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Washington • In a world where we get garlic from China, shellfish from Thailand and sugar cane from Mexico, Congress is ready to approve a food-safety bill that would strengthen the nation's top regulator and impose new rules on domestic production and trading partners.
The legislation is aimed at preventing tainted food from entering the supply chain, sickening Americans and forcing huge recalls. It would give the Food and Drug Administration new powers to demand recalls and require importers to certify the safety of what they're bringing into this country.
By allowing regulators, for instance, to react more quickly to reports of illness, the legislation could limit or prevent recalls such as those of spinach and peanuts in recent years, supporters said.
The House is expected to pass the measure Tuesday, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime update. A lot has changed since 1938," when the current food regulatory regime was established, said Ami Gadhia, policy counsel for the nonprofit Consumers Union. "This will put FDA in a posture to prevent foodborne illness before it happens."
The bill also will be good for business because "it's going to provide a measure of security and certainty that there's a system in place and bad actors will be weeded out. It's going to save business costly recalls," Gadhia said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week said tainted food is responsible for 3,000 deaths and 48 million illnesses a year.
But even with new powers, federal regulators may be hard-pressed to overcome a challenge that has grown in recent years: Food-safety rules changed little over the last 70 years even as the U.S. food chain evolved into a global network including foreign growers, producers and processors over whom the United States has little or no direct control.
Today, imported food accounts for about 15 percent of the nation's supply, by value, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Imports amounted to $76 billion through the first 10 months of this year, a 12 percent increase over last year and on track to be twice the $41 billion in 1998.