Where we are headed

There is a lot of back and forth in today's hearing about traceability, best practices, preventive controls, who's in charge, mandatory recall authority, a little bit about compensation.

Bottom line: the industry leaders on the first panel testifying today (including Stenzel and Beckman) are generally ready to back more stringent traceability standards than the 2002 Bioterrorism Act on a risk-based commodity specific standard. For example, tomatoes will be a prime candidate for a more stringent national regulation.

What is less clear is if the FDA will get industry backing for the authority to impose preventive controls at the farm level and through the supply chain. Perhaps again, this will be negotiated on a commodity specific basis.

The FDA will have mandatory recall authority in any coming food safety legislation. However, one committee member worried that if the FDA calls a mandatory recall that is later found to be based on erroneous information, the government would be on the hook for compensation to growers. He's got a point; if a unsubstantiated FDA advisory prompts call for compensation, how much more would a mandatory recall that turned out to be bogus?

Meanwhile, this story from The New York Times Amid Salmonella Case, Food Industry Seems Set to Back Greater Regulation speaks to the fact that industry may be prepared to bend to more regulation. From the story:

Food industry leaders set to appear Thursday before a House committee say they will testify about what they view as mistakes in the federal response to the continuing salmonella outbreak as well as fundamental failures in the nation’s food safety system.

At the same time, however, several food safety experts say, industry leaders are also questioning whether the weak produce-tracking rules that many of them once championed are more a curse than a blessing. As they tally the financial losses from the largest food-borne outbreak of illness in the last decade, produce businesses now show signs of embracing broader regulations for traceability.

“I think that now the industry is realizing based on this outbreak that we need to have the ability to trace back so we can segregate where the problem is and not devastate the entire industry,” said Mike Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Produce industry leaders scheduled to appear at the House hearing, before the Energy and Commerce Committee, said they would call for government agencies to divulge details of initial studies that linked the salmonella outbreak to raw tomatoes.