This past weekend we celebrated Mother’s Day, my fourth one spent without my dear mom, Ruby Trautz. She died in August 2006 as a result of a spinach-borne E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. Almost four years after her death, the United States still has food-safety laws that dates back to the 1930’s and earlier.
Since her death I have learned that, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), every year in the U.S. 76 million people contract foodborne illness, 300,000 people are hospitalized and 5,000 people die as a result of foodborne illness.
Today, the headlines again carry news of yet another leafy green-borne outbreak of E. coli, this time in Romaine lettuce (http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2010/ecoli_o145/). In the forty-four months since my mother died, we have experienced death and/or illness from contaminated spinach, peanut products and cookie dough.
On Mothers Day this year, many families throughout the nation shared meals together. While I’d like to think that the food people ate was as safe as it could be, the rash of foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years screams otherwise. No child, parent or grandparent should have to go through what my family and I have been through. My sister cries when passing through the produce department, and I relive the nightmare of my mother’s painful death on a daily basis.
Like many Americans who have lost a loved one from foodborne illness, I was shocked to learn not only that our food-safety system is based, in large part, on laws enacted over 70 years ago, but also that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – which regulates 80 percent of our food supply – inspects domestic food-processing facilities on average only once every 10.5 years.
This is unacceptable. In the area of inspections, as well as other components of our food-safety system, the laws, regulations and funding are woefully inadequate to effectively oversee what has become a complex global food supply chain. Our food-production system has evolved greatly during that time; our food-safety laws have not kept pace.
Fortunately, Congress is listening. This summer, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an important piece of bipartisan legislation, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749).
Last fall the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions unanimously approved the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). Bipartisan support like this is not often seen in Washington these days, and it signals that the time has come to make food safety a priority and enact significant changes to the nation’s food oversight system. Now this bill languishes in the Senate awaiting a floor vote.
Historic reform to protect Americans is in sight and I ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act to the floor for a vote as soon as possible. The longer it takes Congress to pass this comprehensive legislation, the more consumer confidence in our food supply will erode. But even worse, without this legislation, the outbreaks of contaminated food are sure to continue, causing millions more Americans to suffer devastating and sometimes fatal consequences.
Polly Costello
Daughter of Ruby Trautz
Bellevue, NE
The opinions here are the author's alone and do not represent the official policy for the entire Make Our Food Safe coalition.