Government's Recent Outlook On Food Safety After Peanut Tainting Case

Government's Recent Outlook On Food Safety After Peanut Tainting Case

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repeatedly promised reforms.

Far too often, contaminated food is not recalled until too late, Mr. Obama said last year. When I am president, it will not be business as usual when it come down to food safety. I will provide additional support to hire more Food and Drug Administration food inspectors.

Nearly all of the proposed legislation under consideration would require companies like the Peanut Corporation of America to lay out specific plans for manufacturing safely and testing routinely. The bills would require that test results and other records be made available to F.D.A. inspectors upon demand, and would provide additional money for more intense inspections of domestic and foreign food manufacturers. Some would also fix the patchwork system by which outbreaks are detected.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, also propose creating a food agency independent of the Government so that food would receive single-minded attention. At present, at least 12 federal agencies regulate food safety. The battle between those who would strengthen the F.D.A. or Food and Drug Administration and those who would break it up will be an important fight this year.

I think I can prevail on the president to take a fresh look at this, Mr. Durbin said. We can no longer forgive or explain whats happening with food safety in the U.S..

Not the White House nor the Health and Human Services Department would comment on Thursday. But the recent peanut situation, critics say, demonstrates just how very bad the system needs fixing, beginning with the patchwork surveillance system that is the first indicator that something has gone very wrong.

Incidents similar to Christophers are reported to local health departments, which in turn are to report them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By mid-November, the disease centers had seen enough cases of a similar strain of salmonella to worry.

The numbers were not necessarily significant initially one here, one there, said Lola Russell, a disease centers spokeswoman. Over time, those numbers began to rise.

By mid-December, the Minnesota Department of Health, known as among the best in the U.S., had received reports of nine people with salmonella poisoning. As a result, the departments Team Diarrhea, a team of graduate students who work nights, started getting in touch with patients and their caregivers to get information about their food choices .

We had a bunch of people that like peanut butter, said Carlota Medus, a state epidemiologist. But none of the brand names were matching up well.

Other states were reporting similar situations, but as in Minnesota, no one could figure out the shared food. The process is filled with uncertainty. State health officials ask people what they remember eating in the days leading up to when they became ill. Poor recollection and bad information side swipe these attempts, and officials are often sent on useless pursuits.

Having to wait is part of the problem. More than two weeks will sometimes pass between the time someone is diagnosed with an illness and the result of a stool sample test is givin to Government officials.

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