A week ago I participated on a conference call, at S.T.O.P.’s invitation, with over one-hundred people and Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL). Mr. Durbin is the majority whip in the Senate and sponsor of bill S-510, the Food Safety Modernization Act. The bill is still in committee and may come up for vote by the end of the year.
If it should pass, it will need to go to conference to be reconciled with the House version (HR 875), and then it will be presented to the president for his signature. Many of the features of this bill that I hope will become reality involve improving the power of the FDA to maintain food safety. These new powers include:
- Improved testing, inspections, and analysis of our food processing centers
- Product recall and penalty imposition powers for code violations by corporations
- Ability to reject imports of unsafe foreign food
- Increased budget of $825 million
- Increased number of field reps from 800 to 5000 by 2014
Also participating on the call was Michael Taylor, senior advisor to Commissioner Margaret Hamburg of the FDA. Mr. Taylor spoke about the goals of putting these procedures in place should the bill be passed. He felt that it would take two years to get most items up and running and five years before everything would be in place and running efficiently.
This lengthy implementation time is one of the reasons our lawmakers will speed up the legislative process and get new, tough laws in place soon to improve the safety of our food. It can’t happen quickly enough!
Stay safe. —Kip
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