Consumer Groups Call for Senior FDA Official to Oversee Food Safety; Larger Overhaul May Be on the Way

Two consumer advocacy groups are calling on President Barack Obama to appoint a senior food safety official to temporarily take charge of the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of the nation’s food supply.

The FDA has come under intense fire for failing to detect or quickly control deadly outbreaks of food-borne salmonella linked to contaminated peanut products, tomatoes, peppers, and other foods. Most recently, salmonella-tainted peanut butter, peanut paste, and other peanut foods have been blamed for contributing to nine deaths, nearly 700 sicknesses, and the largest food-related product recall in history.

The contaminated peanut foods were eventually traced back to a single food processing company, Peanut Corp. of America, which ran plants in Georgia and Texas. The FDA later admitted it had not properly inspected the plants or followed up on problems detected in FDA inspections.

The government’s handling of the peanut-salmonella scandal and other recent food poisoning outbreaks have been criticized as slow and ineffective, allowing contaminated food to go undetected and lagging on recalling tainted food to prevent further injuries and deaths.

The FDA shares the job of monitoring the food supply with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as state agriculture agencies. Many people are calling for a major overhaul of nation’s food-safety system.

New Report Urges Changes

A new report from Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation urges streamlining the nation’s current food-safety system and temporarily consolidating the chore under a single, senior FDA official until a better, more comprehensive safety system can be developed and put in place.

Eventually, the job of ensuring the safety of food should be removed from the FDA and placed with a new government agency created under the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the groups said. Lawmakers and other consumer groups have also called for such a restructuring of the nation’s current food-safety system.

“Our food safety system is plagued with problems and is leading to millions of Americans becoming severely sick each year,” said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health.

Significant FDA Weaknesses Cited

According to the consumer rights’ groups, the FDA is deeply flawed and allows unsafe food products to reach millions of consumers. For example, the agency is not properly equipped to handle the increasing load of international import of food grown or processed outside the United States, the groups said.

Also, the complicated internal structure of the FDA makes enforcing regulations in a consistent, uniform way almost impossible, the groups allege.

According to Michelle Larkin of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, about one in four Americans, or 76 million people, are sickened by food-borne illnesses each year. Of those, more than 300,000 are hospitalized and 500,000 die.

Treatment of illnesses caused by contaminated food costs the United States about $44 billion each year in terms of medical care and lost productivity from time sick people must take off work, the groups said.

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