{"id":2665,"date":"2010-08-25T02:10:46","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T09:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2665"},"modified":"2010-08-25T02:10:46","modified_gmt":"2010-08-25T09:10:46","slug":"why-no-food-safety-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/25\/why-no-food-safety-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Why No Food Safety Law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although I am a Democrat, my positions and ideas remain my own, and when my party is wrong, I say so.  Sadly, this is one of those  times.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"25eggs\"<\/a> The Senate\u2019s yearlong failure to pass a food safety overhaul<\/strong> has hampered the ability of the Obama administration to quickly recall the 600 million eggs connected to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened nearly 2,000 people, experts and lawmakers say. <\/p>\n

The House approved its version of the food safety bill in July 2009 \u2014 that was more than 60 recalls of Food and Drug Administration regulated products ago, according to a report by the Make Our Food Safe coalition. But the Senate has continued to drag its feet. <\/p>\n

The pressure is now on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has consistently pushed the bill to the back burner<\/strong>. Lawmakers, aides and analysts say Reid must bring the bill to the floor when the Senate returns in September in light of the major deficiencies in a nearly century-old regulatory system \u2014- and one of the worst food-related outbreaks yet. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the muscle of an updated law to actually carry out these rules, we’re afraid of more outbreaks like these,\u201d said Erik Olsen, deputy director of the Pew Health Group\u2019s Food Portfolio. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really an object lesson in why we need the food safety legislation.\u201d <\/p>\n

Current law is so weak that it does not permit the FDA to authorize recalls. Instead, the government must rely on the responsible parties to issue recalls themselves \u2014 a loophole that often translates into weeks or months of negotiations between the government and companies afraid of losing profits before contaminated food gets called back<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

The pending legislation not only gives the FDA recall authority but also imposes stricter rules on mandatory inspections, trace-back protocol, access to company records and whistleblower protections \u2014 all of which are lacking in the current food safety law, which is more than 70 years old\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Politico<\/a>><\/p>\n

My instinct was to stop right here.  The Nevada Leg Hound, Harry Reid must be too busy humping Republican legs to get this done.  But I dug a little deeper and learned<\/a> that he has been humping Democratic legs this time.  One belongs to Dianne Feinstein.  She wants the bill modified to add a ban on BPA in food and beverage containers.  Byron Dorgan wants the bill modified to include drug reimportation from Canada.  Feinstein has backed off and is now willing to offer her BPA ban as an amendment. I support the ban, but it\u2019s a poison pill to the Chamber of Commerce, which owns the Republicans.  They will filibuster the amendment.  Dorgan is willing to do the same, and it will have the same results, because it\u2019s a poison pill to Big Pharma, which owns the Republicans.  I support drug reimportation, but oppose Dorgan\u2019s amendment on the principal that amendments should be directly related to the bills to which they are attached.  I screamed when Republicans packed necessary bills with unrelated amendments and will not change my tune, just because my party is in the majority.  For these Democrats to have stalled this bill for a year while piddling over these modifications, and for the Leg Hound to have allowed it are shameful.  Lives are at stake.  lets get this done.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although I am a Democrat, my positions and ideas remain my own, and when my party is wrong, I say so.  Sadly, this is one of those  times. The Senate\u2019s yearlong failure to pass a food safety overhaul has hampered the ability of the Obama administration to quickly recall the 600 million eggs connected to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}