Robert P. Casey Jr.
Casey offers food-safety bill
December 6, 2007
Source: Patriot News
By Brett Lieberman
WASHINGTON - Hoping to reassure consumers fearful of killer spinach, bacteria-tainted meat and swordfish with high levels of mercury, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. joined with a prominent Republican on Wednesday to try to address some of the problems posed by unsafe foods.
Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced legislation that would allow the federal government to hire 250 people to detect and track smuggled food and agricultural products.
The "EAT SAFE Act of 2007" would direct $31.5 million to the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It would include money for training agricultural specialists and border patrol agents from the Department of Homeland Security. Private laboratories that test food imports would have to be FDA certified.
Private laboratories that detect contaminated foods would be required to report test results to federal agencies. They are not required to do so now.
"We're dealing with what is not just a threat to people's health and safety, not just a threat to our economy, we're also dealing with a threat to national security if we don't get this right and put the kind of controls in place that we need to make sure that our food supply is safe," Casey said.
The proposal focuses on smuggled food or agricultural products and does not go as far as other legislative proposals. Casey called the measure a practical and affordable approach that deals with existing agencies without creating programs.
Their legislation is the only bipartisan food safety proposal introduced in the Senate, a fact that Casey hopes will improve its chances of passage.
Contaminated foods have been on the rise as more foods are imported from China and other countries. Most are not inspected by federal inspectors or tested in laboratories that report contaminants to government agencies.
Rising numbers of recalls or reports of illnesses, and some deaths, caused by contaminated or mislabeled food and agricultural products have taken a toll on consumer confidence. Only 66 percent of American consumers are confident the food they buy is safe, down from 82 percent last year, according to a Food Marketing Institute survey.
