Tell Congress: Make Our Food Safe!
Every year, 76 million Americans are sickened from consuming contaminated food - and 5,000 of these people die. That's more than the number of individuals who lose their lives as a result of fire or unintentional drowning in the U.S. each year.
Continued outbreaks of food contamination over the last several years - from spinach to peppers to peanuts - have demonstrated that these outbreaks are not random, unpreventable occurrences, but are due to widespread problems with our food safety system.
Our current food system - regulated by 15 separate federal agencies - is broken and in need of reform. But Congress has the opportunity to change course and help protect children, families, senior citizens and all others from foodborne-illness.
Tell Congress it is time to pass strong food safety legislation now!
Dear Congressperson,
One in four Americans will get sick from tainted food this year, but this doesn't have to be the case. Foodborne illness is preventable - if producers and food manufacturers were required to develop plans aimed at preventing bacterial contamination in food and the FDA had the authority and tools necessary to oversee and better ensure the safety of the food supply. We call on you to support legislation that would create a comprehensive system for preventing and responding to foodborne illness.
A number of bills have been introduced in the House and Senate that would address the problems with our broken food-safety system. We urge the swift House consideration and passage of the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (HR 2749), which unanimously passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on June 17, 2009 with strong bipartisan support. The Senate should move similar legislation as soon as possible as well. Any bill that is ultimately enacted must contain some fundamental components: risk-based inspection of food manufacturers with a minimum inspection frequency of once a year; a requirement that companies meet basic food safety performance standards, and routinely test for contaminants and report any test results that show contamination to FDA; and mandatory recall authority for FDA and the power to promptly levy penalties on companies that produce unsafe food.
[Your comment here]
It's time to halt the endless stream of foodborne-illness outbreaks - linked to spinach, peppers and peanut products - that we've experienced in recent years. The time is now for Congress to pass responsible, effective reforms for FDA.
