Food Safety Modernization Act

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, tomorrow, Chairman Tom Harkin will lead the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in the markup of a food safety bill, S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. I introduced this bill with Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and a broad coalition of Senators from both sides of the aisle. I thank those Senators--especially the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who joined as a cosponsor of the bill, and Senators Dodd, Burr, Isakson, Alexander, Klobuchar, and Chambliss--for joining me to fight for America's food safety. Since we introduced this bill, a number of other Members have signed on, including Senators Hatch, Gillibrand, Tom Udall, and Senator Burris. We are pleased to have their support. There is bipartisan support for the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act because food safety is not a partisan issue. The safety of our food supply affects everybody every day.

As we learned from recent events, eating unsafe food--whether it is spinach contaminated with E. coli, peanut butter laced with salmonella or melamine-spiked candy--can lead to serious illness and death. Every year 76 million Americans suffer from preventable foodborne illness; 325,000 are hospitalized each year and 5,000 will die. Every 5 minutes, three people are rushed to the hospital because the food they ate made them sick. At the end of each day, 13 will die. The tragedy of these deaths is clear. We certainly recognize the anguish of loved ones who lose someone to food contamination. What is less understood are the long-term consequences for those who do survive. Victims are affected for months, sometimes years, after they leave the hospital.

Last week, the Center for Foodborne Illness, Research & Prevention released a report on the long-term health consequences of foodborne illness. The report shows it is often the lasting damage that causes more pain and suffering than the immediate effects felt right after eating contaminated food. That means that after the initial stomach aches and diarrhea have run their course, many foodborne illness victims will suffer from a lifetime of paralysis, kidney failure, seizures and mental disability and sometimes premature death. What is worse, children, pregnant women, and elderly Americans are among the most vulnerable.

I wish to show you a photo of this lovely young girl. Her name is Rylee. She knows the story of foodborne illness personally. On the morning of her ninth birthday, Rylee learned her family would celebrate by taking a road trip to an aquarium. Rylee couldn't have been more excited. Similar to many 9-year-olds, this cute little girl loved to sing and dance. On the morning of her birthday, she was doing both. Before the end of the day, Rylee was rushed to the hospital, where she was hospitalized for a month. Before she got to the aquarium, Rylee ate a salad. What she didn't know was the salad contained spinach that was laced with E. coli. The next day, Rylee had a stomach ache and severe diarrhea.

Her condition continued to worsen. Days later she was in excruciating pain. Her blood pressure was abnormally low. She was dehydrated, and her kidneys began to fail. As her parents watched in horror, Rylee began to hallucinate on the hospital bed. Rylee and her family were suffering more pain than they ever thought imaginable--all because Rylee had eaten a salad she thought was safe.

She escaped this incident with her life. But she, like millions of foodborne illness victims, will endure health complications indefinitely. She will need multiple kidney transplants over the course of her life. She had to endure a painful surgery and challenging speech therapy, so she can no longer sing or speak with a loud voice.

Rylee has not given up hope. She was recently walking the Halls of Congress advocating for food safety reform. I heard her share her story with hundreds of parents, victims, and other supporters of the Make Our Food Safe Coalition.

Although her voice is now permanently softer and lower than it was before her illness, we heard Rylee's message loudly and clearly: All Americans deserve food that is safe.

Mr. President, I would like to show you another photo I have in the Chamber. This is a picture of Mary Ann of Mendota, IL. She is 80 years old. Mary Ann is pictured with her young grandson. I shared her story with the HELP Committee just a few weeks ago.

Mary Ann was planning a big Labor Day family celebration, and she decided to make a spinach salad. She used spinach which she did not know was contaminated with E. coli.

Hours after eating the spinach, Mary Ann was sprawled across her bathroom floor--vomiting violently and experiencing uncontrollable diarrhea. Then her kidneys failed.

Instead of spending time with her family on that holiday, she spent it in the hospital, staying there for 6 weeks, receiving medical treatment intravenously. Thankfully, Mary Ann is alive, but the quality of her life is never going to be the same.

This country has a good system, and most of our food is safe. But there are far too many lives--such as Mary Ann's and Rylee's--that have been compromised by the long-term effects of foodborne illness.

Parsing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act is an important step toward ensuring that the food we eat is safe and that we no longer hear these heartbreaking stories. This act will finally provide the FDA with the authority and resources it needs to prevent, detect, and respond to food safety problems.

The bill will increase the frequency of inspection at all food facilities, according to the risk they present. Because FDA does not currently have the resources or statutory mandate to inspect more frequently, most facilities are only inspected by the FDA about once every decade. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act will require high-risk facilities to be inspected annually. Lower risk facilities would be inspected every 4 years.

The bill gives the FDA long-overdue authority to conduct mandatory recalls of contaminated food. Most people are stunned to know that the Federal Government does not have the authority to recall contaminated food. This bill will change that when it is signed into law.

Most companies cooperate with the FDA's recall efforts, but we have to make sure those who hesitate and are uncooperative are called into line.

Some--such as the Peanut Corporation of America, which distributed thousands of pounds of peanuts and peanut paste contaminated with salmonella--did not fully or quickly recall the food that was on the markets that made people sick. The food safety bill in HELP will change that by ensuring that the FDA can compel a company to recall food.

Experts agree that individual businesses are in the best position to identify and prevent food safety hazards. People who run these facilities know where the vulnerabilities are on their assembly lines, and they know which hazards the food products they work with are most at risk for. That is why the bill asks each business to identify the food safety hazards at each of its locations and then implement a plan that addresses the hazards.

The bill gives FDA the authority to review and evaluate those food safety hazard prevention plans and to hold companies accountable for not complying with the requirements of the plan.

Finally, the bill gives the FDA the authority to prevent contaminated food from other countries from entering the United States. Importers will have to verify the safety of foreign suppliers and imported food so we know the food we are bringing into our country is safe. If a foreign facility refuses U.S. food safety inspections, the FDA will then have the authority to deny entry to imports from that facility.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act employs these and other commonsense approaches to help the FDA do its job of ensuring the food we eat is safe. The bill is balanced, bipartisan, and it is supported by a broad coalition of not just consumer advocates but the major business interests in food production and marketing.

I thank Chairman Tom Harkin of Iowa and Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming for leading the markup of S. 510. I hope this bill will come to the Senate floor. I know my Republican colleagues who have joined me as cosponsors believe, as I do, this is a step in the right direction of ensuring the food supply in America is even safer.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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