On November 18 I received an e-mail from the U.S. PIRG (United States Public Interest Research Group) informing me that S.510, the Food Safety and Modernization Act, had come out of committee and was up for a vote as early at that day. The e-mail was in an effort to prompt concerned citizens, such as myself, to contact their senators and tell them to vote “yes” on the bill. The U.S. PIRG has issued a report about the effects of the bill being stalled in the Senate for more than a year. The report, titled “Recipe for Disaster: Food Recalls Proliferate While Food Safety Fix Awaits Action” is long, so I’ll just touch on the highlights.
Since the House passed its version of the food safety bill in July, 2009, S.510 has been waiting for time on the Senate’s floor schedule. And in those months, the FDA issued 85 recalls of food products. While the majority of the recalls were not connected to an outbreak of foodborne illness, nine of the recalls were tied to outbreaks in which 1,850 people fell ill. And as I wrote about last week, foodborne illnesses are dramatically underreported, so there were very likely many more illnesses attributable to foodborne contamination. The report included a list of all of the recalls, and one in particular caught my interest. In May there was a recall of black pepper which had sickened 272 people in 12 states with Salmonella. This was an example of what is termed a “rolling recall,” which means that a contaminated product finds its way into other foods, resulting in the recall of numerous individual food items. I never would have thought that black pepper could be contaminated, much less result in eight recalls! Also of note, Ohio was affected by 53 separate recalls in the period from July 2009 to September 2010. 
I don’t know about you, but this brings home the point that if citizens want something done, they have the obligation to speak up. S.510 is controversial, but if you take a look at the folks arguing against the bill you might see that the bulk of them obviously have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The bill didn’t come up for a vote as predicted, so the issue is not yet resolved. If you want to have a say, contact your senators and tell them how you feel.
This, dear readers, is the last required post for my class project. I do hope you have learned something about food safety and the business of food safety, and maybe you can better protect yourself and your loved ones from falling victim to foodborne contaminants. I wish you well.
Wow...again, another great post...It would appear that there are some people in our beloved halls of Congress that don't want this bill to go forward. Is that surprising??? Any time someone stands to lose from a bill going forward, they will stall like an old mule. Who would have ever thought, as you mentioned, that there would be a recall on black pepper. That is one of my favorite commodities...I use black pepper whenever and wherever I'm able. I have enjoyed the insights you have given over these past several weeks on the foodborne illnesses and what is and in some cases, isn't done to keep the public advised.
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