Tom Harkin: “I thank the Senator. She is very kind. I have at least another 5 to 7 minutes to go. I have some data from CDC that I…”

“I thank the Senator. She is very kind. I have at least another 5 to 7 minutes to go. I have some data from CDC that I want to put in. So I thank her very much. I have been talking about the Centers for Disease Control and what the shutdown means in terms of monitoring outbreaks, food-borne outbreaks, illnesses, virus outbreaks--and that is not happening now. I want to turn to another thing; that is, what CDC is and how CDC keeps Americans safe every day, and that is in food safety. The Centers for Disease Control has stopped its epidemiological work to identify potential outbreaks and link the outbreak to a food source. I can't tell you what might be missed while the CDC is shut down. I can give a few examples where recently the CDC has sounded the alarm and kept Americans safe. Only 12 days ago, 162 people in 10 States became ill with hepatitis A as a result of eating contaminated frozen berries--the kinds of mixed berries you get in the grocery store freezer department. The States are as far apart as Arizona, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Wisconsin, but because of the expertise of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they were able to go out, get this secured, recall the food, and trace it down. They traced it, believe it or not, to some pomegranate seeds that came from Turkey--not America but Turkey. This is another way in which the Centers for Disease Control protects the safety of Americans.…”