The Food Safety Modernization Act moves the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) away from its early-20th-century role of responding to adulterated food to a more modern one of requiring companies to stop contamination before it happens by looking for the places where things can go wrong and fixing them.

It also allows the agency to issue mandatory recalls and hire more food-safety inspectors. The FDA oversees most of the nation's food supply, except for meat, poultry and processed eggs, which are the purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Much of the food industry had supported the new rules, saying they would "raise the bar for the entire food industry" in the words of a statement signed by 20 organizations, including the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the National Restaurant Association.

Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., in line to become chairman of the agriculture appropriations subcommittee that would fund the measure, said he isn't sure the new act — and its $1.4 billion price tag over five years — is necessary.

"In the face of a deficit that's now $1.4 trillion and a debt that's 96% of GDP, is this really the way we need to be spending our money?" he said.

Citing the latest food-borne-illness figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kingston said that although one in six Americans is estimated to be sickened by food every year, if the numbers are divided by the number of meals we eat a day, 99.99% of those meals are safe "We're moving in the right direction under the existing state and federal and self inspections."

Republicans will control the House of Representatives when Congress reconvenes today.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who currently chairs the committee, called the new law "a significant step forward in modernizing our country's antiquated food-safety systems."

DeLauro, who first proposed food-safety legislation in 1999, noted the food system still makes people sick. At the same time as Kingston is questioning the money for the FDA's enhanced food-safety oversight, the FDA announced "that a salmonella outbreak involving alfalfa sprouts had sickened nearly 100 people in at least 15 states," she said.

Food safety isn't a partisan issue, said Carol Tucker-Foreman, with the Consumer Federation of America.

"Members of Congress don't want their constituents to suffer because they were exposed to peanut butter, spinach, eggs or some other food that looked great but was tainted by dangerous bacteria," she said.

What's in the new food-safety law

Each year, according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, 48 million people — or one in six Americans — are sickened by food-borne illnesses. Of those, 180,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die.

The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010 overhauls the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for everything in the U.S. food supply except for meat, poultry and processed eggs (i.e. not including raw eggs in their shells). Those are overseen by the Department of Agriculture. Food-safety advocates and the food industry have been working on the overhaul for more than a decade.

Some of the changes it puts into place:

	Before	Now
Surveillance	Under the FDA's original statute from 1938, the focus was on responding to adulterated food once it was discovered.	Under the new rules, the FDA's focus shifts to stopping outbreaks before they start, by requiring farmers to address places in production where contamination might occur and to require processors to implement written food-safety plans.
Enforcement	The FDA couldn't force a company to recall tainted food; it could only seek a voluntary recall.	When needed, the FDA can order the recall of tainted food.
Specific targets	The FDA had to treat all foods the same, despite the fact that some are more likely to become contaminated than others.	FDA can develop regulations that focus on the highest-risk foods, including fruits, vegetables and imports.
Inspections	The FDA was able to inspect fewer than 20% of domestic food facilities and 1% of foreign food imports. More than half of food facilities have gone five or more years without a federal inspection, according to a 2010 report from the Health and Human Services inspector general.	The FDA will be able to hire 2,500 more field safety inspectors and food-safety experts by 2014 and increase substantially domestic and foreign inspections. The riskiest domestic facilities will be inspected every three years, beginning in 2015.
Records checks	For most plants, when the FDA conducted an inspection, it could only require a spot check of what was happening that day.	The FDA will have access to the food-safety plan, records and test results that are linked to the safety plan.
Exemptions	Big and small farms and producers were treated the same under the statute.	Farmers who primarily sell to farmers' markets or to restaurants, and who sell less than $500,000 a year, don't have to follow the new regulations.

Sources: Food and Drug Administration, Center for Science in the Public Interest

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