Global Food Chain Leads to Food Safety Challenges

JEFFREY BROWN:

After months of worries about spinach, lettuce and even peanut butter, the question of food safety is again under the microscope, thanks to a new scare. In recent weeks, more than 100 pet food manufacturers pulled their products after the deaths of more than a dozen animals.

Wheat gluten containing melamine, a nitrogen-rich industrial chemical that causes kidney failure, was to blame. It was imported from China. That same chemical is now showing up in hog feed. Farms in at least six states, including this one near Modesto, California, have been quarantined.

Last fall, grocery stores pulled thousands of bags of spinach from shelves, after an E. coli outbreak, caused by cow manure, killed three people and made nearly 200 ill. Seventy were sickened in December after eating at Taco Bell restaurants in the mid-Atlantic region. It turned out E. coli in the lettuce was to blame. In February, 400 people fell ill after eating Peter Pan-brand peanut butter infected with salmonella.

CONGRESSMAN:

For the first panel, we have Michael and Elizabeth Armstrong…

JEFFREY BROWN:

On Tuesday, some of those affected by the outbreaks put a human face on the issue in front of a congressional Subcommittee on Commerce. Michael and Elizabeth Armstrong's two daughters fell ill after eating a salad made with bagged spinach. Ashley is still grappling with the effects.

ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG, Victim of Contaminated Food: We always enjoyed eating very healthy. We love fresh fruits and vegetables. Now we can't eat them, one, because of Ashley's illness — we have to watch the high potassium content in a lot of them — but, also, we just don't trust that they're safe anymore.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Some lawmakers broadened the issue to one of national security. Republican Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said more has to be done to check food imports.

REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), Tennessee: … however, according to the FDA, it only has enough inspectors to check about 1 percent of the 8.9 million imported food shipments that come into the country each year, 1 percent.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Food recalls are currently controlled by the industry. But Democrat Diana DeGette of Colorado said that needs to change.

REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D), Colorado: It absolutely shocks people, when I explain to them that, during an outbreak in food-borne illness, like the ones we'll hear about today, the federal government's hands are tied when it comes to recalls. We must rely on the industry to voluntarily recall their products.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Another piece of legislation, proposed by Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro, would create an entirely new agency to track contaminated food outbreaks. It would combine elements of what the current Food and Drug Administration and Agriculture Department now juggle.