THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2008
Kirk, Roskam Bill Pushes For Safer Food
Using the Elk Grove High School cafeteria as a backdrop, U.S. Congressmen Peter Roskam (R- 6th) and Mark Kirk (R-10th) Tuesday announced a bill to improve food safety for an ever increasingly imported food supply.
Roskam said that 10% of food imports are found contaminated without the FDA's knowledge. He also said food imports from outside the United States are up 300% from 10 years ago.
"The threat of contaminated food imports reaching our families' plate is real, not hypothetical," said Roskam, who represents most of Elk Grove Village and communities into DuPage County.
After speaking at the school during lunch hour Tuesday, Apr. 8, Kirk and Roskam boarded a plane for Washington, D.C. where the bill was filed in Congress that same night with Roskam as its author and Kirk as its chief co-sponsor.
The bill will close a loophole in the law that allows disreputable companies to set negative test results aside from one lab, shopping them from lab to lab until they find the result they like.
The bill would impose a $1 million fine for labs that do not report or falsify information on food items they test.
The bill would also strengthen Food and Drug Administration's inspection power overseas.
"After working with the State Department, we won approval for FDA inspectors to be permanently stationed in China," said Kirk.
The law would also allow food inspected in foreign countries the FDA stamp of approval, provided they meet the same standards as in the United States.
As the congressmen spoke, eight FDA inspectors were on their way to China to inspect food bound for the United States before it left the Asian nation. Representatives of the Consumer Products Safety Commission joined the FDA inspectors.
The congressmen said product recalls of dog food containing gluten and other products containing lead from China was the impetus for the legislation.
Kirk and Roskam also presented a map detailing products recalled from countries from around the world. The map showed China recalled 11 products, Canada three products, and India with two products.