Moves by the US government to improve food safety in the country are underway after a working group revealed that it would be targeting increased safety across key products including leafy greens, melons and tomatoes.
The food safety working group, headed up by agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack and health and human services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is aiming to reduce outbreaks of the likes of salmonella and E.coli in food and is backed by improved, newly introduced legislation including harsher penalties and increased inspections.
Additionally, the group is helping the US Food and Drug Administration(FDA) establish better traceability systems so as to quickly find theorigin of any outbreak that may occur in the future.
As part of the new regulations, the FDA will recommend ways that producers of leafy greens, tomatoes and melons can reduce disease strains, and will require stricter standards in those industries within the next two years.
The changes are seen as essential following recent outbreaks in recent years, including contaminated spinach in 2006 and salmonella in peppers last year.
'We still urgently need to overhaul our badly outdated laws so that FDA has the tools and funds they need to inspect, prevent and detect food contamination,' Erik Olson, director of food and consumer product safety at the Pew Charitable Trusts, told the Associated Press. 'FDA must be able to strongly enforce against food companies that import contaminated foods or hide test results showing contamination.'
Meanwhile, the FDA has announced that food safety expert Michael Taylor has been named as an advisor to group commissioner Margaret Hamburg, working closely with head office and with the management of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied nutrition among other offices.
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