Senate stall to blame for slow egg recall?

Senate stall to blame for slow egg recall? POLITICO

The Senate’s yearlong failure to pass a food safety overhaul has hampered the ability of the Obama administration to quickly recall the 600 million eggs connected to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened nearly 2,000 people, experts and lawmakers say.

The House approved its version of the food safety bill in July 2009 — that was more than 60 recalls of Food and Drug Administration regulated products ago, according to a report by the Make Our Food Safe coalition. But the Senate has continued to drag its feet.

The pressure is now on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has consistently pushed the bill to the back burner. Lawmakers, aides and analysts say Reid must bring the bill to the floor when the Senate returns in September in light of the major deficiencies in a nearly century-old regulatory system —- and one of the worst food-related outbreaks yet. ...

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg made the network news rounds Monday morning, primarily to give advice on how to avoid sickness, but also to offer a plug for the bill that would greatly increase her bureau’s power.

“We are very anxious to see a piece of important legislation currently being considered by Congress be passed,” Hamburg told ABC News. “There is an opportunity through this legislation to extend our authority, resources and other important tools to do trace-back of products, to make sure the companies have the appropriate preventive measures in place and to enable us to review records in a routine way.”

Comment: Why expect Congress and the FDA to look out for the food we eat when they can't even look out for the public when Goldman Sachs fleeces our banks or when the private Federal Reserve secretly gives untold billions to European banks during the banker bailout, and yet the American public still doesn't know where it went.

All this is is a power grab and further government meddling that will cause greater oligarchic consolidation of the food sector. If the banker bailout, cap and trade and the BP oil spill crisis, to name a few, have taught us anything it is that behind every great government plan to protect the public there is always some mega-corporation working behind the scenes to write the legislation and to use the power of government to corner their market.

Competition and the free market is the best measure we can enact to ensure food safety. A level playing feild where small and mid size farms can compete with the large is needed.

Check out Cafe Hajek on the egg recall issue.