| WASHINGTON,
D.C. – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) today called President
Bush’s proposed 10 percent cut in the Department of Agriculture’s food
inspection program “unconscionable.” Schakowsky questioned the logic
behind proposing these reductions when each year more than 325,000 people
are hospitalized and 5,000 die from a foodborne illness.
“President
Bush’s proposal to cut USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service by 10
percent will weaken our nation’s defenses against E. coli and other pathogens
and will put the American people at risk. That is unconscionable,”
said Schakowsky, who is the ranking Democrat on the Commerce, Trade, and
Consumer Protection Subcommittee.
She
continued, “In order to assure that plants are being properly inspected,
we need to provide more money to train and hire inspectors. President
Bush in his budget proposes to hire only 80 new inspectors nationwide.
That is not nearly enough.”
“When
it comes to food safety, we are already on Orange Alert. Five thousands
people die each year from a foodborne illness, but if President Bush has
his way with the budget, that alert will be Red,” added Schakowsky during
a news conference organized by Safe Tables Our Priorities (S.T.O.P.) to
release Why are People Still Dying from Contaminated Food..
The
report, unveiled by S.T.O.P President Nancy Donely, found that problems
in the nation’s food supply still exist ten years after contaminated hamburgers
from Jack-in-the-Box killed four children and caused 700 illnesses.
Findings in the report included:
•
chronic food-safety violations at slaughter and processing plants;
•
public health facilities inadequately prepared to respond to outbreaks
of foodborne illnesses due to shortage of resources and technology;
•
insufficient regulation dealing with storage and transportation of food
products;
•
too much focus is placed on consumer education instead of on measures that
would keep pathogens out of the food supply in the first place.
Schakowsky
applauded Donely, whose son Alex died at the age of six after eating a
contaminated hamburger, and other advocates for their commitment to ensuring
food safety and pledged to support their national Not One More! campaign
to eliminate foodborne illnesses in the United States.
“I
am here today to pledge my support for your mission to ensure that every
family in Chicago and across the country can be confident that the food
they and their children eat is safe, clean, and properly inspected.
On behalf of all the brave mothers who lost a child to a foodborne illness
but found the strength to stand up and demand that the government make
food safety a top national priority, I join you in making that same demand,”
she concluded. |
