DeLauro Welcomes President’s Remarks on Reorganizing Food Safety System

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn. -3), chairwoman of the Agriculture – Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, welcomed President Barack Obama's comments regarding "reorganizing" the agencies responsible for food safety responsibilities. DeLauro has introduced the Food Safety Modernization Act, which would fix systemic problems in our food safety system by modernizing our food safety laws and establishing a separate Food Safety Administration headed by an expert in food safety within the Department of Health and Human Services.

"We finally have an Administration that recognizes the need to reorganize the current structure governing food safety. I will work with the Obama Administration to ensure that Congress enacts legislation that would restructure and modernize our food safety system so that we can better protect our food supply and reduce food-borne illnesses," said DeLauro.

During a call with regional reporters Thursday 12 March 2009, President Obama was asked, "…the salmonella outbreak and food safety originated in Georgia and what you think needs to be done about that?"

In his response, the President made the following comments in support of restructuring how food safety is handled by the federal government:

"Food safety is a serious concern, and I've directed both FDA -- I've directed both the Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to work to come up with a plan so that a lot of these different agencies that have some jurisdiction over food safety are integrated in a much more effective way and things aren't falling through the cracks.

"There's a lot of work that needs to be done in working on the front-end with food producers so that there are better warning signals of potential problems than we have right now. And we also need to be able to trace sources of food contamination much more quickly than we're doing right now. And technology can be helpful, but the key is actually reorganizing the agencies that are responsible so that they're working more in concert than they are right now."