“Bodily Injury and Death” Predicted Due to Lax US Food Safety Standards
Each year in the United States, according to data supplied by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 300,000 people are hospitalized for the treatment of food-borne illnesses. Five thousand Americans die. The current outbreak of Salmonella poisoning in the nation’s supply of fresh tomatoes is just one such incident that leads to these hospitalizations and deaths.
As the outbreak is being contained, thanks in part to widespread voluntary recall of most tomatoes in stores and restaurants across the country, lawmakers in Washington are debating the future of a massive farm bill that calls for hundreds of billions of dollars for funding the agriculture industry but barely mentions food safety issues.
The voluminous, 673-page farm bill is based upon 15 subjects which range from commodities to energy and doesn’t even include food safety as an issue worthy of its own title among subjects. The farm bill, as presented, is expected to cost American taxpayers between $289 billion and $307 billion in the five-year period it covers.
The debate over the farm bill continues as the Bush administration finally asked, on Monday night, for the money necessary to fund a plan for food protection measures first presented by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in November. As a result of the request for funding, the US Department of Health and Human Services will re-route $125 million from next year’s budget for food protection programs.
Some Congressional members and food-safety advocates call for more aggressive measures to be taken, quickly, in order to curtail future outbreaks of disease stemming from the nation’s dubiously regulated food supply.
Senator Arlen Specter, R-PA, says the current administration’s delays in finding money for improved safety of the American food supply amounts to criminal negligence that leaves the American people subject to “bodily injury and death.” He proposes supplemental funding, available now, be used to finance the FDA’s food safety plan.
Consumer advocates say inaction on the part of the government has failed to prevent outbreaks stemming from foods grown and produced in the US as well as those shipped from abroad.
Source: The Seattle Times Company