Current egg recall highlights shortcomings in food safety system, sets up call for Senate action in September

Politico: Problems in the nation's response to the current salmonella outbreak and the resulting recall of 600 million eggs is related to the Senate's year-long stall of pending food safety legislation, according to consumer groups and experts. "The House approved its version of the food safety bill in July 2009 — that was more than 60 recalls of Food and Drug Administration regulated products ago, according to a report by the Make Our Food Safe Coalition. But the Senate has continued to drag its feet." Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has consistently been unable to gather enough support to bring the bill to the floor. "Lawmakers, aides and analysts say Reid must bring the bill to the floor when the Senate returns in September in light of the major deficiencies in a nearly century-old regulatory system —- and one of the worst food outbreaks yet." Politico outlines some of the shortcomings in current law, including that the FDA cannot authorize recalls and must rely instead on food makers to call back items (Shiner, 8/24).

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.