U.S. working on new safeguards for imported food
Agreeing that current safeguards have failed, Congress and the Bush administration are moving toward the creation of a new system for screening imported foods that would require American companies to certify that their foreign suppliers meet U.S. standards.
The system, an exception to the Bush administration’s general reluctance to expand federal regulation, would place a much heavier burden for consumer safety on the companies that import goods from China, Mexico and elsewhere.
The government would set the system’s rules, and the Food and Drug Administration would inspect more imports than it does now. But the bulk of the responsibility for ensuring safety would fall on the industry.
The sharpest point of contention so far is a Democratic proposal to pay for more port-of- entry inspections by charging importers a new fee, which industry groups oppose.
The Bush administration has said that it wants to reduce the strain on the severely overstretched system of inspections at ports. The new approach aims to build in scientifically sound methods for production, storage and shipping throughout the supply chain. An action plan is due in November.
“There is agreement that the current system of FDA inspections at the border doesn’t work, and there is agreement that FDA needs additional resources,” said William Hubbard, a retired senior FDA official who serves as a spokesman for a coalition of groups trying to boost the agency’s budget. “And there is a conceptual agreement that this prevention model is the way to go.”
Although most food eaten in this country is produced here, a variety of fresh produce and seafood is imported; so are an increasing number of ingredients in processed foods. The FDA has jurisdiction over the majority of such foods, and the Department of Agriculture oversees meat and poultry imports.
Consumer groups don’t want reforms to stop with imports. They say the safety of domestically produced foods must also be addressed, pointing out that the recent Topps Meat Co.’s hamburger recall involved a federally inspected domestic establishment and that last year’s huge spinach recall involved produce grown in California.
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Momentum for reform
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has called for creating an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services to take over the FDA’s role of overseeing imported and domestic foods. Under her plan, however, the agriculture department would still be responsible for meat and poultry.
“I think there is real momentum in the nation for reform -- addressing not only a rising flood of imports but also the serious need to reexamine our entire food safety system here at home,” she said last week.
DeLauro’s reforms could take time to establish, but there appears to be immediate pressure for strengthening import oversight.
The food industry agrees that there is a problem with the current system and has signaled that it is willing to accept new requirements. Under current rules, importers must provide advance notice of shipments and their point of origin. But those requirements do not disclose how imported foods are produced or what safeguards are used to ensure quality.
“With respect to the safety of imported food, no one is arguing that we need to do nothing,” said Stuart M. Pape, a Washington lawyer who represents the major food industry trade group. “I think everybody here agrees that the current system -- the status quo -- is intolerable.”
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Industry’s proposal
His client, the Grocery Manufacturers/Food Products Assn., or GMA, recently proposed a four-part import safety program that addressed several issues raised by the administration and by Congress:
* Importers would be required to set up safety programs for their suppliers in accord with FDA guidelines for minimum standards.
* Importers with high-quality programs, who are willing to undertake extra testing and voluntarily share their data with the FDA, would be eligible for speedy processing at U.S. ports.
* The United States would work with international organizations to establish comprehensive global safety standards for food, as well as with individual nations seeking to improve their own programs.
* The FDA budget would be increased so that additional scientists and inspectors could be hired. Currently, only about 1% of food imports are inspected. The number of inspections would be increased and could be better targeted to suppliers about whom little is known or who have a record of problems.
“There was a consensus within the industry that something needed to be done,” Pape said. “And if you consider a more prescriptive regulatory environment, or a system in which the industry takes on added responsibility, I think the latter struck [the industry] as more attractive.”
Consumer groups have reacted positively.
The GMA proposal “signals areas of agreement on which solutions to our food safety problems can be built,” Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in recent congressional testimony.
The Bush administration, in an interim report last month on its import safety initiative, said that “producers and the importing community will play a key role . . . by implementing preventive approaches and requiring these approaches from their suppliers.”
Such preventive approaches usually consist of a detailed program for preventing food from being contaminated or spoiled at each step from field to market. Government inspections would serve as an additional check on the new system.
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Fee on shipments
To pay for more inspections, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) has proposed a fee of up to $50 per shipment on imports. One shipping container can contain many individual food shipments on which the fee would be assessed.
One of the most senior members of Congress, Dingell leads the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has wide jurisdiction over the U.S. economy. His legislation also incorporates some elements of the industry proposal, such as speedy entry for shipments from firms with superior standards.
It is estimated that the fee could raise as much as $500 million a year, allowing the hiring of enough inspectors to check about 10% of shipments, and dramatically increasing the level of deterrence against shoddy or unscrupulous importers.
But the industry says the fee would amount to a tax and argues that the cost of food safety, like that of national defense, should be spread among all taxpayers.
However, a consensus for import safety legislation seems to be building.
“It would move from the FDA having to catch the problem by border inspection to [the agency] holding suppliers accountable for the quality of the food they sell and buy,” said Hubbard, the retired FDA official.
“The centerpiece will be to move from FDA inspection to supply-chain security.”
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ricardo.alonso-zaldivar @latimes.com
