Cumberland Times-News
Oakland — Congress — or the Senate, to be more exact — is still dragging its feet on getting a comprehensive food safety law to the president’s desk.
The inaction is especially galling amid this week’s report showing that food-borne illnesses cost the United States an estimated $152 billion each year in health-related expenses.
The findings are from the Food Safety Campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts and are based on federal government sources using the same statistical methods used by the Food and Drug Administration.
Annually, an estimated 76 million people are sickened by contaminated food in the U.S.
Of those, 5,000 die, according to federal statistics. The majority of the food-borne illnesses are caused by produce, which is regulated by the FDA. Thirty-nine percent of E. coli outbreaks are due to produce regulated by the agency, the report found.
Last year, President Barack Obama created the Food Safety Working Group, intending to see a new food safety law enacted. The House passed a food-safety bill last summer, but the Senate has yet to act on the legislation.
While the financial costs of this inaction are staggering, it is the human toll in terms of suffering and death that is far worse. Now that the Pew report has been released, perhaps enough pressure will come to bear on Congress to once and for all take action on protecting the quality and safety of the nation’s food supply.
