Food safety system plays 'outbreak roulette' -- one spin and you're bankrupt

We are holding this hearing in the midst of one of the most costly and disruptive food illness outbreaks in recent memory.

Since April, almost 1,300 Americans in 42 states and the District of Columbia have been infected with Salmonella Saintpaul.

This outbreak was first identified May 21 by the New Mexico Department of Health. As the number of cases mounted, state officials alerted the CDC of the outbreak. Meanwhile, but unbeknownst to New Mexico officials, authorities in Texas also alerted the CDC that similar cases had emerged in their State.

The investigation faltered almost from the beginning as health officials in both states began asking patients what they ate before they became ill. They used standard questionnaires which list the major--but NOT all--food items that patients may have consumed.

The questionnaire listed peppers, but not specifically jalapeno peppers--a food commonly consumed in the Southwest. But a number of those affected remembered eating tomatoes. So with little else to go on, FDA issued a nationwide warning linking consumption of certain raw red tomatoes to the outbreak of salmonella Saintpaul.
Hundreds of miles away, however, a different conclusion was being reached in Minnesota. A cluster of salmonella Saintpaul cases emerged in connection with a local Mexican restaurant. Among the customers and employees sickened, jalapenos were the common thread.

So over TWO MONTHS after the first outbreak began, over a thousand illnesses reported and hundreds of millions in losses to tomato farmers later, jalapeno peppers were implicated by FDA as the source of the current outbreak.
This missed connection between jalapenos as the ultimate source of the outbreak is extremely troubling.

Clearly serious flaws continue to exist in the methodology used by some States to collect primary epidemiological data. Furthermore, the process used by the CDC to verify and refine the collected data calls into serious question the effectiveness of communications between the States, CDC and FDA.

I want to note for the record that both the Texas and New Mexico Department of Health were invited to serve as hearing witnesses, but unfortunately both declined due to scheduling conflicts.

Given the FDA's reversal on the source of the outbreak, I am extremely interested to hear from FDA and CDC regarding the performance of the survey instruments, the methodology employed in interviewing the patients and the sampling protocols.

Frankly, I would just like to hear what in the heck went wrong??

We all sat here, a little more than a year ago and had nearly the SAME conversation about spinach. Was nothing learned from that experience? Were we any better prepared this time?

What was particularly troubling to me as I watched salmonella investigation drag on and on and the illnesses and losses mount, is the federal government's continued inability to effectively and accurately trace products from the retail level back through the supply chain to its origin.

Some food safety experts that we will hear from today assert that these trace-back efforts have been hampered by a lack of uniform recordkeeping or product descriptions. Or that trace back requirements within the 2002 Bioterrorism Act has been both poorly implemented and poorly enforced by FDA.

But Industry officials on the other hand claim trace-back efforts in this current outbreak have worked well and as expected.

As expected, there is disagreement and hopefully today we can stop the rhetoric that has been circulating around this investigation and start working on solution. Because there is no disagreement that the status quo cannot and must not continue.

The poor handling of this outbreak has confused consumers and damaged producers. You could describe our current food safety system as "outbreak roulette". One spin of the outbreak wheel and your industry may be bankrupt, your loved ones sickened. This is unacceptable, and we need to take steps to improve the response of government and industry to foodborne illness outbreaks.

We must stop being reactive and waste precious time pointing fingers as soon as an outbreak occurs. The House-passed version of the Farm Bill tried to take a step in this direction by allowing marketing orders to include food safety protocols. I strongly supported this provision, with the hope that growers could fill the void of food safety while Congress debated the merits of overhauling our current tracking systems. Because tracking only solves the mystery after a health problem has broken out. That's helpful, but the marketing order approach helps improve grower and shipper practices before consumption and before a possible outbreak.

Unfortunately, that provision lost out in the strange dance we called "Conference". And, as such, the status quo for food safety remains in place.

But marketing orders and cultural practices are only part of the story. Today we are here to take a closer look at the legal and technological capacity for traceability in fresh produce, we have four very distinguished panels to hear from today. This hearing is purposely structured to include members of Congress, agencies, industry, scientists and consumer interests.

We all have a role to play in re-examining and reshaping this country's food safety system.