Food Safety Issues Addressed by Obama Administration - July 08, 2009

     Every year approximately 142,000 people become sick and 30 people die from egg-borne salmonella in the United States.  The FDA issued a new rule on Tuesday that will require increased monitoring efforts for salmonella bacteria and increased efforts to prevent the bacteria's spread during egg production. The Obama administration estimates that with this new rule, illnesses from salmonella could be reduced by 60%, or roughly 79,000 fewer illnesses per year. It is projected that this could have a positive economic impact of one billion dollars, but will cost producers about $81 million a year and add about 1 cent to the cost of a dozen eggs.
     The administration also has begun revamping the tracing system which is used to identify to source of foodborne illnesses, introduced tougher steps to control E.coli contamination and has established a new post of deputy food commissioner to coordinate safety measures in the event of a major outbreak.
     These actions were based on recommendations from a food safety group which the Obama administration assembled in March after the salmonella outbreak occurred in peanuts, forcing the largest food recall in U.S. history. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius noted that "We've seen too many large-scale recalls, everything from spinach, peanut products, pistachios, peppers, mushrooms, alfalfa sprouts and recently even cookie dough."
     The food safety group's recommendations included a focus on prevention, increasing existing surveillance and enforcement measures and improving the response and recovery times after an outbreak of foodborne illness has occurred.  By and large, food safety advocates were pleased with the new initiatives, yet some advocates cautioned that any new programs need to be carefully crafted to avoid doing more harm than good. Some of the proposals remain vague and many key changes will be left to Congress.