FDA Food Safety Modernization Act--Motion To Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I know my colleague, Senator Harkin, will be on the floor momentarily to speak about the Food Safety Modernization Act. I wish to preface my remarks by thanking him personally. TOM HARKIN has been not only a great colleague and friend, he has been such an exceptional leader when it comes to this important issue. It is no surprise for those of us who know TOM HARKIN's congressional and Senate career. He has always been an extraordinary leader.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, which literally has changed the face of America and opened doors for the disabled across our Nation, is not only one of the most dramatic steps forward when it comes to human rights and civil rights in my time, it was led by Senator TOM HARKIN of Iowa and Senator Robert Dole, Republican of Kansas, who then served in the Senate.

So TOM HARKIN has been our conscience and our leader when it comes to issues involving safety, human rights, and expanding the reach of freedom in our Nation to those who otherwise might have been denied.

I will tell you why I am passionate about the food safety issue. It goes back to a note I received as a Congressman. It was almost 16 years ago. It was a note from a woman who did not live in my congressional district. She was from Chicago and I was 200 miles away. Her name was Nancy Donley, and she told the story of her 5- or 6-year-old son Alex. She brought some hamburger home from the local grocery store to fix it for her son. She made his dinner. He ate it, and then he got sick, terribly sick. In a matter of a few hours, he was at the hospital, and in a matter of a few days he had passed away.

He was a victim of E. coli. Trust me, his mom would never have done anything to harm him, and she thought she was doing the right thing to cook his meal and bring it to him at the dinner table. Unfortunately, that family decision, which is made millions of times across America every single day, was a fatal decision.

Nancy Donley--heart broken, her life shattered by the loss of that little boy she loved so much--could have shrunk away in despair and anger over what had happened but did not. She made it her passion and her crusade to gather others like her in behalf of the cause of food safety. She started an organization called Safe Tables Our Priority--or STOP--and started lobbying Members of Congress, even a Congressman 200 miles away, to do what they could to make our laws stronger and better across America.

I have kept in touch with Nancy. It has been over 16 years. We are close friends now. I have to tell you that in my pantheon of heroes, Nancy Donley is right up there for what she has done with her life. If we are fortunate enough today and successful in passing this bill--at least moving it forward procedurally--I wish to say I am doing that in her name and in the memory of her son Alex and the thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even more, across America who are victims of contaminated food.

For some people, it is just a simple case of indigestion or diarrhea that goes away after a few days. It may be mistaken for the flu. For others, it gets more serious. The number of Americans who die or become severely ill due to preventible foodborne illness is unacceptably high, and it has been that way for a long time.

Every year, 76 million Americans suffer from preventable foodborne illness. Mr. President, 325,000 of our family members, friends, and neighbors are hospitalized each year because of food contamination and 5,000 die--100 a week. That means that every 5 minutes 3 people are rushed to the hospital because the food they ate made them sick, and at the end of the day 13 will die.

Throughout the debate on this bill, I have shared the heartbreaking stories of victims such as Alex Donley and his family. Some of these victims who were courageous enough to share their stories will suffer chronic symptoms that do not go away for a long time, if ever. The victims who have died would have wished they were lucky enough to be alive, even with these long-term illnesses.

Today, as we vote to move to this bill, I will be thinking about how much it means to so many of us. I talked about Nancy Donley and her son Alex. They are not the only ones. There are people all across America who understand, when they go shopping at the food store and buy groceries or buy produce, there is a sort of built-in assumption it is safe. Would our government let things be put on the shelves in a store that have not been inspected, that are not safe?

Most people assume that if the government is doing its job like it is supposed to, they should not have to worry about those things. Well, to a great extent, they are right. We have extraordinary resources in the Federal Government dedicated toward food safety. But the simple fact is, there are wide gaps when it comes to food safety in America, and those gaps need to be closed by this bill.

The vast majority of Americans understand this. According to a recent poll commissioned by Pew, 89 percent of Americans want us to modernize our food safety system. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi, our Republican colleague, our food safety bill passed the Health, Education and Labor Committee unanimously more than a year ago.

This bill has substantial bipartisan support. Twenty Republican and Democratic Senators are already committed to it. It is supported by a broad group of consumer protection interests, including those at the Grocery Manufacturers Association and those at the Food Marketing Institute and other places that actually market the products and are willing to accept the new legal burdens of this bill in order to give their customers peace of mind in terms of what they are going to buy and consume.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act will provide the FDA with the authority it needs to prevent, detect, and respond to food safety problems.

The bill will increase the frequency of inspection at all foreign and domestic food facilities according to the risk they present.

One of the issues we have to be aware of is that a global economy means food is moving across borders more frequently. It is rare that we have the resources in place in some foreign country to make sure what is in that can or in that package is safely prepared. This bill moves us toward this goal. We pick the things that are the most dangerous when it comes to food imports and say they will be the highest priority; we will start the inspection now on food imports coming into the United States. The FDA doesn't currently have the resources or statutory mandate to inspect more frequently, and what they do inspect in terms of imports is very limited. We expand that to the most high-risk, dangerous food products that might come in.

Most facilities are inspected by the Food and Drug Administration, though only once every 10 years. Think about it. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is in place every single day at meat and poultry and production facilities with the inspectors in place to do the job. When it comes to the FDA, an agency with such a broad responsibility--in fact, much broader: 1 inspection every 10 years--if it is your son or daughter, your baby, someone you love, is that enough? I don't think it is. This bill significantly increases the frequency of inspections at all domestic and foreign food production facilities according to the risks they present. The bill gives the Food and Drug Administration long overdue authority to conduct mandatory recalls of contaminated food.

It is hard to believe today, but if we know something is contaminated and has been sent out to the grocery shelves across America, our government has no legal authority to say: Bring it in. The best we can do is advertise the fact that it is dangerous and hope that the manufacturer, the distributor, and the ultimate retailer will get the message and move on it and do the right thing. It is voluntary. It is not mandatory, even if we know that something is dangerous. This bill gives that authority to the Food and Drug Administration. That means that if a company refuses to recall contaminated food, the most expedient action the FDA can take is to issue a press release right away, and we have to get beyond that. We have to give them authority. Many companies do cooperate with the FDA, and I salute them. It is not only the sensible thing to do; it certainly maintains the representation of them as food producers.

Some, such as the Peanut Corporation of America, which distributed thousands of pounds of peanuts and peanut paste contaminated with salmonella, didn't fully or quickly recall food that made people sick. The Food Safety Modernization Act is going to change that by ensuring the FDA can compel a company to recall food that can cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

Experts agree that individual businesses are in the best position to identify and prevent food safety hazards at their own facilities. The people who run a facility know where the vulnerabilities are on the assembly line and they know which hazards their foods are most susceptible to. That is why our bill requires each business to identify the food safety hazards at each of its locations and then implement a plan that addresses those hazards and keeps the food safe and free of contamination. The bill gives the FDA the authority to review and evaluate these food safety hazard prevention plans and hold companies accountable.

I see the chairman of the committee on the floor and I will end in a moment.

Finally, our bill gives the FDA the authority to prevent contaminated food from other countries from entering the United States. If a foreign facility refuses U.S. food safety inspection, the FDA has the authority to deny entry to their imports. Think about that. This is now going to be put into the law that if you are producing food overseas and you will not allow us to inspect your facility, we can stop exports to the United States. Is there any Member of the Senate, any family, who doesn't think that is a good idea? That is what this bill is all about.

I wish to thank Senator Harkin for his extraordinary leadership on this bill. I can't tell my colleagues how many times we have come together, Democrats and Republicans, trying to work out differences. We are very close. I think there is one item of disagreement going into it. That is pretty good for Senate work--only one item of disagreement.

I say to my friends: Bring this bill to the floor. Let's vote on that particular item--Senator Tester's concern--up or down. Let's do it. But let's not go another day without providing the protection families across America expect and deserve when they buy food. Let's do this on behalf of Nancy Donley and moms and dads all across America who ran the risk and, in her case, went through the bitter experience of losing her little 6-year-old boy Alex because of contaminated food. This is something that should be totally nonpartisan.

I urge my colleagues: Let's give a strong vote today to move forward on this important bill and help ensure that the food on America's tables is safe.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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