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Report Finds Flaws In Food Inspection System

Food safety system has broken down, report warns

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

May 1, 2008

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With recall after recall in the food industry, it might seem that government's system for ensuring the safety of the food supply has broken down somewhere. A new report says that perception is actually reality.

The report, by Trust for America's Health, a health advocacy organization, identifies major gaps in the nation's food safety system, including obsolete laws, mis-allocation of resources, and inconsistencies among major food safety agencies.

The findings echo a report last month by the Centers For Disease Control, which found that recent efforts to curtail incidents of foodborne illnesses have yet to produce much in the way of results.

"Our goal should be reducing the number of Americans who get sick from foodborne illness. But we can't adequately protect people from contaminated foods if we continue to use 100 year-old practices," said Jeff Levi, Executive Director of TFAH. "We need to bring food safety into the 21st century. We have the technology. We're way past due for a smart and strategic upgrade."

Some problems outlined in the report, Fixing Food Safety: Protecting America's Food from Farm-to-Fork, include the way the government allocates its resources. TFAH says the bulk of federal food safety funds are spent on outdated practices of inspecting every poultry, beef and pork carcass, even though changing threats and modern agriculture practices and technology make this an unproductive use of government resources.

The report says inadequate resources are spent on fighting modern bacteria threats, such as trying to reduce Salmonella or dangerous strains of E. coli.

"An estimated 85 percent of known foodborne illness outbreaks are associated with foods regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but the agency receives less than half of the federal funding for food safety," the report says.

The group also takes issue with bureaucratic quirks in the inspection code. For instance, the FDA regulates frozen pizza, but if the pizza is topped with 2 percent or more of cooked meat or poultry, then the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture becomes the regulatory agency.

Other issues highlighted in the report include:

• In the past 3 years, the main food safety function at FDA has lost 20 percent of its science staff and 600 inspectors;

• Gaps in current inspection practices mean acts of agroterrorism -- such as contamination of wheat gluten or botulism -- could go undetected until they are widespread;

• While 15 federal agencies are involved in food safety, the efforts are fragmented and no one agency has ultimate authority or responsibility for food safety;

• Only one percent of imported foods are inspected. Approximately 60 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables and 75 percent of seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported; and

• States and localities are not required to meet uniform national standards for food safety.

Approximately 76 million Americans -- 1 in 4 -- are sickened by foodborne diseases each year, the group says. Of these, an estimated 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die. Medical costs and lost productivity due to foodborne illnesses in the U.S. are estimated to cost $44 billion annually.

A 2007 public opinion poll conducted by TFAH found that 67 percent of Americans are worried about food safety, and that public concerns about food safety rank higher than Americans' concerns about a biological or chemical attack and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

The TFAH report follows a series of studies by experts raising concerns about America's food safety, including a 2007 review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Science Board that concluded that the U.S. food supply "grows riskier each year" and a Government Accountability Office report that found federal oversight of food safety to be one of the government's "high risk" programs.

CDC's findings

Last month, the Centers For Disease Control reported that recent efforts to curtail incidents of foodborne illnesses have yet to produce much in the way of results.

The findings are from 2007 data reported to the CDC as part of the agency's Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, FoodNet. FoodNet monitors foodborne disease and conducts studies to help health officials better understand the nature of the problem.

FoodNet monitors foodborne disease and conducts studies to help health officials better understand the nature of the problem.

Campylobacter, Listeria, Salmonella, Shigella, E.coli O157, Vibrio, and Yersinia did not decline significantly, and the estimated incidence of Cryptosporidium increased when compared with the previous three years, 2004-2006.

Although there have been significant declines in the incidence of some foodborne infections since surveillance began in 1996, these declines all occurred before 2004.

"The results show that prevention efforts have been partly successful, but there has been little further progress in the most recent years," said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of CDC′s Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases. "More needs to be done to make our food safer."

Consumers can reduce their risk for foodborne illness by following safe food-handling recommendations and by avoiding the consumption of unpasteurized milk, raw or undercooked oysters, raw or undercooked eggs, raw or undercooked ground beef, and undercooked poultry," the CDC said.

The risk for foodborne illness can also be decreased by choosing in-shell pasteurized eggs, irradiated ground meat, and high-pressure-treated oysters.

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