Op-ed: "Ensuring the Food We Eat Is Safe," (The Tennessean)

February 24, 2009, By Bart Gordon

People in the United States love peanut butter – statistics show that Americans consumed 1.25 billion pounds of peanut butter in 2008, or 4.07 pounds per person.

Recently, however, many people in our country have been apprehensive about eating peanut butter, and for good reason.  In the last few months, some peanut butter products have made more than 500 people sick and killed 8 people in the U.S.

This happened because the company that produced the contaminated peanut butter, the Peanut Corporation of America, which claims to be the “Processor of the World’s Finest Peanut Products,” knowingly distributed batches of their peanut butter that tested positive for salmonella, a bacteria that can cause a potentially life-threatening infection. 

While the company finally recalled its products last month, they knew long before that batches of their products had been contaminated with salmonella.  In the past two years, there have been at least 12 instances where this company’s peanut-based products tested positive for salmonella.

Why did the “Processors of the World’s Finest Peanut Products” continue shipping their product out? 

Internal emails have revealed that when the President of the Peanut Corp. was made aware there were positive salmonella tests, he complained the tests were “costing us huge $$$$$ and causing obviously a huge lapse in time from the time we pick up peanuts until the time we can invoice.”

The company did not act in a responsible and trustworthy manner, and people have died as a result.

Could this have been prevented?

Unfortunately, this incident is only the latest in a string of food illness outbreaks, each highlighting systematic problems with our food safety system. 

The Food and Drug Administration is operating under an antiquated 1938 law that does not provide the authority needed to properly regulate today’s food supply.  In fact, the only thing companies are required to do to become a food supplier is register with the FDA and to self-report food safety problems to a national registry.

The FDA cannot set common standards for state and federal inspections, can’t require companies to take measures to prevent food contamination, and can’t order mandatory recalls.  There is also no system to track contaminated food back to the source, and the agency no longer has the resources to inspect food producing facilities on a regular basis.  

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, of which I am member, began investigating the nation’s food and drug safety systems last year.  In the next few months, we will take up comprehensive legislation that will give the FDA the authority and resources it needs to modernize the nation’s food and drug safety system.  

This legislation will give the FDA mandatory recall power, increase financial resources and enforcement authority, require companies to have a plan in place to prevent food contaminations, and create a food tracing system.

Whether it is peanut butter, spinach, tomatoes, or any other food item, Americans should have confidence that the food they put on their table is safe.

Congressman Bart Gordon of Murfreesboro represents Tennessee's 6th district in the U.S. House of Representatives where he is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and sits on the its Health Subcommittee.