Congress to pass food safety law in 2010: DeLauro

Last Updated: 2010-03-17 15:32:53 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Christopher Doering and Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress will pass a new law to overhaul the antiquated U.S. food safety system by the end of the year, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, an influential House lawmaker, said on Wednesday.

"I have every confidence that we are going to pass food safety legislation and this legislation is going to get to the president for a signature and that that's going to happen this year," said DeLauro, chairman of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.

The House passed its bill last July. But a companion Senate bill has been held up by work on healthcare and financial regulatory reform, and has also been stalled by the U.S. Trade Representative's office, which wants to ensure reforms do not contravene trade agreements, DeLauro said.

The Connecticut Democrat was speaking at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit.

DeLauro, an advocate for tougher food safety laws, said her subcommittee will hold hearings in the next couple of months to examine whether new trade agreements negotiated by the United States should include food safety provisions.

"We need to do something before the agreement is put into place that guarantees that the product and its process and its manufacture is equal to the process that exists in the United States," she said.

DeLauro's subcommittee effectively banned U.S. imports of Chinese chicken for two years, sparking a WTO complaint.

The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, has "made some impressive strides in rectifying their problems," DeLauro said, but she said more needs to be done.

Since 2006, the U.S. food supply has been battered by a series of high-profile outbreaks involving lettuce, peppers, peanuts and spinach.

An estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick every year with foodborne illness and 5,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's amazing that until people start to die we don't take notice of the difficulties that are out there," DeLauro said.

Even in the past month, regulators had to recall foods made with a common flavoring contaminated with salmonella and recall more than 1 million pounds of sausages and salami.

Foodborne illnesses cost the United States $152 billion in health-related expenses each year, according to a study released this month by public health groups.

The new law considered by Congress would give FDA mandatory recall authority, increase the frequency of food inspections and require food safety plans for foodmakers.

Lawmakers next need to look at the role of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is charged with inspection of meat, poultry and eggs, DeLauro said.

An expert panel of scientists should examine whether the USDA system needs reforms, she said.

Unsafe conditions prompted Huntington Meat Packing Inc, a California meat company, to recall nearly 6 million lbs of beef and veal earlier this year. That recall, though large, trails the biggest-ever recall in 2008 by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing, of 143 million pounds of meat.