Food Safety More Important than Ever

Jacksonville – The United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that the U.S. needs to change the way that food is brought from farms to consumers. The recent outbreaks of food poisoning have shown the need for the new direction.

Salmonella is one of the number one food poisons that have begun to be out of control. The United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention has released a statement stating that they intend to keep a tighter watch on food poisonings.

The center has noticed that food production and quality is no longer improving. They intend to take more steps to ensure that foods are safe for everyone to consume.

In response to the outbreaks, Congress is looking into legislation that would make food safety and cleanliness a higher priority. President Obama and others are considering creating an additional food safety administration.
There are over 76 million food poisoning cases every year. 5,000 of these cases end up dead, and even more are hospitalized. Salmonella is one of the worst offenders.

In March 2009, pistachios were found to contain the bacteria salmonella. Salmonella has appeared in many different places since 2008, including peanuts and tomatoes. Thousands of peanut products had to be removed from shelves.

These outbreaks have made many consumers worried about the quality of food production in the United States. They have contacted Congress and other political figures in protest. This brought about the legislation increasing food safety.

Government officials say that the current focus is on containing outbreaks after they occur. The focus should be on preventing the incidents from happening at all.

A food safety bill was introduced by Sen. Richard J. Durbin, who has worked on many pieces of legislation regulating the food industry. His bill would facilitate the food safety process and make it more centralized.

Along the same lines, Rep. Rosa DeLauro introduced a bill that gives the FDA more power over manufacturing and other food safety platforms. This bill would also increase funding for the industry.

The information concerning the increasing outbreaks will cause these bills to have a much better change of passing. This is because when safety becomes an issue, the legislation for such items usually becomes more popular.

All of this data supports the argument that preventative methods of health and safety should become the focus of today’s health services. This would bring the United States out of its current reactive state and into a new era of health.