YONKERS, N.Y.—In the wake of the recent Salmonella outbreak caused by tainted peanut butter products and President Obama’s call for a review of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Consumers Union (CU) asked Congress to require annual FDA inspections of food processing factories.
“The FDA has been so severely weakened by cutbacks in staffing and funding, and is so poorly equipped to deal with today’s food industry, with its mass production and distribution systems and global sourcing of ingredients, that it can no longer keep food safe. The first step in overhauling the FDA should be requiring that processing plants are inspected every year,” said Jean Halloran, director of Food Policy Initiatives for Consumers Union.
“FDA was almost completely unaware of the problems at Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), despite the fact that problems had existed for some time, and that Salmonella contaminated peanut butter at another Georgia factory just two years ago,” she added. “Unfortunately, this is not surprising. FDA inspects U.S. food production facilities only about once every 10 years on average.”
A recent Consumers Union poll found that two-thirds of Americans want the FDA to inspect domestic and foreign food-processing facilities at least once a month.
CU said more basic reform will require Congressional action. “Congress should require FDA to inspect every food producer in the United States at least once a year, and provide funding through registration fees for this work,” Halloran said. “Congress must give FDA mandatory recall authority, and require companies to disclose the retail stores, schools and nursing homes that get recalled products. If a company finds an adulterant like Salmonella in its own testing, Congress should require that it inform FDA and explain how it disposed of the product.”