The Senate Fiddles While America Falls Ill
by Matthew Madia, 9/9/2010
Eighty-five food recalls have sickened at least 1,850 people since July 30, 2009, the day the House passed a food safety reform bill that has yet to be taken up by the Senate, a new study shows.
Most of those illnesses, almost 1,500, are linked to the ongoing recall of more than 500 million eggs contaminated with salmonella. Eight other recalls have been linked to between one and 272 illnesses each, according to the study. The remaining recalls have not been linked to any illnesses. However, foodborne illnesses are vastly underreported. While investigators may only pinpoint the cause of a few thousand cases a year, tens of millions of Americans are sickened annually, according to the CDC.
The study, conducted by U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Consumer Federation of America, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, looked only at FDA-regulated products. The food safety reform bill targets the FDA, providing it with additional resources and regulatory tools to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks.
The groups are using the study to call out the Senate, urging it to make food safety reform its first priority when it returns next week from recess. From the press release:
In 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assured young Rylee Gustafson, the survivor of the 2006 spinach outbreak, that food safety was a priority. “We’re going to do everything we can to get this legislation done,” Reid said. A month later, the bipartisan food safety bill was unanimously reported out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. But more than a year—and 59 recalls—later, no vote has been scheduled.
