Food Safety Legislation Moves Forward in the Senate

The following are factoids, snippets and summaries of the following hearing:
Date: 10/22/09
Committee: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Title: Keeping America’s Families Safe: Reforming the Food Safety System
Subject: Discussion of SB510 – Food Safety Modernization Act
View the Hearing: http://help/senate.gov/Hearings/2009_10_22/2009_10_22.html

Partial Highlights of Chairman’s Statements:
The chairman indicated in his opening statement that with more ingredients used, various methods of processing, products traveling thousands of miles and many times from countries with less vigorous standards than ours that is it past time to modernize our laws.
At one point in the hearing, the chairman stated that they intended to move ahead with mark-ups and get the bill to the floor as soon as possible.

Partial Highlights of Senator Durbin’s Statements:
He indicated his encouragement that many groups and organizations, such as FMI, GMA, NRA and others were supportive of the legislation. He put the numbers we continually hear into another perspective by stating that every 5 minutes 3 people rush to the hospital with foodborne illness and each day 13 people die.
He stated that FDA, in his opinion was working with limited staff and outdated laws.
He also expressed concern for the industry and public when he stated that 6 weeks after the tomato recall was when jalapenos had been discovered as the cause and significant industry losses had occurred.

Partial Highlights of Senator Dodd’s Statements:
This legislation has a sense of urgency.

Partial Highlights of Margaret Hamburg’s Comments (Commissioner of the FDA)
President O’Bama has stated that food safety is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of government. His Food Safety Working Group point to three areas and the bill addresses many of the concerns.
1. Prioritize Prevention
This bill does move the focus of the system to prevention. It shifts the FDA’s approach from one that reacts to outbreaks to one that seeks to prevent them in the first place.
2. Strengthening Surveillance and Enforcement
It does not supply all of the legal tools needed as it stands. Sections 301 regarding foreign supplier verification and Section 207 regarding detention of food need review. Also the bill does not mandate access to food records during routine inspections.
3. Improving Response and Recovery
Resources need to be addressed. Section 201 mandates inspections based on risk. However, although the intent is embraced, it doesn’t guarantee consistent fund resources.
When asked about the importance of HAACP, she indicated it was extremely beneficial. The legislation allows the FDA to re-focus on prevention and provides a systematic way of working with producers to shore up points of vulnerability and agreed that a risk based approach was the way to go.
She expressed concern that the mandates and responsibilities far outstripped resources and the FDA needed sustained and predictable funding.

NOTE: At various points there were comments regarding small and organic farmers and there was a difference of opinion as to the extent of their needed participation from a legislation standpoint. The bill as it is currently writing only applies to food produced for interstate commerce.
Margaret Hamburg noted that most actions currently are complaint based. This legislation provides for proactive actions such as testing and access to company files in this bill.

Partial Highlights of Caroline Smith DeWaal’s Statements (Director of CSPI):
Reform is long overdue.
Costs of foodborne illnesses range from 40 billion to 100 billion annually.
Need for a tracing system to trace back to source
Growers need to meet more standards
The bill needs minor changes in inspection systems, import provisions and other areas
On the issue of traceability, its critical, and traceability needs to be on food products from the consumer all the way back through the production cycle.
Needed improvements to bill need to include:
1. Frequency of inspections-Need categories of risk and associated frequencies of inspections
2. Testing – Want mandatory testing criteria built in together with reporting of positive test results
3. Imports- Review determination of accreditation body and responsibilities.

Partial Highlights of Tom Stenzel’s Statements (President of United Fresh):
He stated that the industry is well along in a multi-year produce traceability initiative committed to driving a standardized system of case coding for total supply chain traceability.
The FDA must determine appropriate national safety standards with full input from state, industry, academia and the consumer.
There are failures evident in outbreak management. He used spinach as an example stating it was one field, one lot, one day of shipments and the industry has never recovered based on the actions of government. He pointed out that the tomato industry was basically shut down for 6 weeks in pursuit of the wrong product.
He indicated that small farms should comply just as others.
The current system doesn’t use valuable industry expertise.
FDA lacks accountability when in error to the industry
The produce industry is totally committed to total supply chain traceability of our products. “We do have the technology today to supply a total traceability system”.

Partial Highlights of Michael Robertson’s Statements (Representing FMI, Director of Corporate Quality Assurance with Publix Supermarkets
The FDA needs adequate authority
The FMI supports the requirement that every requested facility have a HAACP preventative control plan.
They support the development of standards for product safety as well as inspections based on risk.
FMI supports enhancing traceback requirements, specifically the legislations establishment of pilot projects. Our industry recognizes that current traceability systems are not uniformly meeting the needs of the industry, the consumer and the government. We understand that there will be technical challenges and significant costs associated with the implementation of traceability throughout the supply chain infrastructure, and that is why we see the pilot program approach as being crucial.
FMI supports mandatory recall authority to FDA and supplier 3rd party certification audits.