And the Centers are putting might behind their fighting words.
This week, the non-profits filed a law suit against two federal agencies... the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)... for failure to implement many vital mandates of the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. In their legal filing, the Centers explain:
"FSMA is the first major piece of federal legislation to overhaul food safety since 1938. Continuous high profile outbreaks related to various foods, ranging from spinach to peanut products to eggs, underscored the need for serious legislative and regulatory reform.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every year, as a result of foodborne diseases, 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die.
"... FSMA enables FDA to better protect public health by strengthening its ability to regulate and granting the agency enhanced preventative and mandate authority. The law also provides FDA with new enforcement capacity, such as mandatory recall authority, and the ability to require that imported foods comply with U.S. inspection and preventive safety standards.
" ... FDA has missed not one, not two, but seven critical deadlines, and counting, in failing to implement FSMA's major food safety regulations."Both the Washington Post and New York Times have openly urged President Obama's White House to move forward to stop burying food safety measures in the depths of bureaucratic muck.
