Durbin: GAO Report Confirms Need for Single Food Safety Agency

DURBIN: GAO REPORT CONFIRMS NEED FOR SINGLE FOOD SAFETY AGENCY

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Government Accounting Office (GAO) today released a report supporting Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin's (D-IL) assertion that a single food safety agency would improve food safety efforts around the country.

The GAO study reviewed food safety agencies in seven high-income countries -- Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom -- where improvements were made to their existing overlapping government food safety structures. The study found that while each country faced numerous challenges in implementing a single agency approach, government officials, food industry officials, and consumer groups all reported that the consolidation was beneficial. The Netherlands even reported that it expected to reduce its food safety spending by 25 percent by reducing duplicative food safety inspections.

Under current U.S. law, food safety monitoring, inspection and labeling functions are spread across 12 agencies in the federal government, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) which oversees meat, poultry and egg products; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which oversees most other food products; and the U.S. Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service which inspects fish. Durbin and Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) intend to re-introduce legislation in both the Senate and the House creating a single national food safety agency in the coming weeks.

"This report confirms what I have been saying for years: a single food safety agency is the single best way to protect families from food-related illness or attack. One agency with clear and independent authority will ensure that food safety is driven by science not politics," Durbin said. "While America has been blessed with one of the safest and most abundant food supplies in the world, we must recognize that vulnerabilities exist and must be addressed."

The Durbin bill would create a single, independent federal food safety agency to administer all aspects of federal food safety inspections, enforcement, standards-setting and research in order to protect public health. The components of the agencies now charged with protecting the food supply, primarily housed at FDA and USDA, would be transferred to this new agency. A full copy of the GAO report can be found on the agency's website at: http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/repandtest.html.

http://durbin.senate.gov/releases.cfm