The food we eatFDA looks for ways to fund $1.4 billion Food Safety Reform Act
Food-borne illness strikes 40 million Americans, hospitalizing 100,000, and killing thousands each year; on 4 January President Obama signed the long-awaited FDA Food Safety and Modernization Act into law — sweeping legislation that overhauls U.S. food-safety laws for the first time in more than seventy years; the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the food-safety law would cost about $1.4 billion in its first five years, including the cost of hiring an estimated 2,000 additional food inspectors; the passage of the legislation now presents FDA with the question of how to procure the funding required to implement and enforce the new system
On 4 January President Obama signed the long-awaited FDA Food Safety and Modernization Act into law — sweeping legislation that overhauls U.S. food-safety laws for the first time in more than seventy years.
The $1.4 billion legislation makes monumental improvements to the security and safety of the nation’s food supply by giving FDA the authority to order product recalls, requiring food manufacturers to keep more-detailed food-safety plans, allowing FDA greater access to food company records and other provisions.
FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg estimated food-borne illness strikes forty million Americans, hospitalizing 100,000 and killing thousands each year. She said FDA will work with a wide range of public and private partners to build a new system of food-safety oversight focused on applying the best-available science and good common sense to prevent the problems that can make people sick.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the food-safety law would cost about $1.4 billion in its first five years, including the cost of hiring an estimated 2,000 additional food inspectors. The passage of the legislation now presents FDA with the question of how to procure the funding required to implement and enforce the new system.
Food Product Design reports that in a Jan. 3 press teleconference, Hamburg said some of the mandated activities the bill requires of FDA were previously set in motion by the agency, so they will be theoretically introduced more quickly and efficiently. While not specific about funding and the ability to meet the Act’s requirements, she did say she expects the agency’s projected partnerships with state and local governments, as well as other relevant entities, will create synergies and efficiencies that will help the cost situation.
FDA has been among the few agencies to receive moderate increases in the president’s budget, but it remains to be seen how much funding Congress will appropriate. “The food-safety legislation will have to compete for funding with a litany of other priorities,” said a spokesman for Representative Tom Latham (R-Iowa), who sits on the appropriations subcommittee.
Erik Olson, director, Food and Consumer Safety Programs, Pew Health Group, Washington, D.C., said his group will join industry and consumer organizations in urging Congress to increase FDA funding for the good of the country’s food supply. “The costs of not implementing the law are staggering, and it would be money well spent,” he said. “It is wise to spend now to save in the long run.”
