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Senate Launches Food Safety Bill

By PritzkerLaw

Four Senate Democrats and four Republicans have launched a food safety bill that would strengthen the hand of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in detecting, minimizing and preventing food poisoning outbreaks.

The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 was announced Tuesday and it is more pragmatic than a House bill that calls for more sweeping change in the FDA and other institutions that share jurisdiction for keeping the food supply safe.

PritzkerOlsen Attorneys, a national food safety law firm based in Minneapolis, is watching closely as the action in Congress unfolds. Jeffrey Almer, a client of the firm, gave key testimony last month before a Congressional panel investigating Peanut Corporation of America in connection with the 45-state outbreak of peanut-related Salmonella that has sickened 677 individuals and killed nine.

Shirley Mae Almer, Jeffrey's mother, was one of the nine who died.

The authors of the Senate bill include Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia -- the nation's leading peanut producing state.

Klobuchar told reporter David Shaffer of the Star Tribune the Senate bill would give FDA immediate tools to improve food safety. She said she would support broader reforms once the Obama Administration appoints a new FDA commissioner and lays out its food-safety agenda.

From various summaries of the bill, here are some of the highlights:

FDA would be able to suspend registration of a food facility if there was a reasonable probability that products were a threat to human health. Requires Health and Human Services to establish a pilot project to develop new methods to trace and tract the source of food poisoning outbreaks when fruits or vegetables are implicated. Would increase funding, partly for increased inspections of food facilities. Would expand FDA's access to company or third-party test results for Salmonella and other pathogens in food plants. Allows FDA to take steps to assure that third-party food-testing labs meet high quality standards and requires them to report  results to FDA. Allows FDA to enter into agreements with foreign governments to facilitate the inspection of foreign plants. Directs FDA to establish offices in at least five foreign nations to improve agency's presence overseas.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on March 04, 2009 (boomark / email).