This is a mirror of the White House press release, March 4, 1998, from the White House Briefing Room.
This is a mirror of the White House press release, March 4, 1998, from the White House Briefing Room.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 4, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING
BY
SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE DAN GLICKMAN,
FDA ACTING ADMINISTRATOR MICHAL FRIEDMAN,
AND UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENATIVE CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY
The Briefing Room
2:27 P.M. EST
MR. LOCKHART: Hello, everybody. Before Mike comes
down, we've got some people here to answer your questions on the food
safety event that the President has just held.
Joining us today is Secretary of Agriculture, Dan
Glickman; Michael Friedman, who's the lead deputy FDA Commissioner;
and the United States Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky.
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: Thank you. Questions?
(Laughter.)
Q I think there are a whole bunch of guys out there,
still with some of the --
Q At the stakeout.
Q What's your opposition to this?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: I'm sorry?
Q What's the opposition to this?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: Let me phrase it in a positive
way, if I may. The legislation that's being proposed provides the
Food and Drug Administration with an important new authority. Rather
than being reactive and waiting to discover that some food that's
being imported is not wholesome or has an offending microbe, this
puts in place preventative systems so that the standards that are
used in the United States, the level of protection that we have for
our produce will be available in produce that's imported from other
countries.
It's an important public health measure and we think is
very much on the minds of American citizens.
Q So what's the opposition and how is it that it's
not adopted instantly?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: Well, I think that concerns
that could be raised have to do with will this in fact be based on
science, and they certainly will; will these be collaborative and
collegial, they will; will these standards be put in place as
voluntary guidances that are generated by the best minds thinking
about this kind of thing, the answer is certainly yes.
We think that this is very much not only in the public's
interest, but we think it has important ramifications for even
improving trade in the future because of the quality of the product.
So we're very keen and see this as a major positive step.
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: If I may just say -- I'm sure there
are concerns out there that steps like these, in some people's minds,
are efforts to restrict trade, to keep products out. And I think our
point is, particularly in the area of agriculture, since we export
$60 billion worth of agriculture commodities every year, that free
and fair trade is life or death to American agriculture, as it is to
other segments of the economy.
And what we're saying here is that under the trade
rules, we have the authority to set the highest standards of health
and safety as we think we need to and are consistent with good
science. And there will be some from around the world, however, that
will argue that this is a trade disrupting effort. We disagree with
that. We work on similar problems with other countries all the time
with respect to inflows of meat, other particular products, and it
works out satisfactorily.
So this is an effort to ensure that the citizens of this
country are given the fullest protection possible and it is not a
trade disrupting effort. That would be a dagger in the heart of
American agriculture.
Q Secretary Glickman, what should go through the mind
of a consumer when they go to the grocery store and see -- should
they be hesitant to buy produce that has imported labels when they
hear about these cyclo-spora outbreaks and other problems?
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: No. By and large, I think the food
that's served in this country is safe. There is no question that we
have had a history of inspection of meat and poultry since the 1920s
that I think gives the consumer the confidence that somebody is
looking, watching, and testing that product as it goes through lines.
And what we're doing here is providing basically similar
authorities to the FDA and giving them the resources to do that kind
of thing. But if consumers use good judgment and they buy products
that are served in America's grocery stores, by and large it's safe.
I don't think they would be there if they weren't safe. The grocery
store wouldn't serve it if it weren't safe. But we're trying to make
it safer and we're trying to fill in the gaps.
The fact of the matter is, we have, as the President
says, a global economy. We have food moving from around the world,
that no longer moves from 20 and 30 miles from your house. It's now
produced, marketed, and transported everywhere in the world. And so
the consumer just needs a higher standard of protection from their
government.
Q Do any of the three of you have any qualms about
produce from any country? Do you eat imported produce from any
country as you go to the store?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: I think the American consumer
should have confidence in the quality of the product that is being
served in stores. I think that it's important to recognize that this
legislation not only recognizes the vast number of imports that come
into the United States today, but predicts in the future that there
will be even larger number of imports. What we want to put in place
is a scientifically based system that will effectively and
efficiently deal with that vast volume of increased produce which
will be coming in.
The number of food items coming into the United States
as imports has doubled over the past five to seven years, promises to
go up at least that steeply in the future. That's a tremendous
benefit to the American consumer. We want to have systems in place
that will do the best we can to assure the quality, the wholesomeness
of that food product; but I think the American consumer should be
confident.
AMBASSADOR BARSHEFSKY: If I might just add -- there are
two sets of issues when you look at agricultural food safety and
market access. On the import side, of course, we established the
absolute right in the Uruguay Round agreements in 1994 that countries
can set the highest health and safety standards it wishes, provided
only that they're not discriminatory and that they are based on
science. The steps we're taking today conforms completely with those
rules.
On the export side, because as Secretary Glickman has
said, $60 billion of our agriculture leaves the U.S. for foreign
markets, we have to be absolutely sure that phony science doesn't
block our exports, that phony or trumped-up sanitary and
phyto-sanitary barriers don't block our exports. So we are very
commited to sound science as the absolute standard to govern imports
here and to govern exports there.
Q Can I ask you all a question. I know countries
like Guatamala depend a lot on the sale of raspberries; Mexico,
strawberries. Do your rules permit technical assistance? Maybe
Guatamala doesn't have all the money to spend on some of the
measures. Will you be able to provide countries like Guatamala with
technical -- I think that would be just as interested --
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: I think that's a very important
question. Not only does our planning -- as you know, the President
and the administration has put in place an ambitious but very
promising food safety program. Technical assistance, education and
collegial interactions are at the very heart of that.
What we're proposing are to identify those scientific
standards which assure a level of protection that the United States
has, but to assist foreign countries in achieving those levels. So
that's exactly at the heart of it.
Q While you're talking about sound science, do you
folks have any studies that show that imported produce is
contaminated at a greater rate than domestic produce?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: I think that there are vast
volumes of imported materials, that these are very safe. There are
rare examples where that isn't the case. I think this is not so much
a recognition of a discrepancy between foregin and domestic at this
point, as it is trying to increase the quality of our food supply
from wherever it comes and, again, looking to the future. There are
new sources of food. There are new pathogens that may emerge. There
are different kinds of preparations that may be envisioned.
We want to position ourselves in the best way so that
the American consumer can be confident in food in the future.
Q Can you tell us what the inspection program is
right now for domestic produce? If you go to a farm stand and pick
-- and purchase fruit or vegetables that supposedly come straighht
from the farm, are you telling consumers those have been inspected or
in some cases have been inspected or how does that work?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: No. I think what we're saying
is largely those have not been inspected. There are agricultural
practices that are often in place that farmers adhere to. But we
know that the kinds of water quality, field sanitation, worker safety
-- those are some of the general features that one might look at and
we have a good sense of those in the United States.
What we want to do is to examine our own practices, make
sure that any guidance that should be offered to improve them is
offered. And then, as you've just heard, as the Ambassador said, we
want to have a level playing field so that everyone can make use of
those good scientific practices.
Q It sounds like that there are no inspections here,
you're saying that there should be inspections in other countries and
it's not a level playing field.
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: No, no. First of all, let me say
this. By and large, the only part of the American food supply that's
subject to federal regulation inspection on an intensive, day-to-day
basis is meat and poultry. That's historical. We do that. We
regognize that there are problems with ensuring the public food
safety at the highest level on both domestic and imported foods.
As a part of the President's proposal, there are
guidelines being proposed where USDA is going to help producers of
fresh fruits and vegetables upgrade their standards -- voluntary
guidelines, but recognizing that that has to part of the food safety
scheme as well. It's not just imported produce.
We do think that by and large the standards of water
quality and production methods probably are as high in the United
States -- are higher than anywhere else in the world. But I can't
give you an epidemiological study that gives you a difference between
the data between what's grown here and what's grown elsewhere. All
we do know, there have been some reported cases in recent years
having to do with imported produce. But these standards do require
the establishment of guidelines so domestic producers develop methods
to ensure public health and safety as well.
Given that --
Q Mr. Secretary, there's a trade association which is
questioning why the proposed law would make the food supply any
safer, suggesting that it is already more than safe enough.
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: Let me answer your question in
two ways if I may. First of all, I think it's a question for the
American consumer, what is safe enough. And we know that the
American consumer wants to have the safest possible food supply. So
we have to do everything that we can, again, not just for today, but
to recognize the future risks and benefits that may occur.
The second is that what exists now for the Food and Drug
Administration is largely a reactive system, one which looks at
products once they're at dockside or once they're being imported.
That is somewhat effective, but we know that we can be more effective
and use our resouces more efficiently if we reach out to institute
preventative kinds of activities.
It makes very good sense. We've had very good
relationships and very good success with other countries doing this
sort of technical assistance and education. We've worked very
successfully for low-acid canned foods with Europe, with a number of
produce from different South American countries. We've had a very
successful program with the Mexican government for pesticide
residues. We know that this sort of interaction can be very
effective. These are authorities that don't exist right now.
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: And I would also say, a big part of
the President's intitiative is money for grower outreach and
education in this country, to try to do our best to improve standards
of hygiene and food safety, as well. You have the legislation, but
you also have a whole litany of proposals under the President's food
safety initiative which is over $100 million a year total in
additional money.
Q Well, Ambassador, if I may, can I just ask you,
there seemed to be some concern on the part of industry
representatives outside that if we were to hold back food,
vegetables, produce that we didn't think met our standards, that they
would boycott American exports.
AMBASSADOR BARSHEFSKY: I don't think that that is a
realistic threat because of the way in which an issue of not allowing
imports in would arise. That is, there would have to be a
demonstration that the imports do not meet legitimate science-based
U.S. health and safety regulation. All countries around the world
have the right to stop agricultural products or other products which
do not conform to domestic health and safety regulation. This
legislation simply brings us up to that standard practice that many
other countries have employed.
Q Two quick questions, Mr. Secretary. One, I'm a
little confused on the percentages here when the President and Vice
President talked about how many -- is there a percentage of what's on
most people's grocery shelves that is imported, not currently --
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: Do you remember the numbers? The
Undersecretary has the numbers, but --
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: I believe it's roughly 13
percent of fruits are imported currently; nearly 40 percent of
vegetables, and more than 50 percent of seafood in the United States
is currently imported. I'm sorry, eight percent of vegetables.
Q What is the vegetable figure?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: Eight percent.
Q And on seafood, you got to my next point. Is
seafood included under this?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: Well, what the Food and Drug
Administration currently has is a hazard analysis and critical
control point, so-called HACCP program. That's in place currently.
That is very successful. There are differences between that and what
we're proposing here. That's a mandatory system. It's also
scientifically based. It's very much like what the Secretary has
been putting in place for poultry and for meat. What we've found
since so much of that is imported from other countries is that rather
than serving as erecting a trade or tariff barrier, rather than
obstructing trade, in fact it's seen as something that assures the
quality of the product and we think may even enhance trade in the
future.
Q So is seafood -- is there mandatory inspection or
control of seafood?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: There are mandatory controls,
there are mandatory standards. There is not mandatory inspections in
foreign countries. There are mandatory responsibilities that are
placed upon the importer to assure that whatever the features are
about that particular kind of seafood that we think are critical to
the wholesomeness of that food, that those issues have been properly
addressed. It might be temperature, it might be storage time, it
might be how the product is caught. Each different kind of product
might be different.
But they are responsible for showing us the records that
these things have been attended to. It's a scientifically based
system. I think it has a lot of promise. We've spent a lot of
energy educating both domestic and others about it. We're
optimistic. We need to test it.
Q But you don't plan any changes on seafood?
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: For seafood, no, ma'am, we do
not. That system is going forward.
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: Let me just do this in context
because it's important to -- we started with meat and poultry. Why?
Because we had the filthy questions in the 19-teens and 1920s, and
Upton Sinclair wrote a book called "The Jungle." And so we began the
inspection. We have nearly 10,000 inspectors and veterinarians from
USDA at meat-packing plants here and around the world. They all have
to basically meet the high standards that we have. And then for a
foreign country to ship in meat into this country, it has to be as
safe as the meat that's served in this country.
As our dietary patterns began to change, we began to eat
different items, including a huge amount of fresh fruits and
vegetables, because the doctors tell you that's good for you. And we
like to eat them full time, all year round, not just in the periods
of time when they can grow in this country. And so because of that,
the volume has increased exponentially. And that has created food
safety challenges, both for domestically produced, but particularly
for food that's imported, where there are no schemes of watching
what's going on. And that's one of the reasons why we want to make
sure that fruit and vegetables undergo a similar regime to what meat
and poultry does.
We are also -- the food safety issue is a fluid issue.
It is one that -- I suspect the President is going to talk about this
issue repeatedly, because it is one of those things that is on
everybody's mind, everywhere in the country. As I go around the
country, they don't ask me as much about the price of soybeans as
they do ask me how hot should they cook their hamburger. And it's a
change in attitude in terms of what people are going on.
So we're in the process not only of this particular
announcement, but having a continuing dialogue within the
administration and Congress how we upgrade our food safety systems to
ensure that the public continues to have the confidence that the
systems are safe. So I suspect you're going to see further
announcements as times go on in order to improve the system.
Q Mr. Secretary, can you tell us which countries have
the best food inspection systems and which ones have the worst
currently?
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: No, I can just tell you I believe
the United States has the best food inspection system.
Q But aside from the United States, any winners and
losers in those two categories?
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: I'll let -- I'm certainly not going
to answer that.
ADMINISTRATOR FRIEDMAN: No, no. It's not a simple
question to ask, and we won't apply these standards in simple-minded
ways. What you do is ask about all of the factors that affect how
food is grown, processed and shipped; and then look at the particular
kind of food, look at the particular country, even look at the time
of the year. What you want to have are standards in place that
assure U.S. levels of protection. That can be achieved in a number
of ways. What we want to do is to establish the goals and then work
with the countries to come up with the very best ways to achieve
that.
And this will not be a simple-minded activity. Inherent
in your question is something very important. It might be possible
that a particular country doesn't have standards in place
country-wide; but it is entirely possible that there may be some
farms or plantations in that country that do meet every standard that
one could envision. Produce from those farms will be allowed into
the United States. This is not meant to be some sort of blanket
obstruction. This is meant to focus on the public health aspect and
to protect the American consumer.
The Secretary has made a couple of very important
points, if I may, I'd just like to underscore. The administration
has made a very serious, very consistent commitment to the health of
our citizens and providng our citizens with better quality food.
That's been a consistent theme. This is another important step in
that theme.
Secondly, the irony is that at a time when we understand
better how nutrition plays an important role in the maintenance of
health, in the prevention of disease, just as that time when we
understand the medicine of nutirition we want to have available to
our citizens the very best, most wholesome food in sufficient
supplies. The two things just go hand-in-hand. I think those are
two very important points that he made.
AMBASSADOR BARSHEFSKY: Let me, if I might, because of
the import of your question, point out that the bulk of our
agricultural trade issues and trade disputes, the vast bulk are
between the United States and the European Union -- developed country
to developed country. That is where most of the most difficult
sanitary and phyto-sanitary barrier disputes exist. The European
Union is concerned about our poultry, concerned about our beef,
concerned about our corn, concerned about our soybeans. We have
similar concerns coming in the other way. That's where the bulk of
disputes arise.
Developing countries have, by and large, tended to want
to learn how to improve their practices; they're very, very
receptive, by and large. And we work very, very closely with them
through technical assistance program and other programs. They
appreciate, I think, generally, that reliability of supply is
critical. But the fact that a country is developing or developed is
not at all dispositive; and, indeed, when you look at the range of
disputes, they tend to be with the European Union.
Q Just to clarify, I have one more question. So
you're saying that we don't know which U.S. farms do or don't have
these standards, but we're professing to find out which foreign farms
do and don't have these standards?
SECRETARY GLICKMAN: No, that's not quite correct. I
think that there are a variety of inspections -- and I'm sorry if I
wasn't clear in answering your question before. There are a variety
of inspections that do take place of produce that made in the United
States. Often, it is not on the farm, often it will -- more often,
it will be at the grocery store or a distributors, places like that.
Those inspections do take place.
It's very important to understand that growers,
agricultural associations in the United States feel that the kind of
guidance practices that we're talking about are so important that
they are doing it. They're devising these now, they're educating
their members about it. Clearly, this is a theme that the vast
majority of people think is an important one. And we're proceeding
along that. We want to work together, we want to make it scientific,
we want to make it practical. Most of all, we want to build the
confidence of the American consumer.
Thank you all very much.
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END 2:50 P.M. EST
This is a mirror of the White House press release, March 4, 1998, from the <http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/html/briefroom.html> White House Briefing Room.
Additional information on the initiative to ensure the safety of imported and domestic fruits and vegetables.