| |
Return
to News Releases
News Release
8-27-09
WEST VIRGINIA COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE
CALLS FOR PASSAGE OF FEDERAL FOOD SAFETY BILLS
West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass is supporting passage of two food safety bills currently making their way through Congress, “The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009” (H.R. 2749) and “FDA Food Safety Modernization Act” (S. 510).
Broadly speaking, the bills would require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to establish standards to control foodborne contaminants and raw agricultural commodities, inspect facilities on a risk-based schedule, establish a food tracing system, assess fees for facility reinspections and recalls, and identify preventive programs and practices to promote food security against agriterrorism. The measures would provide FDA with the authority to issue mandatory stop-sale orders, establish an importer verification program and to quarantine food in any geographic area within the United States.
“These bills would bring FDA’s programs much closer to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s programs, and I believe they will help to strengthen the American consumer’s confidence in the food supply,” said Commissioner Douglass. “Too many times in recent years the public has been left in doubt as federal authorities issued overly broad warnings and dragged investigations out for months.”
He noted that West Virginia’s Meat Inspection Program uses methodology similar to that in the federal proposals, and that a recall of state-inspected meat products has never been necessary since it was established in the early 1960s.
In March, President Obama created the Food Safety Working Group to address the “troubling trend” of reduced food safety. The group identified three core food safety principles to guide the development of a modern, coordinated food safety system.
- Principle 1: Preventing harm to consumers is the first priority. The Working Group recommends that food regulators shift towards prioritizing prevention and move aggressively to implement sensible measures designed to prevent problems before they occur.
- Principle 2: Effective food safety inspections and enforcement depend upon good data and analysis. The Working Group recommends that the federal government prioritize crucial inspection and enforcement activity across the world; support safety efforts by states, localities and businesses at home; and utilize data to guide these efforts and evaluate their outcomes.
- Principle 3: Outbreaks of foodborne illness should be identified quickly and stopped. The Working Group recommends the establishment of a food tracing system that shortens the time between outbreak detection, resolution and recovery. It is in everyone’s interest for outbreaks to be rare in number, limited in scale and short in duration, the group noted.
The new legislation presumably incorporates these principles.
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture protects plant, animal and human health through a variety of scientific, regulatory and consumer protection programs, as mandated by state law. The Commissioner of Agriculture is one of six statewide elected officials in West Virginia. Currently, Commissioner Gus R. Douglass is the longest-serving agriculture commissioner in the nation. For more information, visit www.wvagriculture.org.
“The Basis of All Wealth is Agriculture.”
|
