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The House passed the The Food Safely Enhancement Act late this afternoon, setting in motion a food safety bill that will require more government inspections and oversight of food manufacturers and give the FDA new authority to order recalls.  This contentious piece of legislation, also known as  H.R. 2749, has received mixed reactions as concerns were raised that livestock ranchers and organic farmers would be adversely and disproportionately affected.  Fortunately, as Jean Halloran pointed out earlier, those issues have been addressed and should not present a major problem.  Instead, the legislation will update and improve FDA oversight of food safety and hopefully reduce the likelihood of dangerous and deadly outbreaks of food-borne illnesses such as salmonella and E. coli, which have been all too frequent lately.

The bill will require more frequent inspections of high-risk facilities, greater accountability demanded of manufacturers, stricter food safety practices on farms, and the development of a better system for tracing food-borne illnesses.  We can’t expect the bill to solve all of our safety concerns at once, but it will go a long way towards improving an inadequate system.