Congress Shines Spotlight On Food Safety

Families victimized by tainted spinach and peanut butter put a human face Tuesday on recent high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness, urging lawmakers to strengthen federal oversight of the nation's food supply.

"I can't protect them from spinach — only you guys can. I can't," said Michael Armstrong, as he and wife, Elizabeth, cradled daughters Ashley, 2, and Isabella, 5.

The two girls fell ill, Ashley gravely, in September after eating a salad made with a triple-washed bag of the leafy greens contaminated by E. coli.

That and other incidents of contamination have raised questions not only about the U.S. food supply but efforts by the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies to keep it safe.

"I hope these hearings will help alert the American people, Congress and the administration to the seriousness of this issue. If it is not taken seriously, these kinds of poisonings can, and will, happen again. Food poisonings will happen to you, to me and to our children and our pets," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. "The American people expect and deserve better from its government."

Also testifying was Gary Pruden, joined by his 11-year-old son, Sean, who was seriously sickened in November by E. coli after eating at a Taco Bell restaurant. Pruden said a key element of trade and commerce is trust, whether placed in accountants, airline pilots or auto mechanics.

"That is also extended to the trust in the food we order or buy from the grocery store — that it's edible and safe. Without that trust, commerce cannot work. And where failure occurs, oversight is required," Pruden told the subcommittee.

The safety of food raised domestically was questioned anew last fall when officials traced a nationwide E. coli outbreak to contaminated spinach processed by Natural Selection Foods LLC. Three people died and nearly 200 others were sickened. More recently, contaminated peanut butter and pet food have been recalled.

A year before the deadly outbreak of E. coli in spinach, the FDA sent a letter to California growers expressing its "serious concern" over ongoing outbreaks of foodborne illness from that state's lettuce and spinach crops, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.

But a former FDA deputy commissioner says the agency is so understaffed it has little capacity to prevent outbreaks, even predictable ones.

"I think basically FDA right now is really not able to protect the safety of the food supply the way people expect," Michael Taylor, the former FDA deputy commissioner for policy, told CBS News.

The FDA Tuesday also announced plans to test six imported ingredients, all proteins, found in countless food Americans eat every day, from pasta and cookies to cheese and salad dressing, reports Cordes.

FDA officials say they have no evidence those foods are contaminated.

But after the chemical melamine turned up in two vegetable proteins imported from China for use in pet food, inspectors became concerned that proteins used in human food could be at risk too.

Over the next two weeks, inspectors will begin testing imported corn meal, soy protein, rice bran, wheat gluten, corn gluten, and rice protein concentrate, all used to keep foods intact and give them texture.

The nation's meat supply is involved too, adds Cordes. Thousands of hogs in six states are now under quarantine after being fed leftover pet food no one knew was contaminated. Hogs in three of the states have tested positive for melamine. The FDA says it's unclear whether any contaminated pork was consumed by humans.

Rep. Degette has introduced legislation that would give the FDA and Agriculture Department the authority to mandate recalls, in line with a proposal by the Government Accountability Office. Other legislative efforts include proposals to create a single Food Safety Administration and develop a uniform reporting system to track contaminated food.

In January, the government's fragmented food safety system joined a congressional "high risk" list, meaning its inefficiencies leave it vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse. Fifteen federal agencies administer at least 30 laws pertaining to food safety. The FDA, however, is the main food safety agency.

A panel of officials from companies involved in the recalls expressed their sympathy, sadness and support for victims of the outbreaks. None said a government-mandated recall would have changed how they dealt, voluntarily, with removing their products from the marketplace.

"I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know what the wrong answer is: It is to continue doing what we're doing, when it's not working," Michael Armstrong later told Stupak when asked how the food safety system should be changed.

The popular Peter Pan brand of peanut butter was the subject of a nationwide recall in February after a salmonella outbreak. More than 400 people were sickened, and the recall cost manufacturer ConAgra Foods Inc. between $50 million and $60 million. The company plans to reopen in August the idled plant where the peanut butter was made.

Terri Marshall said her mother-in-law, Mora Lou Marshall, has been hospitalized or in a nursing home since early January, after she became seriously ill from eating Peter Pan. The elder Marshall, 85, had kept a jar of the peanut butter on her nightstand to supplement her diet, and had unwittingly continued to eat it, even after she fell ill.

"The very food she thought would improve her health had begun to ravage her body," Terri Marshall said.

Pet food has also had its problems. In March, Menu Foods recalled 60 million cans of dog and cat food after the deaths of 16 pets, mostly cats, that had eaten products contaminated with melamine. Other companies have since recalled pet foods also tainted by melamine, found to contaminate some wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate imported from China.