ANIMALS ON DRUGS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 83

• An enormous national salmonella outbreak in peanut products began in 2008 and sickened more than
630 people in forty-three states, killing nine. The incident was linked to a sole Georgia processing plant
owned by the Peanut Corporation of America that had opened in 2005—a facility that had never been
inspected until after the outbreak. The illness affected 275 companies, and almost 3,500 products were
recalled. One of the companies involved declined to recall its products, highlighting the lack of food
safety authority at the FDA. Later, in 2009, a similar salmonella outbreak took place in pistachios.
• During the summer of 2009, a refrigerated-cookie-dough shortage took place after Nestlé's Toll House
dough sickened at least sixty-six people in twenty-eight states from E. coli 0157:H7. The massive
amount of dough was prepared in the company's Danville, Virginia, plant, but the source of the E. coli
was never found.
• In March 2010 the FDA announced a nationwide recall of black pepper. Over the previous several years,
pepper-related recalls had been initiated because of salmonella contamination. The largest incident re-
lated to black pepper occurred when 1.24 million pounds of pepper-coated salami was recalled because
of salmonella poisoning, which affected 238 people in forty-four states and the District of Columbia.
• A massive recall announced on March 4, 2010, was remarkable for the number of foods it involved and
for the FDA's lack of spine in dealing with the company responsible—a producer of the flavor enhancer
hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP). According to nutritionist and food writer Dr. Marion Nestle, not
only did the company not take immediate action, but the FDA failed as well: “[F]rom January 21 until
at least February 20, the company continued to ship HVP potentially contaminated with Salmonella.
Then, over the next six days, the FDA had to beg Basic Food Flavors to issue a recall. The company
may have started notifying customers on February 26 but the FDA did not announce the recall until
March 4, weeks after the first findings of Salmonella.” 3 (Emphasis in original.)
• The largest egg recall in history took place in 2010. Half a billion eggs, produced in just two facilities,
were recalled that August. Two rodent-infested Iowa egg farms caused almost two thousand traceable
illnesses from salmonella and sickened nearly sixty thousand people nationwide.
This rash of high-profile, large-volume food recalls brought the issue of reforming the FDA to a head
during the 111th Congress, when, after a strange and convoluted path, the FDA Food Safety Modernization
Act finally passed in December 2010 and was signed into law by Obama on January 4, 2011. The rancor-
ous debate over the bill began during 2009, with the initial passage of a controversial House version of the
bill. The debate moved to the Senate, where after a vicious and prolonged process companion legislation
passed on November 30, 2010, and moved on for reconciliation with the House bill.
At this point, the legislation hit a snag, because Senate sponsors had added tax provision, which accord-
ing to the U.S. Constitution can originate only in the House. The bill was then inserted by the House into
a budget bill and sent back to the Senate, by then deep into a tax debate, where one of its harshest critics,
Republican senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, threatened to filibuster it if it was not removed. At the
last moment, leaders of both parties in the Senate, fearing they would be blamed for food-poisoning deaths,
agreed to pass a revised version, and the House passed the final version shortly before Christmas 2010. It
was a theatrical finish to a bill crafted with drama.
Industries had lined up against consumer organizations and outspoken advocates such as Connecticut
congresswoman Rosa Delauro. As chairwoman of the House Agriculture FDA appropriations subcommit-
tee, Delauro had been leading the charge for adequate funding of food safety at the FDA and USDA. Her
demands for regular inspections of food facilities, adequate traceability for contaminated food, and stand-
ard imported-food regulations were viewed as radical, job-killing government interference.
Senator Coburn, a physician who often takes anti-public health positions, had editorialized in USA
Today that the bill would “impose new and invasive regulations” and expand “duplicative” bureaucracy.