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Calling the “failure to inspect about 95% of domestic food processing plants a hazard to the citizens of the U.S.,” the president is calling for aggressive action on enhancing food safety.

There are several approaches now under consideration but there is little question about how strongly Obama feels about this subject, ” as a parent” as well as president.

In the course of investigation of the latest salmonella outbreak, caused by unsafe practices at Peanut Corporation of America plants, the food inspection “system” was shown to be anything but systematic in its inspections—-and the responsibilities for food safety are assigned to a number of different federal and state agencies. Who is in charge? Everyone. No one.

Large commercial companies require smaller suppliers to certify that their products have been inspected and passed safety standards but the suppliers pay the inspectors who, it turns out, are private contractors because federal and state employees cannot begin to handle the scale of this work.

This is not unusual for the federal government agencies. Many require some sort of review with fees paid by the organization being inspected or checked.

Food does not leave a “paper trail,” inspectors could follow up on later were there a problem.  A bank or a manufacturer of defense weapons has, or should, documentation of what it did or didn’t do. Food is bought, processed, shipped and eaten before anyone may know there is a problem unless proper inspections prevent its being shipped to stores.

No one should underestimate the challenge of regulating domestic foods—-and that’s before one even considers imported items, which are growing in number each year.

Nevertheless, it is a job that must be done and be done right.

This New York Times story says that:

• Each year, about 76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die, public health experts estimate.

• The Obama administration’s 2010 budget will propose spending more than $1 billion on food-safety efforts, nearly double the amount spent in 2007. The money will pay for increased inspections, domestic surveillance, laboratory capacity and illness prevention efforts.

• The F.D.A. has estimated that inspecting all 150,000 domestic food facilities once every four years would cost $1.9 billion annually. Inspecting the 216,000 foreign food plants registered with the F.D.A. would cost far more.

New York Times

Source: New York Times, March 14, 2009