Senate approves Food Safety Modernization Act

December 1, 2010 — 

The U.S. Senate today approved the Food Safety Modernization Act by a vote of 73 to 25.

The legislation gives the Food and Drug Administration more authority, including the power to compel the mandatory recall of a contaminated food product and suspend a facility's registration if a reasonable probability exists that the food it produces could cause serious health consequences or death.

It also increases the number of FDA inspections at food facilities and enhances surveillance systems for food-borne illness outbreaks. The bill also calls for the creation of a pilot project to test methods for quickly tracking and tracing food during food-borne illness outbreaks. The bill also increases funding for the FDA, requires importers to verify the safety of imported food and calls for a national strategy to protect the food supply from terrorism.

Producers who sell directly to consumers and have less than $500,000 in annual sales will be exempted from some of the new regulations. These producers would still be subject to local and state food safety regulation, and the FDA would be able to withdraw the exemption if the farm or facility was associated with an outbreak of food-borne illness.

"For too long, we've allowed trips to the grocery store to be a gamble for American families," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and one of the bill's sponsors, said in a statement. "The bipartisan bill passed by the Senate today will give our citizens some long-overdue peace of mind in the supermarket aisles, establishing tough new protections against contaminated food."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said in debate earlier this month that the last substantial change to FDA food law was made in 1938. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced the legislation on March 3, 2009. The House of Representatives passed similar legislation in July 2009. (See "House passes food safety bill" on Meatingplace, July 31, 2009.) Now the Senate and House must reconcile their versions of the food safety reforms by the end of the session. Some Democrats in the House would consider passing the Senate version to speed up the process, according to The New York Times.

The meat industry has been watching this legislation with great interest. Even though most of its regulation comes from USDA, some meat industry lobbyists believe the passage of these sweeping changes to FDA regulation could spawn calls for similar reforms at USDA.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack praised the Senate action, saying, "As a co-chair of President Obama's Food Safety Working Group, I commend the Senate on today's passage of the food safety bill. There is no more fundamental function of government than protecting consumers from harm, which is why food safety is one of USDA's top priorities. The bill addresses longstanding challenges in the food safety and defense system by promoting a prevention-oriented approach and providing the Federal Government with appropriate tools to prevent foodborne illness."

Source:
MeatingPlace.com
By Dani Friedland on 11/30/2010