On January 4, President Barack Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act, the first major overhaul of the nation's food safety system in over 70 years. A day before the bill was signed, FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. posted a statement on the White House Blog stating: "The historic legislation the President will sign tomorrow directs the Food and Drug Administration, working with a wide range of public and private partners, to build a new system of food safety oversight - one focused on applying, more comprehensively than ever, the best available science and good common sense to prevent the problems that can make people sick."
The legislation has been enacted as a response to a spate of food contamination outbreaks in recent years, most notably: bagged spinach (2006), peanut butter (2007 and 2009), peppers (2008), cookie dough (2009), and eggs (2010). FDA's ability to respond to these crises was somewhat hampered by their limited resources and authority. The new law, however, allows the agency to be more proactive in preventing these sorts of large-scale outbreaks, providing FDA with increased authority to inspect food processing facilities more frequently, implement stricter standards, and recall contaminated foods in the event of an outbreak.
The bill signed on Tuesday has been under debate for quite some time. The House was the first to pass a version of the bill, passing H.R. 2749 in July 2009. It took the Senate until November 2010 to pass its version, S. 510. After a lengthy series of objections, procedural delays, one constitutional snag, and threats of filibuster, the Senate and House finally reached an accord late in the waning lame duck session of Congress.
See our other posts detailing Congress' sustained efforts in passing the Food Safety Modernization Act here (December 21), here, (December 12), and here (November 23).
