Political Quotes

“This is a good amendment. At a time when 30 people have been grossly sickened and died in Germany and 3,000 have been sickened, we are cutting Food and Drug's enforcement budget. The legislation would cut the food safety budget of FDA by $87 million below fiscal year 11, and $205 million below the President's fiscal year 12 request. We are witnessing now one of the deadliest E. coli outbreaks ever overseas in Europe, and that infection is spreading across the society of the world. My amendment has the support of the Consumers Union, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, U.S. PIRG, and the National Women's Health Network. It is time for us to understand that every year in the United States, 3,000 Americans are killed with bad food, 128,000 are hospitalized, 48 million are made sick. We have imported food that is causing all manner of difficulty: Bad peanuts with salmonella, bad mushrooms, E. coli in peppers, melamine in dairy products, salmonella in eggs, bad shellfish and fish from China. The amendment sees to it that Food and Drug has the resources it needs to do the job to protect the American people from bad food being imported into the United States. We are able to inspect less than 1 percent of the food coming into the United States. This is a positive risk to the American consuming public. The situation here is indefensible. The House last year passed major improvements in our food safety laws.…”