May 6, 2000

RADIO ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION

                    THE WHITE HOUSE
               Office of the Press Secretary
___________________________________________________________________________
 
For Immediate Release                                         May 6, 2000
0
                      RADIO ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT
                               TO THE NATION
                              The Oval Office
          THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning.  Warm weather has finally taken
hold in most of the country, and millions of families are now taking
weekend picnics and hosting backyard barbecues.  Today, I want to speak
with you about the foods we serve at these gatherings, and how we can make
them even safer than they already are.
          Our food supply is the most bountiful in the world.  And for
seven years, now, our administration has been committed to making it the
safest in the world.  We've improved dramatically the nation's inspection
system for meat, poultry and seafood.  We've added new safeguards to
protect families from unsafe imported foods.  We've established a
sophisticated early warning system that uses DNA fingerprinting techniques
to detect and prevent outbreaks of food-borne illness.  From farm to table,
we've made great strides to ensure the safety of our food supply.
          But outbreaks of food-related illnesses are still far too
prevalent.  In fact, millions of Americans get sick from eating
contaminated food each year.
          One threat we must address immediately comes from a food-borne
pathogen called Listeria, which has been the cause of recent recalls of hot
dogs and luncheon meats, and several deadly outbreaks of disease.  The most
famous case emerged a year and a half ago, when Listeria killed 21 people
and sickened 100 others, all of whom had eaten contaminated meat from a
single plant.  It was the nation's most deadly food safety epidemic in 15
years.
          Fortunately, Listeria is less common than salmonella, E. coli,
and other food-borne bacteria.  But unfortunately, it is far more
dangerous.  A staggering 20 percent of Listeria infections result in death.
As with other food-borne bacteria, it's rarely healthy adults who come down
with Listeria infections.  Instead, it's the most vulnerable among us:
infants, the elderly, pregnant women, and those whose immune systems have
been weakened by chemotherapy or AIDS.
          While our administration has already taken a number of important
steps to reduce the threat of Listeria, it's clear we must do more to
protect Americans from this deadly pathogen.  So today, I'm directing the
Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to prepare an
aggressive new strategy to significantly reduce the risk of illness from
Listeria.  As part of this strategy, we will propose new regulations to
require scientific approaches, such as systematic testing for Listeria at
food-processing plants -- not just random checks.  This and other measures
will allow us to cut in half the number of Listeria-related illnesses over
the next five years, and save well over 1,000 lives.
          Today, I call on the food industry to work with us as we develop
our new Listeria strategy.  And I call on Congress to help us strengthen
food safety across the board.  Just this week, unfortunately, the Congress
took a major step backward by refusing to fully fund our food safety
initiative.  In fact, they've now voted to block funding for our new
efforts to protect millions of American families from the dangers of
salmonella poisoning in eggs.  We should be doing more, not less, to ensure
the safety of our food.
          If we work together, we can make real gains this year.  We can
increase the number of inspections of domestic and imported foods.  We can
expand the FDA's authority to turn away imported food that does not meet
our high safety standards.  And at long last, we can give the Department of
Agriculture the authority to recall bad food, and impose civil penalties
for repeat violations.  After all, the Department has the right to penalize
a circus to protect animals from harm; it's about time we gave them the
tools they need to protect human beings from harm, too.
          Ensuring the safety of our food and the health of our people are
among the most important parts of our citizens' basic contract with their
government.  For the sake of millions of Americans, especially the most
vulnerable among us, it's an obligation we simply must work together to
uphold.
          Thanks for listening.
                              END

This is a mirror of the White House radio address, May 6, 2000, from the <http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/html/briefroom.html> White House Briefing Room.