December 21, 2010
By WILLIAM NEUMAN-NY Times
The House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday to a long-awaited modernization of the nation’s food safety laws, voting 215 to 144 to grant the Food and Drug Administration greater authority over food production.
The bill, which President Obama has indicated he will sign, is meant to change the mission of the F.D.A., focusing it on preventing food-borne illnesses rather than reacting after an outbreak occurs. The overhaul comes after several major outbreaks and food recalls in recent years involving salmonella in eggs and peanuts, and E. coli in spinach and other leafy greens.
Under the legislation, food manufacturers will be required to examine their processing systems to identify possible ways that food products can become contaminated and to develop detailed plans to keep that from happening. Companies must share those plans with the F.D.A., and provide the agency with records, including product test results, showing how effectively they carry them out.
The agency, which has sometimes been criticized for its failure to check up on risky food producers, will be required to conduct more frequent inspections in the United States and abroad. The law will also give the F.D.A. the power to order food recalls. Currently, it can only request a recall, even when there is evidence that tainted food has made people sick or represents a clear health hazard.
While the legislation contains many changes that advocates had long pursued, many of its important provisions, including the requirement that companies put in place food safety plans, do not go into effect for as long as 18 months. The agency will use much of that time to write rules that it needs to carry out the law.
In addition, the increased inspection of food manufacturers will happen only gradually, with regulators given up to five years to visit high-risk facilities. After that, high-risk plants must be inspected every three years.
“The F.D.A. asked for and was given a very long lead time for implementation,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “But it’s still a vast improvement over what we have today.”
Ultimately, the agency’s ability to carry out and enforce the law will depend on how much money it has available to pay inspectors and maintain or increase its staff. Republicans will gain control of the House next year and have vowed to cut spending on many domestic programs. Deep cuts could hobble the F.D.A. just as it gains the new authority.
“It’s going to be crucial for the next Congress to recognize that F.D.A. can’t fulfill the promise of this new law without the resources it needs to do the job,” said Erik D. Olson, who heads food policy for the Pew Health Group, an advocacy organization.
The bill was supported by consumer and public health advocates and major industry groups, which have seen the harm that huge recalls can do to sales.
“The food and beverage industry is committed to partnering with Congress, the administration and the F.D.A. to strengthen and modernize our nation’s food safety system,” the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in a statement praising the bill’s passage.
The law includes exemptions for small food processors and farmers, many of which feared it would be too costly and burdensome. The exemptions were crucial to pushing the bill through the Senate, although critics said the changes weakened the law, since small producers have been linked to serious outbreaks of illness.
The exemptions undercut support in the House, however. Just 10 Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill, with some opposing it because of the exemptions.
The law will affect the 80 percent of the food supply that is regulated by the F.D.A. However, it does not apply to most meat and poultry products, which are regulated by the Agriculture Department.
Over time, the law will require the F.D.A. to increase inspection of food processing plants in this country and also plants in other countries where food is prepared for export to the United States.
Low-risk plants in this country must be inspected within seven years after the bill becomes law. After that, they must be inspected once every five years.
The law will require 600 inspections of overseas facilities in the first year, although food safety experts said that may not represent an increase over current levels. Over the next five years, the number of foreign inspections must double each year.
The law will also give the F.D.A. the ability to set nationwide standards for growing and harvesting produce, with the goal of reducing the chances of contamination in the fields.
The agency’s new mandatory recall powers received a lot of attention in debate over the bill, but in reality, they may get little use, since companies rarely refuse F.D.A. requests for voluntary recalls.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the head of the F.D.A., said in a statement that the passage of the bill “has laid the critical foundation for a prevention-based 21st-century food safety system.”
Advocates said the F.D.A. had a spotty record in introducing new regulations and enforcing them. For example, it took the agency years to come up with new rules meant to keep eggs safe. When they were put into effect over the summer, it was too late to stop a huge salmonella outbreak from tainted eggs traced to Iowa farms owned by Austin J. DeCoster.
“We will spend the next several years prodding, pushing and nagging F.D.A. to embrace the new program enthusiastically,” said Carol L. Tucker-Foreman, a food policy expert at the Consumer Federation of America.
Although the bill had bipartisan support, a rarity in Congress during the last two years, passage was long in coming. The House passed a stronger version of the law last year. The Senate passed its version last month, and since there was not time in the lame-duck session of Congress to work out a compromise that melded the two versions, lawmakers expected the House to hold another vote approving the Senate bill.
But the Senate had erred by including tax provisions in its bill, which under the Constitution must originate in the House. To keep the legislation alive, the House then inserted the Senate version into a budget bill. When the budget bill did not advance in the Senate, the food safety law appeared doomed.
Then, to the surprise of most observers, Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate unanimously agreed on Sunday to pass a revised version of the bill, without the troublesome tax language. That cleared the way for the House to approve it one more time.
By WILLIAM NEUMAN-NY Times
The House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday to a long-awaited modernization of the nation’s food safety laws, voting 215 to 144 to grant the Food and Drug Administration greater authority over food production.
The bill, which President Obama has indicated he will sign, is meant to change the mission of the F.D.A., focusing it on preventing food-borne illnesses rather than reacting after an outbreak occurs. The overhaul comes after several major outbreaks and food recalls in recent years involving salmonella in eggs and peanuts, and E. coli in spinach and other leafy greens.
Under the legislation, food manufacturers will be required to examine their processing systems to identify possible ways that food products can become contaminated and to develop detailed plans to keep that from happening. Companies must share those plans with the F.D.A., and provide the agency with records, including product test results, showing how effectively they carry them out.
The agency, which has sometimes been criticized for its failure to check up on risky food producers, will be required to conduct more frequent inspections in the United States and abroad. The law will also give the F.D.A. the power to order food recalls. Currently, it can only request a recall, even when there is evidence that tainted food has made people sick or represents a clear health hazard.
While the legislation contains many changes that advocates had long pursued, many of its important provisions, including the requirement that companies put in place food safety plans, do not go into effect for as long as 18 months. The agency will use much of that time to write rules that it needs to carry out the law.
In addition, the increased inspection of food manufacturers will happen only gradually, with regulators given up to five years to visit high-risk facilities. After that, high-risk plants must be inspected every three years.
“The F.D.A. asked for and was given a very long lead time for implementation,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “But it’s still a vast improvement over what we have today.”
Ultimately, the agency’s ability to carry out and enforce the law will depend on how much money it has available to pay inspectors and maintain or increase its staff. Republicans will gain control of the House next year and have vowed to cut spending on many domestic programs. Deep cuts could hobble the F.D.A. just as it gains the new authority.
“It’s going to be crucial for the next Congress to recognize that F.D.A. can’t fulfill the promise of this new law without the resources it needs to do the job,” said Erik D. Olson, who heads food policy for the Pew Health Group, an advocacy organization.
The bill was supported by consumer and public health advocates and major industry groups, which have seen the harm that huge recalls can do to sales.
“The food and beverage industry is committed to partnering with Congress, the administration and the F.D.A. to strengthen and modernize our nation’s food safety system,” the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in a statement praising the bill’s passage.
The law includes exemptions for small food processors and farmers, many of which feared it would be too costly and burdensome. The exemptions were crucial to pushing the bill through the Senate, although critics said the changes weakened the law, since small producers have been linked to serious outbreaks of illness.
The exemptions undercut support in the House, however. Just 10 Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill, with some opposing it because of the exemptions.
The law will affect the 80 percent of the food supply that is regulated by the F.D.A. However, it does not apply to most meat and poultry products, which are regulated by the Agriculture Department.
Over time, the law will require the F.D.A. to increase inspection of food processing plants in this country and also plants in other countries where food is prepared for export to the United States.
Low-risk plants in this country must be inspected within seven years after the bill becomes law. After that, they must be inspected once every five years.
The law will require 600 inspections of overseas facilities in the first year, although food safety experts said that may not represent an increase over current levels. Over the next five years, the number of foreign inspections must double each year.
The law will also give the F.D.A. the ability to set nationwide standards for growing and harvesting produce, with the goal of reducing the chances of contamination in the fields.
The agency’s new mandatory recall powers received a lot of attention in debate over the bill, but in reality, they may get little use, since companies rarely refuse F.D.A. requests for voluntary recalls.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the head of the F.D.A., said in a statement that the passage of the bill “has laid the critical foundation for a prevention-based 21st-century food safety system.”
Advocates said the F.D.A. had a spotty record in introducing new regulations and enforcing them. For example, it took the agency years to come up with new rules meant to keep eggs safe. When they were put into effect over the summer, it was too late to stop a huge salmonella outbreak from tainted eggs traced to Iowa farms owned by Austin J. DeCoster.
“We will spend the next several years prodding, pushing and nagging F.D.A. to embrace the new program enthusiastically,” said Carol L. Tucker-Foreman, a food policy expert at the Consumer Federation of America.
Although the bill had bipartisan support, a rarity in Congress during the last two years, passage was long in coming. The House passed a stronger version of the law last year. The Senate passed its version last month, and since there was not time in the lame-duck session of Congress to work out a compromise that melded the two versions, lawmakers expected the House to hold another vote approving the Senate bill.
But the Senate had erred by including tax provisions in its bill, which under the Constitution must originate in the House. To keep the legislation alive, the House then inserted the Senate version into a budget bill. When the budget bill did not advance in the Senate, the food safety law appeared doomed.
Then, to the surprise of most observers, Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate unanimously agreed on Sunday to pass a revised version of the bill, without the troublesome tax language. That cleared the way for the House to approve it one more time.
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