3/14/09 President Barack Obama Weekly Radio Address

Saturday, March 14th, 2009 at 5:30 am
Weekly Address: Reversing a Troubling Trend in Food Safety
In this week's address, President Barack Obama makes key announcements regarding the safety of our nation's food.

"We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can't do on our own. There are certain things that only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don't cause us harm."--The White House.

Click for a transcript of the 3/14/09 weekly radio address.

Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that: the government’s failure to inspect 95 percent of food processing plants as “a hazard to the public health,” President Obama promised Saturday to bolster and reorganize the nation’s fractured food-safety system."

President Obama explained: "In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president, but as a parent.”

The New York Times reports that: "Mr. Obama announced the creation of a Food Safety Working Group, which will include the secretaries of health and agriculture, to advise him on which laws and regulations need to be changed, to foster coordination across federal agencies, and to ensure that laws are enforced."

"A bipartisan chorus of powerful lawmakers in Congress has promised to enact fundamental changes in the nation’s food-protection system. On Saturday, Mr. Obama made clear that he not only supported that legislative effort but that he also might push to expand it.

"A dozen federal agencies share responsibility for ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply, an oversight system that critics and government investigators have for years said needed major revisions."

"In his address, Mr. Obama announced, as expected, that he would nominate Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner, to be commissioner of the F.D.A. and would appoint Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the health commissioner in Baltimore, to become the principal deputy commissioner at the F.D.A.

"As health commissioner in New York City, “Dr. Hamburg brought new life to a demoralized agency,” Mr. Obama said.

"Thirty-five years ago," The New York Times reports, "the F.D.A. did annual inspections of about half of the nation’s food-processing facilities. Last year, the agency inspected just 7,000 of the nearly 150,000 domestic food facilities, and its oversight of foreign plants, which provide a growing share of the nation’s food supply, was even spottier."

"Experts have long debated whether the F.D.A. should increase inspections or rely instead on private auditors and more detailed safety rules. By calling the limited number of government inspections an “unacceptable” public health hazard, Mr. Obama came down squarely on the side of increased government inspections."

“Whenever a president uses such strong language, that’s a big, meaningful occurrence,” said William Hubbard, "a former F.D.A. associate commissioner who has called for increased food inspections. “I think it’s terrific that attention is being focused on this issue.”

"Each year, about 76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die, public health experts estimate."

"The Obama administration’s 2010 budget will propose spending more than $1 billion on food-safety efforts, nearly double the amount spent in 2007. The money will pay for increased inspections, domestic surveillance, laboratory capacity and illness prevention efforts."

"The F.D.A. has estimated that inspecting all 150,000 domestic food facilities once every four years would cost $1.9 billion annually. Inspecting the 216,000 foreign food plants registered with the F.D.A. would cost far more."