Kids and Cafeterias: How Safe are Federal School Lunches?

April 30, 2002

This hearing would examine the adequacy of government oversight of the federal school lunch program, and how managerial and organizational deficiencies may be hurting the health of school children. The CDC reports a 56% increase from 1990-1997 in the number of outbreaks of illness from school lunches. In Illinois, 13 outbreaks from 1995-2000 sickened 890 children. As the Chicago Tribune reported in Dec. 2001, distribution companies ship frozen school entrees quickly throughout the U.S. and multi-state cafeteria management contractors put them on menus in multiple cities simultaneously, giving instant reach to plants that produce unsafe meals. A complex tapestry of food safety agencies, that often do not share information with each other, rarely tell schools when plants are cited or shut down for health violations. The result of this system is sick children in our nation's schools.