Wheat & Sky (photo by Cheryl Rankin, courtesy of morguefile.com)

“Every year, millions of people in the United States suffer from foodborne illness, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and thousands die,” according to recent testimony given by Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Dr. Hamburg stated that “A precondition for health is having access to safe food.” She cited changes in consumer dietary patterns, industry practices, U.S. population demographics, evolving pathogens, and an increasingly globalized food supply as posing challenges and requiring current government strategies to adapt.

She told the Senate Committee that the Food Safety Working Group appointed by President Obama in March, “…recommends a new public-health focused approach to food safety based on three core principles: prioritizing prevention, strengthening surveillance and enforcement, and improving response and recovery.”

Chief recommendations of the Working Group include providing the FDA with the tools needed to access basic food safety records at facilities and require mandatory recalls. In her testimony Dr. Hamburg noted that a coalition of consumer groups is fighting for improvements in the food safety system and major sectors in the food industry also support and are advocating for fundamental change. A food safety bill was recently passed by the House of Representatives, and a similar bill is under consideration in the Senate. She cited these factors as indicating broad support for legislative reform, “…so that more families do not have to suffer tragic consequences from foodborne disease.”

Dr. Hamburg added:

…even with the President’s support – even with the full efforts of HHS and USDA and other federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial food safety partners – and even with the backing of consumer groups and industry, our efforts will fall short unless Congress modernizes food safety laws to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.

To read Dr. Hamburg full statement before the Senate Committee go to: Keeping America's Families Safe: Reforming the Food Safety System

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