Obama promises food safety overhaul

Washington —- Branding the U.S. food safety system a “hazard to public health,” President Barack Obama on Saturday signaled that he will back congressional efforts to enact fundamental changes in the way the nation handles its food.

A debate has raged on Capitol Hill about whether the Food and Drug Administration should be reorganized —- or even split apart —- to concentrate responsibility for food safety in one office. Obama did not say outright how he would reform the agency, but he did announce creation of a special advisory group to coordinate food safety laws and recommend how to update them. Many of these laws have not changed, he said, “since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt.”

Obama said too many agencies are responsible for food safety, making it difficult to share information and stop problems from falling through the cracks.

“The FDA has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, leaving the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of our 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses each year,” Obama said. “That means roughly 95 percent of them go uninspected.”

Obama announced the creation of a Food Safety Working Group, which will include the secretaries of health and agriculture, to advise him on which laws and regulations need to be changed, to foster coordination across federal agencies and to ensure that laws are enforced.

Politicians have argued on Capitol Hill in recent months about whether to bolster food oversight at the Food and Drug Administration or assign those responsibilities to a separate agency that would eventually absorb the food-oversight duties of 11 other agencies.

Advocates on both sides of the issue have speculated for weeks about which approach the administration would support. Those calling for a combined food agency were heartened last month when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that a united agency made sense.

In his address Saturday, Obama cited a string of breakdowns in food safety, culminating in the massive salmonella outbreak in peanut products. He called these cases a “painful reminder of how tragic the consequences can be when food producers act irresponsibly and government is unable to do its job.”

The president said he takes food safety seriously, not just as a president but also a father.

“When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week,” Obama said. “No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch.”

Experts have long debated whether the FDA should increase inspections or rely instead on private auditors and more detailed safety rules. Obama came down squarely on the side of increased government inspections.

“Whenever a president uses such strong language, that’s a big, meaningful occurrence,” said William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner who has called for increased food inspections.

Each year, 76 million people in the United States are sickened by tainted food; about 5,000 die.

Obama’s 2010 budget proposes spending more than $1 billion on food safety, nearly double the amount spent in 2007.

The FDA 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 FDA would cost far more.