PRESS RELEASE TFAH Statement: FDA Food
Protection Plan is Insufficient
Source of Article: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/TFAH-Statement-FDA-Food-Protection/story.aspx?guid=%7B7E58D909-D856-4E89-BE51-0DE35C754861%7D Last
update: 12:48 p.m. EST Dec. 1, 2008 WASHINGTON, Dec 01, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ --
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The
following is a statement from Jeff Levi, Ph.D., Executive Director of Trust
for America's Health (TFAH) in response to the Food and Drug Administration's
(FDA) progress report on the Food Protection Plan: "The nation lacks a real plan for food protection.
The staff at the FDA should be commended for moving forward with some key
initiatives to improve food safety, but they can only achieve limited success
without the resources and multiyear planning to fundamentally fix the food
safety system. "We need a major overhaul matched by major
investments to achieve the level of change needed. The FDA should articulate
to Congress and the American people what resources are needed over the
long-term to achieve the goals and define milestones for how to measure
success. As part of the transition to an Obama administration, we hope that
the FDA will develop a more comprehensive plan for a modernized food safety
system." Approximately 76 million Americans -- one in four -- are
sickened by foodborne diseases each year. Of these,
an estimated 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die. Medical costs and lost
productivity due to foodborne illnesses in the TFAH released a report, Fixing Food Safety: Protecting
America's Food Supply from Farm-to-Fork, earlier in 2008 identifying major
gaps in the nation's food safety system, including obsolete laws,
misallocation of resources, and inconsistencies among major food safety
agencies. The full report and Dr. Levi's congressional testimony on the Food
Protection Plan are available on TFAH's Web site at
www.healthyamericans.org.
Trust for SOURCE Trust for http://www.healthyamericans.org
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