Safe Food Act of 2007 at Angry Toxicologist

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Safe Food Act of 2007

By AngryToxicologist | May 8, 2007

food basket Rep. DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Durbin (D-IL)of the Senate recently submitted companion bills named the Safe Food Act of 2007 (See http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1148and Senate versions). Ethicurian notes that Durbin and Delauro have been working on this for while and it looks like its time may have come. Unfortunately, it’s got to get out of the Ag committee, which will already be working on major PDUFA* and Farm subsidy bill overhauls. Hopefully some of the recent problems will move this along.

There are two parts that I think are worth commenting on for now:
1) This bill tackles the foreign producer problem by requiring them to register be certified and keep records. Their registration, and thus ability to import would be revoked if,

(1) if such food is linked to an outbreak of human illness;
(2) following an investigation by the Administrator that finds that the foreign government programs and procedures or foreign food establishment is no longer equivalent to the food safety programs and procedures in the United States; or
(3) following a refusal to allow United States officials to conduct such audits and investigations as may be necessary to fulfill the requirements under this section.

This is fantastic, probably would be the biggest effect of the bill, and would largely prevent contaminated food problems as discussed previously(and apparently feed too, as the Center for Vet. Med. would be part of the new administration). The question is, does “food safety programs” include pesticide/fungicide use or just the resultant residue? If it includes use, foreign companies would likely have to change the way they do business**. That would be a clear win for the consumer and the producing workers. It’s unclear from the bill (to me anyway), though, how far “food safety programs” reaches.

2) Among the 11 different parts of agencies they want to cobble together to form the Food Safety Administration is the EPA’s authority to set acceptable pesticide residues. This is probably a good thing but I’m nervous about this (if it ain’t broke…). I suppose that as long as FQPA’s standards, “reasonable certainty of no harm”, were kept, this shouldn’t change anything. In fact, maybe it would help move the pesticide program along as it’s been rather sluggish over the past few years (okay, maybe the engine needs a tune-up but it is running, unlike the rest of the EPA).

I really hope this gets out of committee as that’s where I see the most hang up. Once out on the floor this seems like a no-brainer in some amended form. I’ll post more thoughts on it once/if it gets some activity.

* The Prescription Drug User Fee Act is how FDA gets most of its money for drug review. FDA is under the Ag committee because their $ goes through USDA; it’s a vestige of days when FDA’s predecessor, the Bureau of Chemistry, was under the USDA.
**EPA requirements for residues are the same no matter if it’s domestic or foreign and FDA has found no difference in violations in a small sample size (20,000 out of >10 million).

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