Sen. Dick Durbin will introduce a package of legislative reforms Tuesday designed to bolster the safety of school meals by requiring more stringent tests for disease-causing organisms and by giving school authorities more information about the safety records of food suppliers.

"We simply cannot afford to let another term pass by with failing grades for the distribution of safe food," Durbin (D-Ill.) said.

Durbin's proposals were spurred by a Tribune series in December 2001 that exposed pervasive breakdowns in the government system that regulates school meals, his spokeswoman said.

The Safe School Food Act would fill the gaps in the inspection, testing, procurement and preparation of food served to students, Durbin said, and it would provide school officials with the tools and information to help them prevent food-borne illness.

Current rules defended

Some members of the school food services industry questioned the need for new regulations.

"We have a regulatory framework under which USDA and FDA recalls have worked, and worked well," said Tim Willard, a spokesman for the National Food Processors Association, referring to the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

During the last decade, school food illness outbreaks have become increasingly frequent as suppliers use distributors and brokers to ship prepackaged and frozen meals to schools across the country. Food produced in one factory may be reworked in a second, then passed through a series of shipping companies. The brokers who deliver meals to schools often do not tell authorities where they got the food, and they rarely provide inspection reports on those plants.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who plans to introduce companion legislation in the House, said the act will help "put an end to large-scale outbreaks of food-borne illness."

Industry-backed confidentiality provisions do not allow state and local school officials to have access to the distribution records of food companies, even during a recall. Durbin's legislation would create methods for sharing information on food suppliers with the appropriate state education personnel.

And the act would create an advisory committee made up of education and health officials, consumer groups and industry representatives to recommend ways of sharing additional information on school lunch suppliers.

About 17 percent of the food served in schools is donated by the federal government and undergoes stringent Agriculture Department testing for dangerous pathogens. But the remaining 83 percent of school food is purchased by states and is not subject to the same standards. Durbin's act would give the Agriculture Department the authority to require the same salmonella, E. coli and listeria testing of commercially purchased school foods as that required of USDA-donated commodities.

Marilyn Swanson, director of education and training at the University of Mississippi's National Food Service Management Institute, applauded the proposed expansion of the donated-commodities guidelines. But Swanson, who said her organization helps schools deal with food recalls, called the current voluntary inspection standards "not bad," adding that it is always in a food company's interest to "make sure foods they are distributing are the safest they can possibly be."

Ruth Jonen, food services director for Palatine Township High School District 211 in Chicago's northwest suburbs, defended the quality and safety of foods served in schools, saying they "by and large use the same food distributors as the restaurant down the road."

Julie Quick, an Agriculture Department spokeswoman, said department officials have not yet seen Durbin's bill and could not comment on it.

Requirements proposed

Durbin's proposal would also:

- Increase the frequency of sampling for E. coli and salmonella in ground meats donated by the USDA, from one sample per day to four, with a composite test done at the end of the day to give a more accurate reading of meat processed throughout the day. The proposed laws also would add a new requirement for listeria testing in firms producing ready-to-eat meat and poultry products.

- Require quarterly inspections of donated commodities regulated by the FDA, such as fruits and vegetables. Currently, these suppliers undergo an annual, on-site audit.

- Allow for mandatory recalls of unsafe school food. Currently, food recalls are voluntary. Under Durbin's legislation, the agriculture secretary could require food companies to immediately stop distributing tainted food. States would also have to provide public notice whenever school food was subject to a recall because it contained the most dangerous pathogens, such as E. coli.

- Increase state and local annual cafeteria inspections to twice a year as recommended by the FDA, and require the cafeteria inspection reports be posted and made available to the public. The agriculture secretary would perform an annual review of the state audits of these inspections.