Put Food Safety in One Pot
In an era when free trade is accelerating the movement of food across borders, when food-borne pathogens have developed increased virulence, when genetically modified foods are rousing public concern and when herbal supplements are regulated as food but used as drugs, the need for sharp and coherent federal oversight of food safety is urgent.
Unfortunately, the nation’s system for ensuring the safety of its food supply does not meet today’s needs.
Small wonder. The system was crafted more than three decades ago, before modern food production had evolved, and it relies on a patchwork of inspectors who, scattered helter-skelter across a dozen unrelated federal agencies, cannot possibly craft coherent or consistent policies. One example: The Food and Drug Administration is technically responsible for ensuring that genetically modified foods are safe, but foods genetically engineered to contain pesticides are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. However, crops with genes that could endanger certain plants and wildlife are regulated by the Agriculture Department.
In 1998, the National Academy of Sciences, reflecting the consensus of food safety experts, urged Congress to “establish a unified, central framework for managing food safety programs” headed by a single person. A new draft recommendation by the President’s Council on Food Safety stops well short of that goal, arguing that current agencies “have developed different systems for protecting the food supply, and bring different strengths and shortcomings to the current system,” therefore a single agency wouldn’t work.
Those differences between agencies, however, are part of the problem. New technologies to detect pathogens, along with more of the inspectors who use them, should be deployed to monitor all at-risk food groups evenly. But the present system is rife with inequities. While microbial testing is mandated in meat plants, it’s optional in seafood plants, and while poultry plants are inspected daily, regulators visit milk and cheese plants once every eight years.
The food safety council, composed largely of Washington bureaucrats and industry officials who have learned to work the system to their own advantage, is hardly a neutral advisory body. President Clinton should overrule its recommendation to preserve the status quo and get to work on a unified safety system. The presidential candidates should recognize the need to elevate public safety above turf battles and support him in unison.
