington, D.C. The FDA, which regulates all foods except meat and eggs in the United States, normally inspects producers once every five or ten years.
Food force
New Scientist notes that the new law gives the FDA more inspectors and mandates more inspections. It also requires producers to have written risk-management plans, requires importers to check the safety of imported products, and excludes foreign producers who refuse FDA inspections. In a food-poisoning emergency it gives the FDA power to inspect producers’ records and to order a recall if a producer refuses to do it voluntarily.
The last measure “is a red herring”, says Powell: faced with a public relations disaster, no producer ever refuses to recall suspect food.
The bill gives the FDA the money to do its extra inspections by allowing it to charge for them. The expected bill, $1.4 billion over five years, is far less, the FDA argues, than the cost of poisoning incidents to the food industry.
That funding, however, may now be cut over legal technicalities, and because control of the U.S. Congress has passed to the Republican party, which opposes the bill. “There’s a high possibility of trimming this whole package back,” says Jack Kingston, the Republican due to take over the congressional committee involved in the bill. “The system we have is doing a darn good job.”
Shift to prevention
Margaret Hamburg, head of the FDA, said at a press conference on 3 January that the law will shift the FDA’s approach to food safety “from a reactive to a preventive mode”, regardless of funding.
Even if the FDA gets the money for inspections, however, Powell doesn’t think much will change. He observes that inspectors approved the plants behind the peanut butter and egg recalls shortly before both emergencies.
Furthermore, the bill sets no standards for bacteria levels permitted in food or for testing, says Powell. Hamburg says the FDA will unveil new “science-based minimum standards for safe production and harvesting” in a year.
The most effective way forward, Powell believes, is to make producers list safety procedures and track records on food packaging, and compete for buyers on the basis of safety.
