Release No. 0123.98 Remarks OF SECRETARY DAN GLICKMAN TURNING THE TABLES ON FOOD-BORNE ILLNESS' NATIONAL PRESS CLUB -- MARCH 19, 1998 Good afternoon. Not too long ago, I was at an event where Cokie Roberts was the emcee. When she introduced me, it was after a dinner, and she got up and said she watched me eat the whole time, and everything I ate, she ate, because she knew it would be safe. That's a risky strategy. You could gain a few pounds. I've always said that even though I wasn't a farmer (I just represented them as a Congressman from Kansas for 18 years), my training for this job started at an early age ... sitting at my mother's table with her saying, eat, eat, eat.' I enjoy a good meal, and even as a person who works constantly on food safety issues, I can honestly say that I enjoy my meals with the confidence and peace of mind that comes with knowing that America does indeed have the safest food in the world. Yes, it's true, more and more today we eat the world's food. But we do a good job of making sure it's safe, and thanks to President Clinton, we are taking our food safety efforts to a whole new level. You know, when I was up for this job, my confirmation hearings focused on things like wheat and cattle prices, dairy and crop insurance reform. But when I took this job, my mother gave me one piece of advice: Dan,' she said, just make sure the food is safe.' Everywhere I go, food safety is what's on people's minds. Folks literally walk up to me on the street and ask, how do I cook a hamburger right?' You know, a research group asked folks what stories they followed most closely last year: 1) Princess Diana. 2) Iraq's chemical weapons. 3) the Hudson Beef recall. Consumers understand how important this is; they want government to do more; but they also have confidence in their food supply, and that is rare around the world. When they killed all the chickens due to the bird flu epidemic in Hong Kong, consumers there cut poultry purchases in half. With the mad cow problem in Europe, beef sales there dropped by 40%. What was the market impact here during last year's hamburger recall? Nearly zero. Folks today have their qualms with government, but not when it comes to food safety. In this arena, people unanimously want a strong government. It may get smaller overall, it may do less, but people always will look to government to protect them in ways they cannot protect themselves: making sure the airplanes we fly in are safe, making sure our nation is secure, making sure the banks that hold our life savings are solvent, making sure the food we feed our families is safe. You know, tomorrow is National Agriculture Day which is news to most folks. As we've moved from an agricultural to an industrial service economy where only 2 percent of our people work directly on the farm, our public perception of agriculture has come to border on science fiction. It's sort of like Star Trek where a computer magically produces whatever food you desire. Our lives in Washington don't seem so far off from that futuristic scenario. Here in our nation's capital, it's the dead of winter. But if you step into a Safeway or Giant or Fresh Fields, you'll find a tropical paradise of fresh fruits and vegetables -- along with abundance of every kind -- meat, poultry, seafood -- whatever you want, whenever you want it. Americans also spend less of their income on food than any other people in the world -- about 11%. In China, it's 50%. This abundance and affordability -- along with a strong U.S. economy -- affects everything from our waistlines to our health. We're a heftier people today. We're also healthier. Last week the National Cancer Institute announced the first decline in cancer rates in 60 years. One reason cited was improved diets, including more fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet today, we also know that more than 9,000 Americans die every year from foodborne illness. Turning the tables on foodborne illness requires responding to a complex web of trends: new, more virulent, more drug-resistant pathogens that are finding their way onto new foods; changes in how we process and distribute food; we're eating more outside the home -- 40% of the American food dollar today is spent in restaurants, paying others to prepare our meals; we eat food from around the world; and, we have a growing senior population whose immune systems are more vulnerable. We face a far more complex food safety challenge today. It is one that requires everyone -- farmer, rancher, scientist, public policy maker, processor, shipper, grocer, cook -- to do their part. We've made progress. This time last century, more U.S. troops died in the Spanish-American War from eating contaminated food than from battle wounds. A few years later, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle,' which pushed America to enact its first meat and poultry safety laws -- really our first consumer protection laws. This book also launched the progressive movement here. When Sinclair published his book, then-Agriculture Secretary James Wilson wrote to the Postmaster General saying it was the most scurrilous slander he'd seen, and could the Postmaster instruct his delivery folks to prevent its distribution? ... We have come a long way. Like that first consumer groundswell, what President Clinton -- with the strong support of consumers and by and large the food industry -- is doing I believe will go down in history as one of the most significant consumer and public health victories of this decade. Like Sinclair's book affected the people of his time, we had our own shocking, unifying catalyst for change. President Clinton took office the same month the Pacific Northwest E. coli outbreak began, when hundreds were sickened and four young children died. That tragedy united government, consumers, industry and the public health community behind a food safety revolution. USDA now has an independent, arms-length Food Safety and Inspection Service -- the largest food safety agency in the world -- staffed with some of the best public health scientists in the world. Their core mission is preventing foodborne disease. Just a few years ago, these folks worked in the same agency that markets U.S. agriculture. Now, they are totally separate. We banned the sale of hamburger contaminated with harmful E. coli. This decision has kept millions of pounds of unsafe food off the market, but it was highly controversial at the time. President Clinton has invested heavily in a state-of-the-art surveillance system that allows doctors and scientists to do in 24 hours what just a few years ago took two weeks. Instead of conducting hundreds of hours of tedious lab work, doctors now can enter the DNA fingerprint of a pathogen into a national database and quickly search for vital, life-saving information. It's like the system law enforcement uses where they scan suspects' fingerprints into a computer to get their criminal records. On our system, scientists can get a similar rap sheet' on a pathogen -- everything from its link to an outbreak, to known sources, to the toxins it produces. In the Pacific Northwest, before we had this rapid response, 732 people became ill before we zeroed in on the cause. Last year, we stopped the Hudson outbreak at 16 illnesses. This Administration also put the safe-food-handling instruction stickers on the meat and poultry you buy at the grocery store, and we have education campaigns that promote basic in-kitchen safety practices -- like washing your hands, and storing foods at proper temperatures. In fact, President Clinton's Food Safety Initiative works at every point from farm to table to secure food safety. And, he's asking for an extra $101 million to advance inspections, fruit and vegetable safety, cutting-edge research, consumer education and national surveillance. This year, we also started a new approach to meat and poultry inspections. For nearly a century, inspectors had to look for contamination, even though many dangerous threats in our food supply are invisible. Now, we use technology to go after these hidden dangers. There are regular tests for E. coli and salmonella, and we require plants not just to catch contamination, but to close safety gaps. This is a major cultural change. Our public policy now makes it crystal clear that industry is responsible for producing safe food. In fact, they have primary responsibility. It's not just up to inspectors to catch unsafe food. It's not just up to consumers to cook their meat thoroughly, and wash their fruits and vegetables well. Industry, also, is responsible for producing safe food. This is a profound and positive step, but it must be taken firmly. Most in the industry are eager to rise to the new safety standards. They know safe food sells. They are 100% committed, and they are the first to tell me that some in the industry do not meet their safety responsibilities. The experts agree. They'll tell you it's the few folks who drag their feet on the little things that time and again wind up causing the major public health incidents. I've asked Congress for the authority to fine them for putting the public's health at risk. Right now, all USDA can do is drop what I call the atomic bomb' -- shut a plant down. That's an action that affects people's livelihoods, and it is only taken in extreme cases. But I don't think our food safety efforts should solely focus on the lowest common denominator. Fines tailored to the seriousness of the offense would allow us to get folks' attention, and fix minor flaws before they become major problems. Most folks are surprised when I tell them USDA does not have this authority, and they are shocked when I tell them that no one in government can order a recall of unsafe food ... It's true. While industry by and large acts in good faith, what concerns me is the changing nature of the food business. Take hamburger plants. The big guys can now produce upwards of a million pounds of product a day, and ship most of it virtually overnight across the country. When we ask for a recall. We have no assurance that every corner store, every retail outlet, every distributor will act and act quickly. We don't even have mandatory notification. Days can go by before USDA is even informed that the public may be at risk. This is a terrible situation to be in during an outbreak when every day, every hour that goes by without action someone could get sick or worse. This is way out of step with America's strong consumer protection laws. After all, if I sold an unsafe toy or car, other government agencies could order a recall, and fine me for putting people at risk. USDA can fine people under various statutes: sell a cat without a license, abuse a circus elephant, sell a potato that's too small -- fine, fine, fine. Yet, if you produce unsafe food -- the only one of these items that puts people's lives at stake -- there is no financial penalty. I'll let you draw your own conclusions why. I'll just say that not once has a consumer come up to me and said, don't let government protect me from unsafe food.' There's a bill before Congress -- the Food Safety Enforcement Enhancement Act -- that would give USDA these powers -- fines, mandatory notification, and the power to order a recall if a voluntary recall fails. We're also in a new fiscal environment today. The American people want government to do more on food safety -- more inspections, more research, more consumer education -- and the American people want a balanced budget. Given these conflicting demands, we have to find new ways to appropriately fund the most critical functions of government. How can we do this? Well, the entire Nuclear Regulatory Commission is funded through fees for services rendered to the industry. The Food and Drug Administration has fees for safety evaluations of pharmaceuticals; there are safety fees on the railroad and airline industries. The Administration wants the entire Federal Aviation Administration funded through user fees. And, when chemical companies register new pesticides with the Environmental Protection Agency, they are charged for the work EPA has to do to ensure their product can safely be used on our food. In each of these cases, safety is a company's most valuable asset. Industry should not look entirely to taxpayers to safeguard it. And, relative to these other proposals, USDA is asking for a mere pittance: less than one penny a pound. How much are you willing to pay for safe food? We also need to challenge more state and local governments to adopt the food code -- which is a uniform set of food safety guidelines for the links in our commercial food chain that are primarily overseen by state and local jurisdictions -- that is, the 1 million restaurants, grocery stores and cafeterias in this country. The food code is our top scientists best recommendations for one high standard of safety. I'd like to see it in action across the country. We must keep challenging industry to step up to the plate. I give them a lot of credit. I see the cattlemen here today. They've invested millions of dollars in food safety research. Some in the fast-food industry have set their own standards over and above government's. If you compare today's food safety revolution to Sinclair's, the biggest difference is industry. This time around, they are providing real leadership, and taking their responsibilities seriously. When you look back on what this Administration has done to date, you see government catching up with science -- using what science knew to raise the bar of food safety. When we look ahead, the next great frontier is pushing the boundaries of what science knows and can do for us. I sat on the front row at the President's State of the Union speech. The biggest applause he got was when he announced that he would seek the largest funding increases in history for the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He got this applause because every Member of Congress understood the importance of this work to people's lives. The same is true for food safety research and President Clinton has been generous in his funding. Science is the next great food safety frontier, and without question, our greatest weapon in the battle for food safety is new technology. Earlier this decade, scientific advances enabled us to beat back Listeria. Now, scientists see glimmers of hope that we may be at a turning point on E. coli. Today, I have an exciting breakthrough to announce on the salmonella front -- one we hope may prove just the tip of the iceberg in a new food safety revolution. This week, USDA received FDA approval for a new anti-salmonella spray that has proven up to 99.9% effective in eliminating salmonella in poultry. Scientists know that naturally occurring organisms in adult chickens are highly successful in warding off salmonella. This means the bacteria's usual window of opportunity is when the chicks are young. This new product allows poultry producers to mist young chicks with these good organisms. The chicks then do their preening, which gets the good guys into their system and keeps the salmonella out. And, as long as the spray gets on the chicks before the salmonella, they will be salmonella free. We tested 80,000 chicks. The presence of salmonella was reduced to zero with just one spray right as they hatched. I have also directed that we proceed with the next stage of our research which will focus on breeder hens to see if we can prevent salmonella from passing from a hen to her eggs. We are very optimistic about this, and it will bring us even closer to a 100% solution. We are also now seeking to apply the same principle in cattle and hogs -- which holds the promise of opening up a whole new world for prevention of foodborne illness. This is a major milestone for food safety. But I do want to make clear that proper processing and safe in-kitchen preparation remain essential. I also want to give a world of credit to Donald Corrier and David Nisbet of USDA's Agricultural Research Service lab in College Station, Texas, along with all of their partners in this pioneering effort. Our scientists stand on the verge of many more breakthroughs. They are looking into the origins of campylobacter -- which is the leading cause of food-borne illness in our nation. I should point out that preliminary data on our salmonella spray indicates that it fights campylobacter, too. There are a number of folks converting Gulf War technology to food-safety uses. Several are working on little indicators -- sort of like home pregnancy tests -- that would go on your juice cap or other food packaging and give you a clear sign if your food has been contaminated. We need to encourage these advances. That means more funding for food safety research, and it means a more strategic, coordinated use of these funds -- making sure that every project fits into a national food safety strategy driven by the public health experts. I wish I could stand here today with a simple solution to the food safety challenge -- you know, some magical 5-point government plan that would make foodborne illness go away. But that's not something government alone can do. This President and this Administration have done more than any before us to improve the safety of America's food. Together with farmers and ranchers, with the food industry, with the public health community and the research community and the consumer community, I believe we are turning the tables on foodborne illness -- setting the nation on an irreversible path toward a safer food supply and a healthier American people. Thank you. # NOTE: USDA news releases and media advisories are available on the Internet. 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