...with a look at a White House dinner menu to explain how food safety is regulated...The White House has just okayed the release of the photo, above, which was taken on Oct. 8, when White House assistant chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass led a group of citizen food safety advocates on a tour of the White House Kitchen Garden. The tour group included adults and children who have been directly impacted by foodborne diseases such as E. Coli and Salmonella; among these was Barbara Kowalcyk, whom Ob Fo blogged about here when she appeared on CNN's Larry King Live last week to discuss meat safety along with her attorney, food safety activist Bill Marler. Kowalcyk was on LKL and also featured in the film Food, Inc., because her son, Kevin, died at age two from E. coli poisoning, and she now leads the Center For Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention, along with her mother, Pat Buck. They're just one of the groups in Make Our Food Safe, a coalition of food safety advocates who are working to encourage the Senate to pass strong food safety legislation to help end the repeated outbreaks of foodborne diseases that sicken about 76,000 people annually, as well as cause about 5,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths. (Above: Kass, in tie, with the child members of the group; IDs are below)
According to Kowalcyk, Kass's tour of the garden was the fun part of the White House visit; the group then met with Mariano-Florentino Cuellar of the President's Food Safety Working Group, and David Lazarus, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack's senior adviser, who coordinates with the White House on food safety issues. They discussed strengthening FDA's powers for oversight, including making recalls and inspections mandatory; boosting the ability to investigate foodborne disease outbreaks, with better first-responders on the community level (such as family doctors and local boards of health); and enacting penalties for repeat food safety offenders. The Food Safety Working group is the first White House imitative of its kind; no other administration has had this level of interest in food safety (obviously). President Obama should be commended for its creation, as should Sec. Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who chair the group. But now it's time for even more action.
How foods are currently regulated: The Charm Offensive Dinner as object lesson
Right now, nine months into the Obama Era, food safety oversight is still complicated and fairly messy, with regulations and requirements scattered like confetti among twelve different federal agencies. For a good example, let's parse the menu for a high-profile White House event, the Charm Offensive Dinner, a shindig that took place in March. The meal, for 200 guests, included salmon from Canada, produce from at least three different US states, dairy products, grains, and wine. Thus the foods were regulated by the USDA, the FDA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Bureau of Commerce. That's a lot of federal activity for a couple hours of wooing Republicans who were reluctant to pass the President's 2010 budget. This hasn't served America's eaters very well, and the President--and everyone else, it seems, have pledged to change this. This scattershot approach hasn't served anyone in the food industry very well either; the economic losses each time there is a food recalled are astounding, and tend to endure, as consumers remain suspicious of foods log after recalls have ended.
In July, the House passed HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, which was a landmark event--it was the first meaningful food safety legislation in fifty years. But the Senate needs to pass similar legislation, and hand the President a Bill he can sign before true change can happen in the food safety landscape. This Thursday, Oct. 22, the Senate HELP Committee, newly chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin, will hold a food safety hearing ("Keeping America's families Safe: Reforming The Food Safety System"). FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg will testify, as will a number of other food safety advocates. Let's hope they can convince the Senators that a "yes" vote is needed immediately. (Click the link for a transcript, which will be available after the hearing).*While in Washington, members of Make Our Food Safe also met with Senators from their home states, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who pledged his personal support for getting effective food safety legislation passed this year in the Senate.
*Photo ID's for the Kass Kitchen Garden photo: (front to back) is Jake Hurley, Thomas Christoferson, Luke Bennett, Aidan Buck, Chloe Bennett, Lara and Megan Kowalcyk, and John Christoferson. President Obama photo via Reuters. Place setting photo is from the Charm Offensive Dinner; it's Mrs. Jill Biden's place setting, and is Clinton China.
