Food safety system needs strengthening

{mosads}Sadly, while this latest tragedy has been playing itself out, many in Congress have been working to block, delay or rescind vital regulations. They are also working to cut already underfunded food safety budgets. Relaxing and even doing away important public health regulations altogether is an idea that some corporate interests would welcome, but it would have a devastating effect on public safety. And adding burdensome requirements for public health agencies to enact prevention-based rules would only serve to ensure continued foodborne illness outbreaks in the meantime.

Because antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella are not considered adulterants, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can recall contaminated meat and poultry only after those products have made people sick. The same is true for non-O157 strains of E. coli, including E. coli O26. This past May, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) petitioned the USDA to declare four antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella known to have caused foodborne illness and outbreaks adulterants. Last year STOP Foodborne Illness (STOP) petitioned the USDA to declare the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) top six non-O157 shiga toxin producing E. coli (STEC) adulterants as well. 

At a time when consumer confidence in the food supply is shaky at best, it is not only foolhardy of those members of Congress looking to roll back or block regulations designed to protect public health and safety, it is unconscionable. Consumers are looking for more protection from unsafe food, not less. Instead, Congress should be bolstering regulators’ oversight of the food industry, thereby bolstering consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in six – 48 million Americans – get sick every year from something they have eaten. More than 125,000 of those are sickened so seriously that they require hospitalization. And every year, 3,000 people die from foodborne illnesses. This latest multi-state foodborne illness outbreak is another warning that now is the wrong time to be talking about weakening our nation’s regulatory system.

Our food safety system has been broken for decades. My only child, Alex, died when he was only six years old in 1993 from E. coli O157:H7 ground beef after a family cook-out in Chicago. His suffering before his death was brutal. In 2006 Wisconsin resident Jillian Castro was training for her third marathon and in perfect health. After eating a salad she made with bagged spinach from the store, Jillian got very sick and was ultimately diagnosed with E. coli O157:H7 poisoning. Margo Moskowitz was a junior in college in South Carolina who took a nibble from a store-bought roll of cookie dough in May 2009 and ended up in the hospital, she too a victim of E. coli poisoning. Both Jillian and Margo, neither one in the high-risk category for most serious forms of foodborne illness, were at death’s door but thankfully pulled through. My son was not so fortunate. And, unfortunately, these three stories are neither unique nor rare. 

Those who work to block, delay, or rescind vital regulations want to make it easier for businesses to operate, but they ignore the protections these rules provide. This is why STOP has joined forces with the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, an alliance of health, consumer, labor, scientific, research, good government, faith, community, environmental and public interest groups working to preserve our country’s system of regulatory safeguards. We must turn back the assault on our nation’s public protections.

Weakening vital safeguards and cutting already underfunded budgets is a dangerous game and places all of us at risk – especially those most vulnerable to food-borne illnesses: our young children, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems and pregnant women. Congress must not allow corporate profits to trump public health and safety. After all, we all have to eat.

Nancy Donley is president of STOP Foodborne Illness, a national non-profit public health organization dedicated to the prevention of illness and death from foodborne pathogens.