Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-CT), the chairperson of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), believes Americans are at risk because of what she sees as a "fragmented" system for protecting the nation's food supply.
"I believe it's time we now move to create a single food agency," Rep. DeLauro said. She along with assistant Senate majority leader Richard Durbin (D-IL) have sponsored a bill to create a single agency with broad powers to inspect foods and ingredients as well as a mandate to act quickly in the case of problems.
Ms. DeLauro has been critical of the FDA for not moving quickly enough to deal with the melamine contamination. A report by Reuters said that the toxic ingredient passed off as a protein has been found in feed given to fish in domestic fish farms. According to the report, the tainted feed made its way from China to Canada before being fed to fish.
The assistant commissioner for food protection at the FDA, David Acheson, sought to allay concerns. "As with the situation with the poultry and hogs the (small) levels that we're seeing in the fish meal are very comparable and... we do not believe there is any significant human health risk associated with consuming these fish," he said.
Whether humans are at risk from melamine fed to fish, poultry or hogs, some believe that Reps. DeLauro and Durbin are on the right track with their proposal.
"This is not a new story about the need to modernize the system," Michael Taylor, a University of Maryland professor, who held food safety offices at USDA and FDA, told Reuters. "We need a system that focuses on prevention."
Discussion Questions: Would a single new food safety agency do a better job of protecting American consumers than the current system where responsibilities are spread over several agencies? Are the current challenges associated with protecting the nation's food supply one of structure (number of agencies, etc.) or funding?