Food Safety Crisis: 85 Recalls in One Year

The recent salmonella outbreak continues to get a ton of media attention, and with good reason: More than a half-billion eggs were recalled after tainted ovas sickened more than 1,500 people. While it's easy to see why this recent scandal has Americans in a scramble, as a group of food safety groups recently pointed out, this is just one recall out of many that should have diners worried.

Yesterday, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), U.S. PIRG, and Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP) along with a number of survivors of foodborne illness held a press conference asking the Senate to pass the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act. During the conference, the group highlighted a depressing fact about America's food safety system: Since July of 2009, the date that the House passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, companies have made 85 food recalls.

In the amount of time that the FDA reform bill has been sitting stalled in the Senate, salmonella outbreaks occurred in everything from lettuce to soups to dressings, listeria tainted a number of cheeses, and E.coli turned up in romaine lettuce. According to the public health groups present at the conference, these recalls can be traced to 1,850 reported incidents of foodborne illness and probably tens of thousands more sicknesses that went unreported. When looking at food recalls over the year, the salmonella-tainted eggs outbreak was just a blip on the radar.

"Recalls and outbreaks are the most public consequence of our 'horse and buggy' food safety system," Caroline Smith DeWaal, CSPI's director of food safety, said in a press release. "Consumers are sometimes sickened and everyone up and down the chain has to check for, remove, and destroy the contaminated products. Only Congress can fix the underlying problems by passing legislation that has been languishing in the Senate for over a year."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 76 million people come down with foodborne illnesses every year. Given the fact that 85 major companies have recalled foods in the last year alone, it's clear that these manufacturers need to be held responsible for their negligence.

If passed, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act would require food manufacturers to create written food safety plans and take measures to prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness. The legislation would also mandate that the FDA conduct regular inspections of food-processing facilities (like notoriously gross Wright County Egg) and conduct microbial testing. It would also give the FDA the power to issue mandatory recalls — right now, companies only voluntarily issue food recalls.

It's time that food manufacturers start taking consumers' health seriously. Sign this petition asking the Senate to pass the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.

Photo credit: Nutloaf via Flickr