Clinton wants even more funding for food safety
December 28, 1997
Web posted at: 1:11 p.m. EST (1811 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Clinton administration will propose a significant increase in spending for food inspections and safety research in the draft budget he will present to Congress early next year.
As the result of a series of tainted-food scares, President Clinton is to seek an additional $71 million for food-safety programs at the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The increase would bring total spending for all federal food-safety programs to $817 million for the fiscal year that starts October 1.The plan was motivated by this year's outbreaks across the United States of food-borne illness from tainted Guatemalan raspberries, Louisiana oysters and Midwestern ground beef.
The additional money reportedly would be used to hire new scientists and up to 100 new inspectors who would be sent overseas to examine farming, including the use of fertilizers and pesticides. The money would also be used to buy new equipment to detect food-borne diseases.
"What we are trying to do is take the agencies that deal with food inspection from the 19th century to the 21st century," an unidentified senior White House official told The New York Times. "We are carrying out the first update of our food-safety programs in 90 years."
Critics accuse the government of belatedly addressing a problem that has been worsening for years, because of an explosion of fruit and vegetable imports and lax enforcement of laws governing sanitation at feedlots, slaughterhouses and packinghouses.
"It is good that they are funding new inspectors for overseas, but they haven't begun to grapple with the fact that they need new inspectors for domestic produce and seafood," said Caroline Smith Dewel, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based consumer group.
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