PlusFood Industry Hampered by 2003 Lobbying SuccessFood Industry Hampered by 2003 Lobbying SuccessThe Associated PressA food industry lobbying campaign took a bite out of government tools to track down adulterated produce. Now, the truncated system for tracking foodborne illness has bitten back. (July 21)[Notes:ANCHOR VOICE] [Notes:Dateline: Washington][Notes:Various file vid tomatoes, people purchasing tomatoes, salsa] It's been one of the worst foodborne outbreaks in at least a decade....More than a twelve hundred people are recovering after getting sick from salmonella ... At first focusing on raw tomatoes for weeks ... the F-D-A has now shifted its focus to jalapeno peppers.That's after one pepper at a Texas food distribution center tested positive for the strain of salmonella linked to the outbreak. [Notes:Graphic $250,000,000]Now the food industry is just starting to get a grip on its losses ... an estimated two-hundred-fifty-million dollars. [Notes:SOT Dr. Robert Brackett, SVP, Chief Regulatory Affairs and Science Officer at The Grocery Manufacturers Association, former Director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition: "I think in a case like this where you cannot get to the source quickly and you have many people exposed, where you have consumer confidence eroded the way it has been, surely this has been very, very expensive to both consumers and the industry."]That's in part because the government was forced to work with old record-keeping methods. [Notes:SOT William Hubbard, Retired Associate/Deputy Commissioner FDA: "Well it means that you've got to plow through lots of paper. And I think FDA is finding in salmonella and tomatoes case, that the records often aren't even on site. There at a corporate headquarters somewhere else which can take up to days to access those records."]F-D-A officials admit paper records hindered investigators this time around in their efforts to pinpoint the source of the salmonella...But they say... even if the agency had access to electronic records .... investigators might still not uncover the source of outbreaks faster.Even so .... some say .. All of this **could** have been avoided.Efforts to streamline the process were made back in 2003.That's when the F-D-A proposed all businesses keep electronic records.So **if** an outbreak occurred .... they could quickly trace the origin. [Notes:SOT William Hubbard, Retired Associate/Deputy Commissioner FDA: "If FDA had been given the resources and authority years ago that it asked for to solve these kinds of problems, I think we would have solved this already."][Notes:Vid file White House under graphic 'too expensive, too burdensome] BUT the food industry lobbied with the White House ... saying the policies were too expensive and too burdensome. [Notes:AP logo over vid docs]In fact ... The Food Marketing Institute called the rules ' unreasonable ' and ' unnecessary ' ....saying they would require the industry to maintain an ' exorbitant ' amount of information.The Grocery Manufacturers Association said the policies would force them to keep ' Cradle-to-Grave ' records... [Notes:SOT Caroline Smith DeWaal, Food and Safety Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest: "FDA's strong, proposed bioterrorism rules were significantly watered down before they became final."]That's also in part because F-D-A was **not** involved in the final decision making. [Notes:SOT William Hubbard, Retired Associate/Deputy Commissioner FDA: "There is a lot of negotiations about the rules above the FDA that the agency's not party to. That's unfortunate because sometimes the scientists should have been there to make their case."]The A-P reviewed government records between March 2003 and March 2004. [Notes:File vid White House] Those documents revealed at least ten meetings between industry representatives and the White House's Office of Management and Budget. [Notes:Graphic with logos]Some of the participants included ....Kraft ...the Grocery Manufacturers Association ...Procter&Gamble ...Kroger ...and Safeway.But now ... five years later .... parts of the industry are acknowledging their lobbying efforts were **too** successful. [Notes:SOT Caroline Smith DeWaal, Food and Safety Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest: "In a way the weak rules have now bitten the industry because they in fact have suffered as a result of the weak trace-back system."]And they're urging Congress to act again ... Hoping to prevent an outbreak like this latest one ... One that's forced the F-D-A to operate in slow motion to find the source. ___ ___, The Associated Press.(****END****) ANCHOR VOICE: -------------------------VIDEO PRODUCER: Nicole Grether------------------------------VIDEO SOURCE: AP/file--------------------------VIDEO APPROVAL:------------------------------VIDEO RESTRICTIONS: none----------------------------------SCRIPT/WIRE SOURCE: BC-Salmonella-Bite-Back------------------------------------ Author: AssociatedPress Keywords: fda salmonella food industry hampered by 2003 lobbying success Added: July 26, 2008
