Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : Bill Marler : Marler Clark

Center for Science in the Public Interest's
Food Safety Solutions

This latest recall represents a fundamental failure in USDA's mission to
keep sick animals out of the human food supply. On-site USDA inspectors
apparently failed to stop these practices for two years, resulting in the
biggest recall in our nation's history. Following 18 months of food
scares, ranging from tainted spinach to poisoned pet food, this massive
meat recall is proof positive that Congress must fully fund and remake our
food safety agencies.

Here are five steps necessary to improve food safety:

1. Modernize the food inspection program to make it comprehensive and
effective, from farm to table. It should include product sampling and a
risk-based schedule for inspections with clear authority for inspectors to
travel from the farms to foreign countries to ensure the safety of the US
food supply.

2. Require all food growers and processors to implement mandatory process
controls to prevent food contamination. Any one who wants to produce food
for sale in the U.S. should have a food safety management plan, written
and subject to auditing by its customers, and state and federal
regulators.

3. Give USDA and FDA (or a new agency) mandatory recall and tracking authority over the
food supply. Ensure that both agenices can track tainted products to
their source and also require companies to recall product with full
information going to the public on where recalled products were sold.

4. Toughen the penalties for violating food safety laws and for
producing, processing or knowingly selling tainted products. Existing
statutes have only a patchwork of fines and penalties -- decades old, and
clearly not effective.

5. Put all these elements in a modern food safety law passed by Congress,
creating strong federal oversight by a single federal agency with an
increased budget that coordinates with state and foreign governments to
ensure safe food in this country, whether the food is domestically
produced or imported.

Caroline Smith DeWaal
Food Safety Director
Center for Science in the Public Interest
e-mail cdewaal@cspinet.org
On the internet:
www.cspinet.org
www.safefoodinternational.org