FOOD SUPPLY - Safety scrutinized

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Safety of nation's food supply is scrutinized By Bill Lambrecht Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau 11/04/2001 05:40 AM

WASHINGTON - The nation's fevered preparation for future terrorist attacks could begin to remedy a problem that exists now -- an undercurrent of distress in America from food poisoning.

New bioterrorism legislation being fashioned in Congress aims to plug gaps in the food monitoring system that contribute to a problem worse than most people realize: 76 million food-borne illnesses annually; 325,000 hospitalizations and as many as 5,000 deaths, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The food industry disputes those numbers and argues that most of the illnesses are due to careless handling.

Nonetheless, leading food manufacturers are now ready to accept more inspections, a spokesman said.

Several senators -- among them Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. -- are seizing on the new climate of concern to include food safety provisions in bioterrorism legislation expected to be introduced this week.

But unlike some of the nation's many new security measures that gird for the future, sponsors say that new food protections could pay a dividend now in fixing a system that many health professionals and watchdog agencies feel is deficient.

"What we have is the opportunity to give the government clear authority not just to deal with potential problems but to strengthen our hand in protecting our food supply," Durbin said.

Three years ago, investigators tracked a salmonella outbreak from Chicago down to St. Clair and Madison counties. They concluded that the problem arose from an oat cereal sold at a chain store with outlets across Illinois.

The 46 victims of salmonellosis - a flulike illness caused by bacteria - were among about 4 million cases in the United States annually. Last year, Illinois reported 1,502 confirmed cases of salmonella; Missouri documented 713.

Many people don't even know how they have become afflicted with salmonella, E. coli, listeriosis or other bacteria, or don't report suspected food poisonings. Therefore, health officials don't know the extent of the problem.

"We know we only get reports of a small fraction of a huge number of cases that occur," said Dr. Maureen Dempsey, director of the Missouri Department of Health.

Dempsey said better surveillance and coordination with the federal government are especially important in the livestock-rich Midwest. "We have to worry about food as it begins in the food chain and how it's processed, not just how its served and delivered," she said.

Health professionals believe that more frequent government inspections would make food in America safer.

"In general, the food supply in the United States is reasonably safe and secure," said Craig Hedberg, a professor at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Diseases. "But I think that there are a lot of gaps and problems that need to be addressed."

Powers are contestedProposals circulating in Congress call for quadrupling the Food and Drug Administration's inspector corps: another 200 inspectors for imported food; 110 for domestic plants; and 100 in labs that analyze food.

Food industry officials have said that they will go along with more inspections even though they worry about increasing their costs and slowing the movement of food and raw materials.

New powers sought by Durbin and others would enable the FDA to gain access to food distribution records and more easily remove food from the market. Durbin also wants food processing plants to register with the government, something not required now.

"The government shouldn't have to look in the Yellow Pages to find out who is producing our food," remarked a Senate aide participating in negotiations that involve several Senate offices.

Negotiators have agreed on beefing up inspections and spending hundreds of millions of dollars more each year to protect the food supply. But as of Friday, they still were wrestling with how much new authority to vest in the government.

Meanwhile, the food industry is struggling to move the semantics of the debate away from the term food safety toward the newest post-Sept. 11 catchphrase in Washington - food security.

Internal documents circulating among leading food companies warn that their industry "may be vulnerable to security breaches."

"For this reason, all companies involved in the manufacture and supply of food and consumer products need to reassess their operations to protect their products against this potentially serious threat," according to documents prepared by the industry.

Among the proposals: undercover patrols in food plants and color-coded hats and uniforms that make it easier to tell if people are out of place.

Gene Grabowski, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, insisted that many of the changes being proposed in Congress would do little to protect food. His organization is the world's largest alliance of food, beverage and consumer-product companies, combining for $460 billion in sales last year.

Grabowski said that his members are leery about new authority for the FDA. "We think that trying to increase powers in an environment of heightened concern such as this is trying to solve problems that aren't really there," he said.

In what may be precursor of coming battles, the industry succeeded last week in killing an amendment in the Senate that would have enabled the Agriculture Department to close plants that fail tests for the salmonella bacteria.

That outcome prompted a warning by Durbin, who has vowed to wage a Senate floor fight if some of his proposals are not included in a bipartisan bill.

"I think that the food industry is one disaster away from public ridicule," he said. "At this moment in time, when Americans are concerned about the threats of bioterrorism, I think the food industry needs to have a heart-to-heart talk with its members and change its approach."

Changes are likely

Amid the new focus on security, Congress is paying attention to apparent shortcomings that it has ignored for years.

Earlier this year, the General Accounting Office - the investigative agency of Congress - said the government's food safety apparatus was beset by "inconsistent oversight and poor coordination." The investigators blamed a hodgepodge regulatory system with 12 separate agencies attempting to enforce 35 different laws.

The GAO's recommendation to form a single food-safety agency likely will go unheeded, said Durbin, who is sponsoring such a plan in the Senate. As Durbin sees it, a turf-protecting attitude pervades not only government agencies but also congressional committees, which for decades have maintained control over budgets and workings of the federal departments.

Nonetheless, other changes likely will result thanks to the new focus on food security.

The lack of consistency pointed out by the GAO is most apparent in the government's inspection practices. In hearings since the Sept. 11 attacks, members of Congress have seemed startled as they listened to bureaucrats describing how the system works.

The Food and Drug Administration, which is in charge of inspecting 70 percent of the nation's food, has just 150 inspectors in charge of 57,000 food establishments and food arriving at 132 ports. As a result, wholesale manufacturers see inspectors on the average once every five years.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department, which handles inspections of meat, poultry and processed egg products, has ten times as many inspectors as the FDA to handle 6,000 facilities.

Procedures for monitoring imported food are drawing special attention in the congressional negotiations, according to participants.

Last year, the FDA had the wherewithal to inspect just 1 percent of imported food, according to the General Accounting Office. The FDA lacks the authority to hold arriving food for extra inspection without obtaining a court order. As a result, 40 percent of food shipments found to violate U.S. standards disappear at the docks rather than being destroyed or sent back.

Where do they go?

"Presumably they were released into U.S. commerce," the GAO wrote in 1998.

In the past, consumer advocates led the charge, often fruitlessly, in arguing for new rules. But since Sept. 11, the nation's top health officials - among them Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson - has joined the chorus seeking change.

Lamenting the lack of FDA inspectors at his disposal, Thompson told a Senate hearing last month: "It doesn't give me the security that I would like."

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2001


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