Posted on May 7, 2008

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Nation's Food Safety System in Crisis, Report Finds

Major problems, including obsolete laws, misallocation of resources, and inconsistencies among major food safety agencies, are undermining the U.S. food safety system, a new report from the Trust for America's Health finds.

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the report, Fixing Food Safety: Protecting America's Food from Farm-to-Fork (26 pages, PDF), found that the bulk of federal food safety funds are spent on outdated food inspection practices, and that inadequate resources are expended on fighting bacteria threats such as salmonella and E. coli. According to the report, gaps in current inspection practices mean that acts of agroterrorism, such as contamination of wheat gluten or botulism, could go undetected until they are widespread.

The report also found that the efforts of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the other federal agencies involved in food safety are fragmented, with no one agency holding ultimate authority or responsibility for food safety. While approximately 85 percent of known food-borne illness outbreaks are associated with foods regulated by the FDA, the agency receives less than half of the federal funding allocated for food safety.

Noting that approximately 76 million Americans — one in four — are sickened by food-borne diseases each year, TFAH recommended that food producers, processors, distributors, retailers, and consumers work together with federal, state, and local government leaders to modernize the nation's food safety system. The organization called for a series of actions such as requiring food safety education for commercial food handlers; improving monitoring of foreign imports; and establishing uniform and enforceable performance standards and best practices.

"Our goal should be reducing the number of Americans who get sick from food-borne illness. But we can't adequately protect people from contaminated foods if we continue to use one hundred-year-old practices," said TFAH executive director Jeff Levi. "We need to bring food safety into the twenty-first century. We have the technology. We're way past due for a smart and strategic upgrade."

“Report Finds Food Safety System in Crisis.” Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Press Release 4/30/08.

Primary Subject: Health
Secondary Subject(s): Agriculture/Food, Public Affairs
Location(s): National

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