Food Safety Reform Threatened by Greed
Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on a proposed food safety bill that will likely be moving through Congress this summer. The proposed legislation, still in draft form, contains requirements that all food manufacturers write and carry out safety plans, pay an annual registration fee of $1,000 to the Food and Drug Administration to fund increased inspections, and keep track of the distribution of all food products.
New FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg testified that this bill is “a major step in the right direction.” One would think that after the string of national Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks over the past year anyone could realize our nation’s food safety system needed to be reformed. Unfortunately, that apparently is not the case.
Pamela G. Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association spoke at the hearing against a plan to charge food makers $1,000 per facility per year to pay for increased inspections, and was skeptical that the proposed changes would truly be beneficial.
Unfortunately for Ms. Bailey, consumers understand that a safety system largely based on industry self-regulation is simply not working. The fox has guarded the henhouse for too long, and now is the time for real action.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that last year alone there were nearly 1.4 million cases of Salmonella, causing 415 deaths and costing our nation over $2.6 billion. Similarly, last year there was over 73,000 cases of E. coli O157:H7, including 38 deaths, and costing nearly $500 million. Just recently the Salmonella outbreak associated with peanut butter produced by the Peanut Corporation of America is estimated to have cost over $1 billion, and taken at least nine lives.
Americans deserve much better. If even a tiny fraction of foodborne illness cases can be eliminated, the costs of increased inspections will be returned many times over, not just in money, but in lives.
History is not on the industry’s side in this debate. It has almost universally opposed increased regulation going all the way back to the historic Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The wretched conditions of the Chicago meatpacking industry first described in The Jungle made the public demand safer food over one hundred years ago, and was the catalyst for reform then. Once again, we must let industry and our elected officials know that reform is needed to reduce the prevalence of foodborne illness.
Undoubtedly reform is needed. Increased inspections and traceability is a good start. For the food industry to claim that a $1,000 per facility fee to improve and increase inspections is too great is simply foolish. I wonder if Ms. Bailey would be willing to tell the families of those killed by foodborne illness that $1,000 a year was too much to pay to prevent the loss of a family member’s life?
The writer, Mr. Pritzker, is founder and president of PritzkerOlsen, P.A., a national food safety and food poisoning law firm that has collected millions for victims of food poisoning. PritzkerOlsen has years of experience and proven success representing the families and victims of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Listeria, Botulism and other foodborne disease.
Food Poisoning Lawyer: The Shame of Underinsurance
National food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker of PritzkerOlsen, P.A., has recovered millions of dollars for victims of food poisoning. He is involved in nearly every major outbreak of foodborne illness in the United States and has been utilized as an expert on food safety by The New York Times, CBS News, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Lawyers USA, The Associated Press and Law & Politics. Here he writes an opinion column on the travesty of underinsurance at restuarants where food poisoning can take its toll on hundreds of victims in short time periods.
A Modest Proposal: Enough Insurance to Compensate Foodborne Illness Survivors
By FRED PRITZKER
Late last summer there was a devastating outbreak of E. coli O111 traced back to the Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. 341 people were sickened and one person died. While the source of the outbreak – the restaurant – was quickly identified, the disease-causing organism was not isolated on the restaurant premises or in the food and water served there. Thus, the final outbreak report (just released by the Oklahoma State Department of Health) concluded:
In the absence of isolating the outbreak organism from any environmental specimen, including restaurant surfaces, food, well water and animal feces, or from a restaurant employee who reported diarrheal illness, the original vehicle of contamination could not be determined. The exact mode of spread within the restaurant was not established, however, the epidemic curve and exposure analyses suggests there was ongoing foodborne transmission of E. coli O111:NM to Country Cottage restaurant patrons between August 15 and August 24, 2008.
Not surprisingly, this outbreak created some political fallout in the Sooner state. The state’s attorney general was quoted as saying “they [OSDH] botched the investigation and are very reluctant to admit they botched the investigation.” He said his own office determined the likely cause of the outbreak was poultry litter that contaminated the restaurant’s well water. Local politicians and, of course, the poultry industry vigorously dispute the attorney general’s accusations.
What is not in dispute, however, is the fact that E. coli O111 is a virulent pathogen that causes severe illness and death. Also not in dispute is the fact that most of the restaurant patrons will never be fully compensated for the losses they suffered. That’s because although the restaurant had insurance, the amount of the coverage is woefully insufficient to cover the harms and losses sustained by the victims. Do the math: even assuming a liability policy of $1,000,000, the average recovery for an outbreak victim would be under $3,000.
Within a few months of this massive outbreak, the restaurant reopened its doors and presumably is well on the way to building back up its business. That’s probably a good thing, assuming the restaurant owners utilize this tragedy to review and revamp the restaurant’s food safety and sanitation practices.
Of course, the outbreak victims, especially the person who died, don’t have that luxury. Many of them will never recover and even those who do face financial and physical hardship for years to come.
So the restaurant re-opens, the disease spreading vector is never identified, nobody is held accountable and politicians try to advance their careers. What about the victims?
The Locust Grove tragedy illustrates a number of problems – some insoluble, but some fairly easy to remedy. For example, let’s start requiring food purveyors to carry enough insurance to fairly compensate their customers when the food they sell is adulterated with deadly pathogens. This should not be hard or prohibitively expensive.
If the coverage is not available at a fair price in the private sector, let the government underwrite risk pools and excess coverage. There are a plenty of existing programs to model on including flood insurance, crop insurance, vaccine compensation programs, etc.
Insurance is risk spreading when the risk of harm cannot be eliminated. So why should foodborne illness survivors have to go it alone, especially when they are absolutely blameless for the damage they suffer. If we write off toxic assets, can’t we at least underwrite insurance for victims of toxic food?
