Cross posted from The Clean Plate Club
Our friends at the Make Our Food Safe coalition are organizing a photo petition to Congress, and we thought you might be interested in taking part. Read on to learn how you can help remind our leaders that American families want action on food safety now.
Preparing Thanksgiving dinner is stressful enough without worrying whether the food you serve your family is contaminated. That’s why the U.S. Senate needs to pass legislation before the end of the year that will improve food safety and give you one less thing to worry about over the holidays. We say American families have waited long enough. And that’s why this Thanksgiving, We are hoping you’ll help make sure the U.S. Senate gets the picture about food safety – by adding your photo to our Make Our Food Safe photo petition!
- Make a sign that says, "Make my food safe for the holidays."
- Ask your family members to join you – if possible while you’re together for Thanksgiving.
- Take a picture of you holding the sign. (Hold up your Eat Cleaner products while you’re at it!)
- Send the photos to development@safetables.org – we’ll collect the photos, make them into holiday greeting cards, then deliver them to senators on Capitol Hill, in their local districts, and online in December. All photos need to be emailed by December 4th. To make our petition even bigger, forward this message to your family and friends today, asking them to submit a photo too!
Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for your help.
Make Our Foods Safe Org
Every year, millions of Americans are sickened from consuming contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and thousands of these people die.
Continued outbreaks of foodborne illness over the last several years – from spinach to peppers to peanut products – have demonstrated that these outbreaks are not random, unpreventable occurrences, but are due to widespread problems with our food safety system.
Our current food safety system is broken and has been in need of reform for decades. And this year, Congress has the opportunity to change course and help protect children, families, senior citizens and all others from foodborne illness.
Learn More
A number of bills have been introduced in Congress that would give FDA the tools and authority it needs to keep our food safe.
The House bill, H.R. 2749 (Dingell, D-MI), passed the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support on July 30, 2009. That bill adapted certain key provisions from H.R. 875 (DeLauro, D-CT). In the Senate, the primary food safety bill is S. 510 (Durbin, D-IL) (for more information, see "Fact Sheets" tab).
As Congress considers food safety legislation, it is essential to include the following requirements aimed at protecting the public health:
* Risk-based inspection, including a minimum annual inspection frequency. Legislation should set as a minimum requirement that FDA-regulated facilities be inspected at least once a year, with higher-risk facilities inspected more frequently.
* Testing and sampling by food processors and mandatory reporting to the government of any test results showing harmful contamination. Requiring food processors to continuously sample and test their products for contamination and to report test results that indicate contamination are critical measures that can help officials prevent foodborne-illness outbreaks.
* Development by food processors of plans that proactively identify where contamination may occur, and include steps to prevent contamination. Under existing law, FDA does not have clear authority to require food processors to take action to prevent food-safety problems.
* Adoption of science-based standards for processed foods and fresh produce. The government must set public-health based limits on pathogen contamination in processed food. Fresh produce items have been linked to many recent outbreaks, and there is widespread agreement among growers, consumers, and other stakeholders that there need to be mandatory federal safety standards for these commodities.
* Making sure that imported foods meet the same safety standards as those applied to food produced in the U.S. With an increasingly greater percentage of our food being imported from other countries, it is critical that FDA have the authority and resources to establish and enforce safety requirements for imported food.
* Recall authority and effective penalties – FDA must be given authority to mandate recalls -- something it does not have under existing law – as well as the power to levy serious fines (and not just fines that are a "cost of doing business") on food manufacturers that refuse to correct unsafe practices.
*
Consideration for small, sustainable, and organic farmers and producers. Legislation should include assurances that that the needs of small, sustainable and organic producers are considered when food- safety rules are established.
FDA must also be given sufficient resources to better ensure the safety of the food supply.
Emphasis mine...
Note - This is Ellinorianne and I'm writing on behalf of Eat Cleaner. I am currently unpaid and doing community outreach on behalf of Eat Cleaner and on my own because this has become my passion. I hope that as soon as Eat Cleaner is able to hire me I will be writing more and doing more on behalf of anything food and environment related.