14 DAY TRIAL // Authorities in Washington approved one of the most important piece of legislation ever signed in the past few years. The history food safety legislation is the first major change to be adopted in this field in the last 70 years or so, experts say.
The US Senate, in a 73-to-25 vote, decided to pass the Food Safety Modernization Act, whose main provisions give the US Food and Drug Administration more powers than it currently has.
This decision comes with a need to increase the agency's budget by an estimated $1.7 billion. As supporters of the bill rightfully argued, this is nothing compared to the price tag the health system has to carry for treating preventable food-induced illnesses.
According to official statistics, the United States pay more than $152 billion each year in healthcare costs for eliminating the effects of food-borne illnesses and infections. Boosting the FDA budget makes a lot of sense, and is even advisable from this perspective.
One of the main jobs of the FDA from now on will be to provide better track records of large-scale food production operations, and to supply data about distribution chains and related practices, if the need arises.
The agency will also be responsible for controlling and inspecting food-producing facilities, in a bid to capture any potential infection in the earliest stage possible.
The concern the American public and authorities have with food production also becomes apparent from the fact that such a critical piece of legislation managed to pass through Senate at a time of great partisan struggle, which pits Democrats versus Republicans.
Over the past few years, several outbreaks, and a couple of near-misses have revealed to the general public that the industrial food chain is on the rocks, and that when an infection or disease enters it, it spreads like wildfires.
This was demonstrated by massive recalls of everything from peanut butter to lettuce and eggs. In the latter case, more than 380 million eggs were found to be tainted with salmonella. If this many eggs made their way into the general public, the consequences would have been devastating.
The new bill passed even if a last-minute amendment was raised by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, who sought to remove the strongest provisions from the Act.
“The problem with food safety is, the agencies don’t do what they’re supposed to be doing now. They don’t need more regulations. They need less,” he argued. But his effort was rejected, and the legislation passed.
Now that the Senate approved the bill, all that remains to be done is for this version of the bill to be reconciled with the version passed by the House, which is even more strict.
US President Barack Obama supports the bills, and so final approval is expected to be granted in December, Wired reports.