Personal Injury Law

A Safer Food Supply Cannot Wait

By Bill Marler, Esq.

I am trying to have a ski vacation with my family, but a good friend emailed me Noam Levey’s article – “FDA reform likely to take back seat in Obama plan” - I nearly fell off the chairlift.

"’This is an issue that will have to wait its turn,’ said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and longtime proponent of tougher food laws and a friend of President-elect Obama. Once again, bigger problems with higher profiles might shoulder aside food safety in the competition for resources.”

Senator Durbin, with all due respect, from someone who has briefed you and your staff on food safety issues, who has testified before congress, and who has supported you and the Democratic Party for years, hoping that once we threw the R’s out public health would be pushed to the front burner - let’s think this through a bit.

Poisoning people is not good for the economy.  It is bad for it.  Continuing to allow 76,000,000 of our citizens to be sickened each year (325,000 hospitalized and 5,000 deaths) costs our nation billions and billions each and every year, from the needless medical expenses, lost wages, lost productivity and lost lives.  On top of that the cost of outbreaks to business can also be steep, hundreds of millions were lost by the tomato and spinach industries because of bacterial contamination in those products.

Rethinking how our government helps protect (or not) our food supply and spending needed money on the CDC (we need more surveillance), FDA (we need more inspectors domestically and abroad) and the USDA and FSIS (they need a new focus), are cheap investments for the public (both individual and business) good. There is always an excuse for doing what is unnecessary.  However, with respect to food safety it is necessary.  the time is over for excuses, we voted for change and we deserve it.

Full post as published by Marler Blog on December 22, 2008 (boomark / email).