Today’s news about a food safety overhaul buries the lede

Here’s WaPo:

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday finalized long-awaited rules that will require U.S. food manufacturers to make detailed plans to identify and prevent possible contamination risks in their production facilities.

The new regulations, which will apply to the production of both human and animal foods, mark the first step in a broader effort to make the nation’s food safety system more proactive, rather than merely reacting to outbreaks after they occur.

The LA Times:

In the midst of a cucumber recall that has sickened hundreds in 30 states, the Food and Drug Administration today finalized the first two of seven major rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) meant to beef up the country’s food safety system.

The rules put in place today — the preventive controls rules — aim to hold imported food to the same safety standards as domestically produced food, and seek to develop a nationally integrated food safety system in partnership with state and local authorities.
The AP:

Food manufacturers must be more vigilant about keeping their operations clean under new government safety rules released Thursday in the wake of deadly foodborne illness outbreaks linked to ice cream, caramel apples, cantaloupes and peanuts.

The rules, once promoted as an Obama administration priority and in the works for several years, ran into delays and came out under a court-ordered deadline after advocacy groups had sued. Even then, the Food and Drug Administration allowed the Aug. 30 deadline to pass without releasing the rules to the public.

So, yes, food safety is a big deal, and – as I’ve noted in various Upshot columns and Healthcare Triage episodes –  the CDC estimates that 48 million Americans contract food-borne illnesses each year, leading to more than 125,000 hospitalizations and about 3,000 deaths. So it’s probably worth doing something. I can’t judge the merits of what we’re proposing, necessarily as I’m not a food safety expert. But I had to go to the FDA site myself to find the buried lede (emphasis mine):

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the most sweeping reform of our food safety laws in more than 70 years, was signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. It aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus from responding to contamination to preventing it.

The world is WAY different now than it was 70 years ago. Food gets touched way more times and goes much, much further than it used to. You’d think that we might have looked into upping our game since the early 1960’s, but not regularly updating our thinking on food seems to be how we roll.

@aaronecarroll

Aaron Carroll

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll. He is the Chief Health Officer at Indiana University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research Mentoring at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to contributing regularly to The New York Times and the Atlantic, he is the author of four books, most recently The Bad Food Bible.

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Aaron Carroll

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll. He is the Chief Health Officer at Indiana University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research Mentoring at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to contributing regularly to The New York Times and the Atlantic, he is the author of four books, most recently The Bad Food Bible.

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