By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The ongoing salmonella outbreak, along with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) inability so far to nail down the source of the bug, was the occasion for another pitch to streamline the nation’s food safety system nationwide.

Earlier this month Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) highlighted a recently completed General Accountability Office (GAO) report that examines food safety systems in other countries.

“Today’s GAO report shows that America ranked eighth out of eight countries – dead last – in terms of national food safety systems,” Durbin said in a press release July 14. “Why? The other countries studied have integrated food safety systems. Our practice of making piecemeal changes to outdated laws is simply ineffective.
“I hope today’s report serves as a wake-up call for the Administration and others in Congress. We need a thoughtful overhaul and reorganization of America’s food safety system. These changes don’t have to happen all at once. But they need to start now.”

For the past several years Durbin and DeLauro have promoted The Safe Food Act. Their proposal would consolidate the U.S. food safety system into a single agency. No longer would the FDA be responsible for some food safety issues, the USDA others and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, still others.

“This GAO report highlights how effectively a single food safety agency could protect our food supply,” DeLauro said in the news release.

The report, dated June 2008, examines food safety agencies in seven other countries. It’s really an update of a 2005 study. Lisa Shames, director of the GAO’s food and agricultural issues office, directed the study, along with several others.

“We have much more updated information on the food systems than we had two years ago,” Shames said.

The study examines food safety systems in Canada, the European Union, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Although the study doesn’t make an explicit comparison between the United States’ food safety system and the other countries’, it’s clear that the countries examined take a “comprehensive” approach to their food safety efforts.

“Under the ‘farm-to-table’ approach, for example, food safety laws cover every stage of the food production process, starting with how animals are raised and ending when food reaches the consumer,” the report stated.

Agencies charged with ensuring the safety of food have clear traceback procedures, cooperative arrangements between government veterinarians and public health officials and mandatory recall authority. Businesses that are part of the food supply chain are charged with keeping accurate and complete records.

“Food and feed business operators must be able to document the names and addresses of the supplier and customer, as well as the nature of the product and date of delivery,” the report stated.
The report states that food safety challenges are increasing. Experts in the countries examined stated that food safety challenges they are concerned about include “climate change,” the increase in the population of the elderly and an increased popularity of raw foods, such as ready-to-eat salads.

The authors themselves expressed concern about imported foods. In their letter to Durbin and DeLauro – who requested this study from the GAO after a previous food scare – the authors state that the dollar value of agricultural imports to the U.S. for consumption increased by about 53 percent in just four years, between 2003-07.
“The United States also trades with more than 150 countries and territories, with food products coming into more than 300 U.S. ports,” the letter stated.

The 101-page report is available in its entirety at the GAO website, at www.gao.gov by entering the GAO report number: GAO-08-794.