Cohen Votes to Support FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

Statement

Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) today voted to support the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act, the first major overhaul of our food safety system in 70 years. The measure would help protect our children and families from contaminated food.

"I am pleased that the Democratic Congress has made food safety a priority and I am proud to support this much needed legislation," said Congressman Cohen. "Food safety must always remain a top priority. The recent spate of food-borne illness outbreaks are proof positive reform is needed to better protect our food supply. This measure will help protect the American people by preventing deadly contamination before it occurs."

Each year, 76 million Americans are sickened from consuming contaminated food, resulting in more than 300,000 people being hospitalized and 5,000 deaths. In the last few years, there has been a spike in food-borne illness outbreaks in foods consumed by millions of Americans each day -- from contaminated spinach to peanut butter to cookie dough.

This landmark bill is a sweeping overhaul of the nation's food safety system -- fundamentally changing the way we safeguard our food supply. The bill puts a new focus on preventing contamination before it occurs -- a departure from the current system that is more focused on responding after a food-borne illness outbreak. Specifically, the measure requires food producers to come up with strategies to prevent contamination and then continually test to make sure these strategies are working.

The bill requires importers of foreign food to verify that products grown and processed overseas meet U.S. safety standards. Public health experts say that this is urgently needed, given the increase in imported foods. The FDA has been inspecting only about one percent of imported food products.

The bill has numerous other key provisions, including greatly increasing the number of inspections of food processing plants that the FDA must conduct, with an emphasis on the foods that are considered most high risk, and giving FDA the authority to recall food (currently, it must rely on food companies to voluntarily pull products off the shelves.)

The bill reduces the burden on small farms and food manufacturers that sell no more than $500,000 a year by exempting them from certain requirements in the bill. However, the bill also includes a "one-strike" provision that provides that FDA can revoke such exemption if the small farm or manufacturer has food safety violations.

This bipartisan bill is supported by a very broad range of organizations, including the Consumer Federation of America, American Public Health Association, Trust for America's Health, Center for Science in the Public Interest, The Pew Charitable Trusts, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, NAM and the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

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