It's easy to take for granted the quality of life we're afforded in northeast Ohio and in our country. We're fortunate to breathe cleaner air, drink purer water, and enjoy a better environment. What isn't well-known is that America is facing a food-safety crisis.
Two years ago, a Michigan woman's ten-year old daughter was infected with Hepatitis A after she ate contaminated strawberries from Mexico. It's hard to believe, but the strawberries eaten by the young girl and nearly 200 other children were part of their school lunch. More recently, consumers in south Florida were exposed to typhoid fever from an imported frozen fruit called mamey.
Many people are asking how these events could happen. The answer is troubling. Because of failed trade agreements like NAFTA, imports of food, such as fruit and vegetables, have increased nearly 50 percent over the last ten years. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is charged with inspecting imported fruits, vegetables, and fish, hasn't been able to catch up. The agency simply lacks the authority and resources to adequately inspect food coming into our country.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently shed light on the problem. The GAO found that 81 million cases of food borne illness occur each year and that 9,100 of these cases result in death. It also discovered FDA inspected fewer than two percent of 1997's 2.7 million imported food shipments, down from eight percent in 1992.
The bottom line is the vital need to protect public health. As the top Democrat on the House Health and Environment Subcommittee, I joined in introducing an initiative that attacks this problem head-on. The Imported Food Safety Act would give FDA the authority to prohibit the importation of food without prior agency approval and authority to block food imports if federal officials are denied the right to perform an inspection in a foreign country. The measure also would allow FDA to mark food that has been denied admission and would require country-of-origin labeling on fruit and vegetables.
The measure also would increase the number of inspectors at U.S. border sites, and would support research to enable FDA to conduct real-time testing for contamination of imported food in about an hour -- compared to the current two-week testing time.
Food borne
illness is a hazard to all of us, especially children and the elderly. For
most people, fruit, vegetables, and fish are a staple diet. Whether you
live in Middlefield, Macedonia, Lorain, or anywhere across the nation, imported
food in our grocery stores must be safe and of the highest quality. We can't
wait until the next contaminated food outbreak to act. Congress must pass
this bill now.
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