Senator Sherrod Brown

CINCINNATI, OH—U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today announced legislation that would establish a federal program to quickly and accurately trace the source of tainted food.

“If the postal service can track a package from my office in Washington to my office in Cincinnati, we should be able to do the same for food products,” said Brown. “Families that are struggling with the high cost of groceries should not also have to worry about the safety of their food. This legislation gives the government the resources it needs to protect the public.”

Brown was joined by Cincinnati Councilman Cecil Thomas and his family. Earlier this year, Thomas’ wife and daughter were hospitalized for food poising. They later learned through their local grocery store’s food notification program that they purchased food contaminated with E. coli. Brown’s legislation would establish a nationwide tracking system through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Brown’s legislation, The Food Tracking Improvement Act (S. 3422), would authorize $40 million over three years for a national traceability system for all food under FDA jurisdiction. The system would be developed by an advisory committee comprised of consumer advocates, industry leaders, and relevant representatives from FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The committee would determine which tracking mechanisms – such as tracking numbers, electronic barcodes, and federal databases – should be employed to protect consumers.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit released earlier this year suggested that six other countries and the European Union utilize stronger food safety protection measures than the U.S. Current U.S. policy relies on voluntary recalls and industry self-policing. 

In June, an Ohio E. coli outbreak resulted in delayed notification and recall. Nebraska Beef was first notified by USDA that it likely supplied contaminated beef to various retailers on June 9, 2008.  By the second week in June, it was also confirmed that numerous Ohioans had been infected with E. coli O157:H7, a sometimes-deadly strain of bacteria.  It wasn’t until July 3, 2008 that Nebraska Beef acquiesced and issued a recall of 5.3 million pounds of its meat.

A recent nation-wide salmonella outbreak that caused more than 1,400 Americans to fall ill also underscored consumer-safety shortcomings. It took over three months for FDA officials to locate the Mexican growers that supplied the contaminated jalapeño and Serrano peppers. In the interim, the federal government falsely implicated tomatoes as the cause of the outbreak, costing the tomato industry more than $100 million in lost revenue.

Earlier this year, Brown announced legislation that would give the federal government new authority to recall tainted meats, vegetables, and other food products. This legislation, The Safe and Fair Enforcement and Recall for (SAFER) Meat, Poultry, and Food Act, would give the FDA and the USDA the authority to mandate recalls of the foods under their respective jurisdictions. Mandatory recall authority will ensure that these agencies have the necessary leverage to demand that private companies follow strict safety standards and do not compromise the public’s safety in the event of contamination.

Brown has also been fighting to provide consumers with more information in the event of a food recall. Earlier this year, the USDA announced a new policy, for which Brown had advocated, that would improve consumer awareness in the event of a food recall. The USDA will now provide a public list of retailers of meat and poultry products that have been recalled because of contamination. Brown, along with Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Bob Casey (D-PA), called on the USDA in February asking that it make public a list of retailers carrying a recalled product. Currently, USDA only provides information about the manufacturer of the tainted product during a recall, not the retailers that sold it. This leads to difficulties and confusion for consumers making purchasing decisions.

As a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Brown co-founded the House Food Safety Caucus and helped negotiate food safety provisions of 2003 Bioterrorism Bill. In the Senate, he continues his work on food safety, introducing the Food and Product Responsibility Act which would help ensure that importers are able to cover the costs of recalls.

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