“Protecting Our Nation’s Food Supply”
Recently, we have been reminded that we can not take the safety of our nation’s food supply for granted. We have heard news reports about bacterial contamination of spinach and peanut butter, potentially deadly botulism spores in canned meat products, and lethal contaminants in pet food imported from China.
Government reports tell us that about 76 million Americans contract a food-borne illness every year. This results in 325,000 hospitalizations and some 5,000 deaths. These figures represent a huge amount of suffering and tragedy, but they are only a fragment of an all-too-plausible future catastrophe.
The food poisonings that we hear about are usually the result of unintended contamination, careless processing, improper cooking, or poor storage. A purposeful attack on our food supply, including its vast infrastructure of production, processing, and distribution, could multiply the human toll and economic disruption many times. As a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) risk assessment noted, “If an unintentional contamination of one food, such as clams, can affect 300,000 individuals, a concerted, deliberate attack on food could be devastating, especially if a more dangerous chemical, biological, or radionuclear agent were used.”
This is not idle speculation. In 1984, members of a religious cult in Oregon poisoned salad bars with salmonella bacteria to reduce turnout in a local election, sickening 750 people. More recently, U.S. troops in Afghanistan recovered hundreds of pages of American agricultural documents translated into Arabic, along with guidance on contaminating or destroying crops, livestock, and food processing facilities. We also know that the men who came here to hijack jetliners for the 9/11 terrorist attacks were also interested in the terrorism potential of crop-dusting planes. Many other incidents have been documented, including in evidence I heard while conducting U.S. Senate investigative hearings.
Our enormous food industry and our web of trading links to food producers around the world present a vast and tempting target to terrorists – or, for that matter, to disgruntled or disturbed individuals bent on sabotage for personal reasons. Unfortunately, we do not have a coordinated national strategy for assessing and countering threats against our food supply. Congress has taken steps since the 2001 terrorist attacks to improve security for our seaports, chemical facilities, transportation, and critical infrastructure. Now, we must extend our homeland-security vigilance to the food that sustains our very lives.
That is why I recently joined Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina in introducing The National Agriculture and Food Defense Act.
Our bill would boost the federal government’s ability to promote food security. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would take the lead in developing a national agriculture and food-defense strategy to fit in with our other national emergency-management plans. DHS would work closely with the Environmental Protection Agency and with the Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services, each of which has active responsibilities for this issue.
This strategy would include a wide range of measures: assess security vulnerabilities, monitor plant and animal diseases, stockpile veterinary supplies, establish a plant-disease recovery program, organize laboratory networks, coordinate exercises and risk-communication plans with state, local, and tribal governments, and much more.
The main focus of a national food-security strategy would naturally be identifying threats and preventing attacks. But no defense is perfect, and catastrophes can’t always be prevented. So another important part of the strategy would be developing response plans, not only for immediate human needs, but also to help states and localities dispose of potentially large volumes of contaminated animals, plants, or processed foods, and to promote a prompt and safe resumption of business activity after an attack. The back-to-business aspect is important: an estimated 12 percent of American jobs are directly linked to the food industry, so an attack that disrupted the flow of food could have, as the FDA concluded, “enormous economic implications” even if it caused no mass casualties.
Coordinating federal food-security budget activity among the many agencies involved in the issue, assembling an expert “biosecurity corps,” and reaching out to state, local, tribal, and private-sector stakeholders are other important features of the bill.
The pioneering Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 responded to many horrors of the day, including filthy processing plants and foods adulterated to conceal dilution or decay. The lawmakers who targeted food containing “any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious to health” were fighting carelessness and greed.
Now, unfortunately, we must recognize that people driven by hatred and malice pose additional threats to our food supply, to human lives, and to our prosperity. While carrying on and improving the century-old quest for food safety, Congress must expand its reach to address new dangers.
# # #
