By ADINA YOUNG
Observer Staff
OCT. 4, 2007

Observer file photo
Cooks at American University prepare for the lunch rush.

Congress is working on new legislation that would create a new food inspection industry instead of the Food and Drug Administration to oversee the safety of imported food and ingredients into the U.S. and prevent future oversight, according to Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-Conn.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 76 million people get sick, more than 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 Americans die each year from food-borne illness.

On Wednesday, DeLauro, chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies House Appropriations Committee spoke to large crowd of scientists, students and professors at the Jack Morton Auditorium at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. about contamination and other unsanitary conditions of products imported into the United States.

“When thousands of pets began to die from contaminated pet food that originated in China, the news forced us to wake up and take a hard look at the entire food safety system abroad,” DeLauro said. “It seems as if this administration is more focused on trade relations than consumer safety.”

While the FDA inspects all imports into the United States, it does not do the best job it can,according to DeLauro in the speech that was part of an almost-three week discussion across the United States.

“In the first four months of 2007, U.S. inspectors reviewed 298 shipments from China,” said DeLauro. “The sole truth is that only one percent of shipments were being checked.”

According to DeLauro, the FDA is failing to serve consumers because of lack of money used by the FDA to solve the issue of food safety. She does suggest short-term solutions.

DeLauro said that the FDA should be given the authority to inspect these factories overseas where these products are being made and allow them to prevent entry of these products into the United States, if need be. Also, she said imposing fines on those who import unsafe or contaminated foods and requiring importers to better document the food that is coming in would increase the quality of foods imported.

For the long-term, the subcommittee has proposed new legislation, called the Food Safety Modernization Act that would create a food safety administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. The food safety issues that the FDA is responsible for, according to DeLauro, should be passed on to this new administration.

“Today there are 15 different agencies currently responsible for administering 30 laws related to food safety,” said DeLauro. “It is time to consolidate many of those functions and to provide a regulatory structure that takes full advantage of the great work being done at the FDA and out state laboratories as well.”

The new legislation would establish a commission of food safety and nutrition policy and a lead commissioner appointed by the president.

“By creating and appointing a dedicated commissioner for food safety,” she continued, “with real authority, we may actually have a champion of public health in charge of protecting it,” Delauro said.

DeLauro said that she believes the food industry is ready for the change.