Food Safety: Legislation

Center for Science in the Public Interest

Recipe for Safe Food
A Campaign to Clean Up America’s Food Supply


Each year, millions of people become ill and up to 5,000 die from contaminated food. The Recipe for Safe Food is a legislative campaign to give the government better tools to clean up America’s food supply.

The Recipe for Safe Food is a consumer-oriented legislative platform designed to clean up America’s food supply. The Recipe for Safe Food contains the following ingredients:


  1. Support funding for the National Food Safety Initiative.This initiative has already added $170 million of federal funding to food safety. In addition, it has directed resources to addressing issues linked to bacterial, viral, and parasitic contamination of foods. Money is used for research, education, and inspection. This year, $68 million dollars in new funding has been proposed, and that money is urgently needed.
     
  2. Give the government the power and organization to improve the safety of shell eggs. Currently, regulation is split between two agencies, each with different policies. Under this system, many of the estimated 2.3 million eggs laid each year with contaminated Salmonella enteritidis reach consumers, causing hundreds of thousands of illnesses and hundreds of deaths. This bill will put egg regulation into the hands of USDA, and requires flock testing and pasteurization to reduce the rate of food poisoning.
     
  3. Give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) new powers to keep contaminated fruits, vegetables, seafood and processed foods off the market. The Consumer Food Safety Act (S. 908, H.R. 1612) would give FDA the authority and resources to register food processors; inspect food plants quarterly; inspect food producers in foreign countries; recall contaminated food; and fine violators. These important new tools would allow FDA to minimize the amount of contaminated food that reaches the marketplace and to penalize wrongdoers.
     
  4. Combine all government food-related functions into a single agency, the U.S. Food Safety Administration . Right now, food safety functions are divided between numerous government agencies. The Safe Food Act (S. 1281, H.R. 2345) would combine the inspection, food safety, and labeling functions of the federal government. A single food agency would improve inspections, efficiency, and accountability. This concept has been endorsed by the General Accounting Office, and is supported by members of the National Academy of Sciences.
     
Other Bills Supported by the Recipe for Safe Food Campaign:
  • The Fruit and Vegetable Safety Act of 1999 — S. 823, sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) — would require good manufacturing practices for processed produce.
     
  • The Imported Food Safety Act of 1999 — H.R. 830, sponsored by Representative John Dingell (D-MI) — would improve the FDA’s oversight of foreign food.
     
  • The Imported Food Safety Improvement Act of 1999 — S.1126, sponsored by Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and Richard Durbin (D-IL) — would give the FDA greater authority to inspect imported foods.
     
  • The National Uniform Food Safety Labeling Act of 1999 — H.R. 1346, sponsored by Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) — would improve the disclosure of information on food labels.
 
A project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Safe Food Coalition. For more information, call 202-332-9110.

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