On the recordNovember 18, 2010
No one in America should have to worry if their salad or sandwich is going to kill them. No one in the Senate should prey on that fear or play with it like a political football. Yet that is exactly what is happening. If you follow the Senate every day, you might not be surprised to see our Republican friends turn food safety into a partisan political issue. But if you are trying to keep yourself and your family healthy, you may be appalled, and rightfully so. You might also be troubled to learn that our food safety system has not been updated in almost 100 years, in almost a century. Food processing, production, and marketing have surely advanced over the last hundred years, but our safety measures have not. New contaminants come up every day, but our safety measures do not keep up. That is because our FDA does not have the authority or research it needs to keep up. This bill will fix that. It will greatly improve this important system, and it will keep regulatory burdens on farmers and food producers to a minimum. It simply gives the FDA the authority to recall contaminated foods to find out where these dangerous foods come from and to stop them from getting into our grocery stores. It is a bipartisan bill. The HELP Committee passed it unanimously.
