Despite renewed interest in fighting food contamination following the recent egg salmonella outbreak that triggered the nation’s massive egg recall, industry regulation remains hampered by a sometimes-baffling division of labor.
Responsibilities are split between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture — a setup that, critics say, leaves regulatory cracks that allow too much tainted food to slip into the marketplace.
For example, as the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday, “cheese pizza is regulated by one federal agency, but a pepperoni pizza is overseen by another. An open-faced turkey sandwich, likewise, falls under the purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but one with two slices of bread is under the jurisdiction of the FDA.”
And don’t expect any of that to get fixed soon.
That’s because the U.S. Senate’s proposed major food safety legislation apparently has collapsed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the chamber floor Thursday that “we’re not going to be able to get this done before we go home for the elections” in November, CQ Politics reports.
The Senate proposal, which was known as the Food Safety Modernization Act, languished for a year-and-a-half, even though the House passed a version of the bill in July 2009. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., led the opposition, saying the bill would cost too much and impose 225 new pages of overly burdensome regulations while providing little evidence it would make food safer. He also said a new egg safety rule that took effect this summer will prevent future salmonella outbreaks like the one that just occurred.
There were a heck of a lot more people that Colburn that opposed this monstrocity of a bill. The would have given the FDA the authority to regulate ALL food production in the US, from seed preparation, to farming and storage to food processors, to where it’s sold. Although large agribusiness outfits have the capital resources to comply with the enormous burden of complying with this bill, it would have been disporportionately hard on small producers. The main supporters of it seemed to be injury lawyers who specialized in food-borne illness cases, and the big agribusiness companies themselves. In other words, it would have cemented in what’s worst about food in America, and would have done a lot to stifle the growing local/clean food movement.
The bill still isn’t dead, yet, so call your Senator and tell them to make sure this never makes it to the floor – that is, unless your idea of “safe food” is corn syrup.
This is just another example of how ineffective our government bodies have become. It is quite apparent that food safety should be of paramount concern. Instead of tending to business and working out any issues over the past year the Senate has shown itself to be more interested in doing absolutely nothing to unify and update food safety regulation. There is no way that the Republicans and their big business backers should be able to stall out this important food safety initiative for over a year.
After George W. Bush very effectively stymied all efforts that were made to advance food safety it was the the great American hope that the Obama Democrats would bring about the needed change in the way food safety is regulated. If we as a nation are unable to be assured that the food we eat is efficiently regulated such that it continues to be safe, the USA is definitely in a regressive posture.
Very, very sad to watch a great progressive democracy fall to private interests!