Feds Consider Steady Diet of Regs to Fix U.S. Food Safety Network
Elizabeth Armstrong & daughter Ashley
Photo by Alan Ingram
You could fill a shopping cart with foods recently linked to outbreaks of illness caused by contamination. In June, it was cookie dough. In May, it was alfalfa sprouts. Before that, it was pistachios, peanuts, spinach, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers and, of course, hamburger.
Hardly a month goes by without Americans falling prey to another nasty pathogen lurking somewhere in the gleaming aisles, coolers and produce displays of the local supermarket.
The steady parade of well-publicized outbreaks of food-related illness has creat-ed a rare political alignment. Angry, frightened consumers and a food industry haunted by the double specter of bad publicity and lawsuits both appear ready to embrace actions by the federal government to make the U.S. food supply safer.
And the federal government has begun to take some of those steps. In March, President Barack Obama announced the formation of a Food Safety Working Group to develop proposals for upgrading federal food safety laws and improving coordination among at least a dozen federal entities that share responsibility for the safety of the nation’s food supply. Some of the working group’s recommendations already are being put into effect.
Continue reading the full article, “Hungry For Change,” in the September ABA Journal online.
Note: Register for this month’s CLE “Don’t Eat That! Issues in Food Safety,” from 1-2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Sept. 16.
