Beefing up food safety
Editorial
Copyright 1998 Hartford Courant
September 6, 1998
The need to boost the nation's defenses against contaminated food has taken on
urgency since highly publicized horror stories of outbreaks linked to a strain
of E. coli in beef, campylobacter in chicken and salmonella in ice cream and
eggs. Food production has changed in
a global economy and high-tech world, and regulations ensuring its safe transit
to the table need to keep up.
Food-borne organisms kill 9,000 Americans a year, according to a recent study
by two organizations that advise the government -- the Institute of Research
and the National Research
Council, both arms of the National Academy of Science. These statistics tell
only part of the story. Public health officials theorize that many more
Americans become ill from tainted food, but it goes unreported because the
symptoms are short-lived.
To streamline and improve the work of about a dozen agencies that make up the
nation's
food-safety armada, President Clinton has established the President's Council on
Food Safety. This high-level clearinghouse will coordinate government efforts, focusing on
prevention of food-borne illness rather than
reaction to it. Mr. Clinton promises to combine science-based regulation with
inspection, enforcement, research and education programs.
The president opted not to appoint a single
food-safety czar to oversee the council, as the recent government report recommended.
Instead, he has given the gavel to three of his top advisers -- the
secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, and the president's
assistant for science and technology. The three will oversee other top
government officials named to the council.
Creation of so weighty a panel by executive order demonstrates Mr. Clinton's
resolve to give
food safety high
priority. Spreading the responsibility for chairing the new council lessens the
potential for politicizing its work. The council's first order of business will
be to produce a strategic plan to strengthen existing operations, eliminate
duplication and ensure the most effective use of resources for improving
food safety.
This is
a complicated job in an age when the food supply comes from diverse sources.
It's reassuring to know that such high-profile overseers will be accountable to
consumers.
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