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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] here's a new one - Barfblog!
  • Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:14:05 -0700


(Sure 99.99 percent safe. Meaning all the people who died from food
poisoning actually didn't die from all the food they ate for years before
dying...)

Thank you for barfing; no money for US food safety changes
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/barfblog
December 25th, 2010 - 12:44pm by Doug Powell

The ink hasn’t dried on the new U.S. food safety bill – because it won’t be
signed until Jan. 2011 – but many are already saying there’s no money to
implement the proposed changes, and Republicans are going to make sure of it.

I still don’t care; it’s all political claptrap.

Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the appropriations
subcommittee that oversees the Food and Drug Administration, told the
Washington Post today the number of cases of foodborne illnesses in the U.S.
does not justify the $1.4 billion the new law is estimated to cost over the
first five years, adding,
"I would not identify it as something that will necessarily be zeroed out,
but it is quite possible it will be scaled back if it is significant
overreach. We still have a food supply that's 99.99 percent safe. No one
wants anybody to get sick, and we should always strive to make sure food is
safe. But the case for a $1.4 billion expenditure isn't there."

Iowa Republican Rep. Tom Latham said the same thing a few days ago.
“We simply don’t have the money to pay for it.”

FDA also released a Food Bill For Dummies guide to the proposed changes a
couple of days ago.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) gives FDA a mandate to pursue a
system that is based on science and addresses hazards from farm to table,
putting greater emphasis on preventing food-borne illness. The reasoning is
simple: The better the system handles producing, processing, transporting,
and preparing foods, the safer our food supply will be.

I thought FDA was already supposed to do this.

The legislation, which FDA experts say transforms the food safety system,
includes the following major provisions:

* Food facilities must have a written preventive controls plan that spells
out the possible problems that could affect the safety of their products.
This plan would outline steps that a food facility would take to prevent or
significantly minimize the likelihood of those problems occurring.

* FDA must establish science-based standards for the safe production and
harvesting of fruits and vegetables. These standards must consider not only
man-made risks to fresh produce safety, but also naturally-occurring
hazards—such as those posed by the soil, animals, and water in the growing
area.

* FDA is directed to increase the frequency of inspections. High-risk
domestic facilities must receive an initial inspection within the next five
years and no less than every three years after that. During the next year,
FDA must inspect at least 600 foreign food facilities and double the number
of those inspections every year for the next five years. With the
availability of resources, FDA will build the inspection capacity to meet
these important goals.

* FDA is authorized to mandate a recall of unsafe food if the food company
fails to do it voluntarily. The law also provides a more flexible standard
for administrative detention (the procedure FDA uses to keep suspect food
from being moved); allows FDA to suspend the registration of a food facility
associated with unsafe food, thereby preventing it from distributing food;
and directs the agency to improve its ability to track both domestic and
imported foods.

In testimony before Congress in March, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said
that user fees collected from food companies and farms would pay for most of
the increased inspections and other costs associated with the legislation.
But a provision for user fees in the House version was cut from the final
language, leaving the government to foot the entire cost.

Mark McClellan, who served as FDA commissioner from 2002 to 2004, said that
without additional funding, Congress is unfairly raising expectations, adding,
"It's relatively easy to pass legislation that the FDA needs to do more
things. It's very hard to back that up with resources. And problems may be
compounded by legislation like this, which raises expectations that the FDA
should be doing this, that or other things."

Producers, processors, retailers, restaurants, mere mortals, take care of
food safety. And if you do, tell the world about it, market it, promote
microbiologically-safe food. People care about this stuff. Politicians, not
so much.






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