The latest salmonella outbreak in the United States, this time involving tomatoes, has resulted in a Colorado congresswoman today calling for new laws that allow the Agriculture Department and the Federal Drug Administration to issue mandatory food recalls and a tracing system that would permit investigators to quickly determine where the contamination originated.
Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette said today that the salmonella outbreak in raw tomatoes has now expanded to at least 17 states, including Colorado, “with 167 people sick and dozens hospitalized.
“Businesses nationwide have pulled tomatoes from their shelves, leaving tons of food to rot and an entire industry of farmers, employees and small businesses in trouble,” DeGette said in comments prepared for a hearing looking into the FDA’s Food Protection Plan, which she said is underfunded and has yet to be fully implemented.
DeGette, vice chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, characterized the U.S. food safety system “as obviously broken” and the tomato salmonella outbreak as “just the latest in a steady stream of incidents over the past year.”
She said that what is needed is a tracing system that would allow federal inspectors to almost instantly find where food produce was contaminated. She has proposed such a tracing system in her bill H.R. 3485, the TRACE ACT.
On its editorial page today, The Washington Post backed passage of DeGette’s bill.
The Washington Post editorial said that nestled within the Food Safety Act of 2007, under consideration in the House, is DeGette’s provision that would give the Agriculture Department and the FDA power to issue a mandatory recall of contaminated food.
“This is more than reasonable,” said The Post editorial, “since the federal government can and did recall lead-tainted toys imported from China last year. Besides, the hammer of potential government action would be a powerful incentive for growers and packers to conform to safety standards.”
In her comments today, DeGette said that the present system makes it almost impossible for the FDA to quickly identify the source of contamination because of a complicated system of records involving suppliers, their suppliers’ suppliers, wholesalers, distribution centers, processing facilities, gathering warehouses and farms.
She said that many industries now use tracing systems that should be utilized on produce.
“Traceability is already being done by certain individual companies, and I want to build upon their successes to form a comprehensive, national system,” DeGette said. “For example we all know that UPS and FedEx can instantaneously locate a package anywhere in the world and access its status at every stage along its route. In the food industry, Dole Foods and many beer distributors can trace their products through the supply chain.”
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
