Published: July 08, 2009 08:33 pm      

Long overdue

FDA acting to reduce food-borne illnesses

Finally, the government is going to be more proactive in preventing outbreaks of food-borne illnesses.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture will step up inspections and write new guidelines to reduce incidents of food-borne illnesses, a presidential working group said Tuesday.

The impact of the new rules could be dramatic.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebilius said as many as 80,000 food-borne illness cases could be eliminated each year if one of the rules, to help control salmonella contamination of eggs during production, is implemented.

In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said food safety in the United States is no longer improving. There are about 76 million cases of food-borne illnesses each year, the CDC says, causing 5,000 deaths.

As soon as this month, the FDA will issue commodity-specific guidelines for the food industry on how to reduce contamination of fresh produce.

By fall, recommendations on how food companies can create product-tracing systems will be issued. The FDA and the USDA will also create administrative positions to coordinate food-safety efforts.

The White House proposals “are things we can work with,’’ said Robert Guenther, senior vice president with the United Fresh Produce Association, a trade group. “Having better coordination between the USDA and the FDA should help outbreaks be managed more quickly,’’ reducing the costs to companies, he said.

We hope this is just the beginning of an overhaul of the food inspection program in the United States.

Too many times we read of food recalls, salmonella outbreaks and problems with food imported from other nations.

Food quality is one area where more government intervention, not less, will help protect the American public.