Food Safety In The 111th Congress

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Contents: (1) Intro.: Food Safety Incidents; Existing Food Safety Legal and Regulatory Landscape; Admin. Views; Congressional Response; Legislative Overview; Overview of Major Provisions; (2) Selected Issues: Registration; Record-Keeping; Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls; Performance Standards; On-Farm Safety Standards; Safety of Produce; Mitigating Effects on Small Bus. and Farming Operations; Targeting of Inspections; Use of Third Parties for Imports and for Lab. Accreditation; Mandatory Recall Authority; Notification of Contaminated Products, and Product Tracing; Foodborne Illness Surveillance and Outbreak Response; Criminal Penalties; Food Imports; Bisphenol A; Paying for Food Safety with User Fees. Ill.

In recent years, major outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, product recalls, and reports about unsafe food imports have caused some to question the adequacy of the U.S. food safety system. Stakeholders appear to agree that an optimal system should encompass a comprehensive, preventive approach to food safety, focusing on those foods and points in the food system that pose the greatest public health risks, starting at the point of production - that is, on farms and ranches. This report discusses differing opinions on this topic, as well as related legislation.

One of the great myths of contemporary American culture is that the United States’ food supply is the safest in the world because the government works to guarantee food safety and enforce certain standards on food producers, processors, and distributors. In reality U.S. food safety administration and oversight have remained essentially the same for more than a century, with the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 continuing to frame national policy despite dramatic changes in production, processing, and distribution throughout the twentieth century. In Food We Trust is the first comprehensive examination of the history of food safety policy in the United States, analyzing critical moments in food safety history from Upton Sinclair’s publication of The Jungle to Congress’s passage of the 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act. With five case studies of significant food safety crises ranging from the 1959 chemical contamination of cranberries to the 2009 outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter, In Food We Trust contextualizes a changing food regulatory regime and explains how federal agencies are fundamentally limited in their power to safeguard the food supply.

The combined efforts of the food industry and government regulatory agencies often are credited with making the U.S. food supply among the safest in the world. Nonetheless, public health officials have estimated that each year in the U.S., many millions of people become sick and thousands die from foodborne illnesses caused by any of a number of microbial pathogens and other contaminants. This book examines the existing food safety legal and regulatory landscape and presents an overview of efforts by the 111th Congress to revise federal food safety authorities and activities, principally at the FDA.

Numerous fed., state, and local agencies share responsibilities for regulating the safety of the U.S. food supply, which many experts say is among the safest in the world. Nevertheless, critics view this system as lacking the organization, regulatory tools, and resources to adequately combat foodborne illness -- as evidenced by a series of widely publicized food safety problems, incl. concerns about adulterated food and food ingredient imports, and illnesses linked to fresh produce, peanut products, and some meat and poultry products. Contents of this report: Background; The Agencies and Their Roles; FDA; Food Safety and Inspection Service; CDC, Nat. Marine Fisheries Service; EPA; Other Fed. Agencies; Congress. Committees. Illus. A print on demand pub.

The U.S. food safety system is in crisis. Approx. 76 million Americans -- one in four -- are sickened by foodborne disease each year. Of these, an estimated 325,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 die. This report discusses the top concerns about food safety that experts have identified and addresses the food safety functions within the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS). Contents: (1) Food Safety Programs at HHS: The Current Structure; (2) Current HHS Food Safety Functions Do Not Meet Today¿s Threats; (3) The Benefits of Aligning Food Safety Functions at HHS; (4) Background on Reform Efforts; (5) Recommendations: Making Food Safety a Priority at HHS; (6) A Staged Pathway to Comprehensive Food Safety Reform. Illus.