By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last week, the U.S. Senate passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which would give the federal government more power to monitor and regulate food companies.
The vote on the bill, called S.510, was 73-25, with two not voting. The bill’s main sponsor was Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.). He, along with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), have been pushing food safety legislation for several years, often in the wake of food contamination incidents.

This bill is not to be confused with one DeLauro is sponsoring in the House, however: The Food Safety Modernization Act (HR 875). That bill would create a whole new agency devoted to food safety.
According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, S.510 would require food companies to implement food safety plans. Large food companies would be required to register every two years, conduct a hazard analysis and implement preventive measures on their production lines to increase food safety. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would have more money for inspections and more authority to order recalls.

“Today’s vote will finally give the FDA the tools it needs to help ensure that the food on dinner tables and store shelves is safe,” Durbin said in a statement after the vote Nov. 30. “This bill will have a dramatic impact on the way the FDA operates – providing it with more resources for inspection, mandatory recall authority and the technology to trace an outbreak back to its source. I am proud of the work we have done, but our vigilance must continue.”

According to Durbin, more than 30 groups, representing both industry and consumers, support the legislation. These include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer’s Union, Food Marketing Institute and others.

Support for the bill, however, is neither unequivocal nor universal. The American Feed Industry Assoc. (AFIA) is supportive of the Senate bill, but not the House version of the bill passed in July 2009.

“As an industry, we prefer the Senate bill,” said Sarah Novak, a spokeswoman for the AFIA. “We’re a little bit at a standstill to see what the house is going to do here.”

She said the House is going to have to vote on the bill again because the Senate-passed bill includes new revenue for re-inspection fees. It’s believed that for Constitutional reasons, the House must vote on it first. This might give the House a chance to make other changes, too, she said.

The National Grain and Feed Assoc. (NGFA) doesn’t like the House-passed bill, either.

“We are proud of the significant measures already being taken by grain elevators, feed and feed ingredient manufacturers, and many others throughout the food and feed system to provide safe and wholesome products for domestic and world consumers,” said NGFA President Kendall Keith.

“While we continue to have issues with both bills, the Senate’s version is much preferable to the House-passed legislation and we would have very serious concerns if the House were to deviate from the Senate passed measure, if it proceeds to consider the bill during the Congressional lame duck session.”

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc. (NCBA) is opposed to the Senate bill because it includes an amendment that would exempt producers whose annual sales are fewer than $500,000, and who are not more than 275 miles away from the end user.

“Cattle producers across the country are committed to producing the safest and highest quality beef in the world,” said Kristina Butts, NCBA executive director of legislative affairs. “In fact, NCBA supports improvements to our nation’s food safety system that are based on sound science, focused on industry application and have a strong research foundation. Unfortunately, the Senate has lost sight of the fact that food safety knows no size, by attaching the Tester/Hagan amendment to this legislation.”

The amendment, named after its Senate sponsors, was added because some people were concerned that small companies wouldn’t be able to afford the costs associated with the new requirements.

Durbin and others have justified the greater federal role in managing the nation’s food supply chain by saying vast numbers of people are afflicted with a foodborne illness every year. According to Durbin, 76 million Americans suffer from preventable foodborne illness each year. 325,000 of them are hospitalized and 5,000 die.
How accurate are those statistics? They come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); according to its analysis, foodborne illness is characterized by “acute gastroenteritis,” what some call stomach flu. It believes that on average there is more than one case of stomach flu for every person in the United States each year, or at least 1.05 cases.

It subtracts those cases, however, that are accompanied with upper respiratory symptoms from the total because it believes those are probably not caused by foodborne pathogens.

That leaves a figure of 0.79 cases of stomach flu per person per year, or 211 million illnesses. Put another way, that would mean the average person gets sick with stomach flu three times every four years. It also estimates that 36 percent of those illnesses is caused by a foodborne pathogen, or 76 million illnesses.

“We estimate that foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year,” the analysis reads.
To see the analysis, go to www.
cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol5no5/mead.htm