From peanuts. "This appears to be the largest food recall of products in U.S. history." To spinach, "It's almost like they're not inspecting at all." To tomatoes. "Life is never normal once you go through something like that." Is our food supply the real enemy? "No child should have to have died the way he died, no child."
Two-year-old Kevin Kowalcyk's family thought he had a bad case of the flu. "The lab report came back that it was positive for E. coli." It turned out to be a deadly strain of bacteria that came from something he ate. "He crashed by having a heart attack."
"His little body swelled up to 3 times his normal size." "Then he had his third heart attack, and then he died." Kevin's grandmother uses her heartache to fuel her mission. She runs the Center for Food Borne Illness Research and Prevention. "This is unacceptable and I will work as hard as I can talking to people about it so they understand." A recent Harvard study found more than six in ten Americans have little confidence that food manufacturers and government inspections keep food safe. Experts say their skepticism is legit. "These are signs of a Food and Drug Administration that's really not capable of controlling problems in the food supply."
Caroline Smith Dewaal routinely testifies before Congress about the problems in the F.D.A. "The heart of any reform effort lies in prevention, not response." The agency is in charge of 80-percent of the food supply. "F.D.A. really has mission impossible." The F.D.A. regulates more than one-trillion dollars in consumer goods. That's 25 cents of every consumer dollar, everything from lipstick to lima beans. Complicating the issue -- a dozen other federal and state agencies bear some responsibility for keeping an eye on our food. "Ideally, yes, there should be a single food safety agency and it should have the money that it needs and the legal authority, and it should be independent."
Consumer groups say imported foods are one of the biggest problems. About 25-thousand F.D.A.-regulated food shipments arrive daily from 100 countries. They account for 80-percent of the U.S.'s seafood, and nearly 70-percent of its fresh fruit and vegetables. Yet only one-percent is inspected. Since 1990, the volume of imports increased more than 900-percent, and as for the number of inspectors. "We have the components of the agency that had 1,100 staffers six years ago and now have 700, and those are people responsible for food safety." "The food safety functions at the F.D.A. have really been the step-child at the agency. It doesn't get enough resources."
The F.D.A. is set to receive a little over two-billion dollars this year. That's comparable to one school district's budget in one county in Maryland. "The superintendent of schools is covering maybe 100 square miles, and the commissioner is worrying about the world -- same amount of money."
No one would like to see a food safety overhaul more than Richard and Linda Miller. "My family went through absolute hell."
They both got sick after eating green onions laced with E. coli at a restaurant. Linda recovered. Richard contracted Hepatitis-A and went into liver failure. "It's like a nightmare and you're living it." Four others died from the same outbreak. Richard was forced to have a liver transplant. He depends on dozens of medications to stay alive. "I pray that people get their heads screwed on straight and demand that our food supply is much safer than it is." Safety on the home front that starts at the dinner table.
The F.D.A. did not respond to any requests for interviews. President Obama recently announced the creation of a food safety working group that will advise him on which laws and regulations need to be changed or better enforced. Meanwhile, private industry is taking the lead to develop technology that will track food from farm to fork. I.B.M. is partnering with Norway's largest food supplier to develop sensors that will allow consumers to trace food anywhere in the supply chain.
BACKGROUND: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 76 million food borne illness cases occur in the United States every year. This amounts to one in four Americans becoming ill after eating foods contaminated with pathogens such as E. Coli O157: H7, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Campylobacter, Shigella, Norovirus and Listeria. Every year about 325,000 people are hospitalized with a diagnosis of food poisoning and 5,000 die. The annual dollar cost in terms of medical expenses, lost wages and productivity ranges from $6.5 to $34.9 billion. While most food borne illness cases go unreported to health departments, nearly 13.8 million food poisoning cases are caused by known agents -- 30 percent by bacteria, 67 percent by viruses, and 3 percent by parasites.
FDA and Food Safety: A new report calls for a radical overhaul of the U.S. food safety system, including the creation of a separate food safety administration with its own food safety czar. Many food safety experts and consumer activists are also lobbying Congress to spend more time and money fixing America's food safety system. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees 80 percent of the country's food supply, yet experts argue it doesn't have the staff or resources to keep up with its assignments. "The FDA really has mission impossible," Carolyn Smith DeWaal, Director of the Program on Food Safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told Ivanhoe. "It's in charge of the safety of drugs, medical devices and the majority of the food supply. It's not surprising that the agency really has not done an adequate job in this mission of food safety, because it's almost impossible to do everything perfectly. It's lacked sufficient staff and resources. They don't have the inspectors they need and Congress is taking steps to address this, but right now we're still seeing the results of many years of neglect."
Currently, a dozen federal agencies share responsibility for ensuring the safety of the nation's food supply. "We're asking Congress to consider steps to separate drugs and medical device approvals from the food safety functions and perhaps even appoint a new commissioner of food safety and nutrition," DeWaal said.
Passing New Laws: Most of the bills on the table in Washington address the tracing of food products. The FDA Globalization Act overhauls the structure of the agency and extends food processing traceability recordkeeping requirements to restaurants and farms. It would also create production standards for produce. In the Senate, the FDA Food Modernization Act would also expand FDA access to records in a food emergency, and require importers to verify the safety of foreign suppliers. A third proposal would split the FDA into two agencies -- one responsible for food safety and a second responsible for regulations of drugs and devices. It also calls for preventive controls and stronger inspections. The new FDA would also have power to conduct on-farm inspections. "Comprehensive legislation should clearly include more enforcement provisions," DeWaal said. "We really need to give the FDA watch dog more teeth to do the job."
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Center for Food Borne Illness
http://www.fooborneillness.org
cfi@foodborneillness.org
