So now we have to be worried about peanut butter treats … and baby formula?  This year, a national salmonella outbreak tied, to the Peanut Corporation of America, has so far claimed eight lives and sickened an estimated 19,000 people in 43 states.  It also triggered a national recall of everything from dog treats to TV dinners.  Combined with last year’s melamine outbreak in China, which did make it into some of our infant formulas, it shows that Americans have reason to be concerned about the safety of food produced in this country and abroad.

So why does this keep happening?  We at keepourfoodsafe.org, and many other organizations, including the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the U.S. Government Accountability Office, have been calling for changes that we feel would dramatically improve food safety in America.  In short, there should be one federal body overseeing food safety.

Today, the job of overseeing food safety is split between numerous agencies.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are the primary players, but a baker’s dozen of other agencies also help divide up food safety oversight.  Clearly, in this case, more isn’t better. 

When oversight is split between agencies in this fashion, it raises questions about coordination of efforts.  For example, some products, like a frozen, pepperoni pizza, fall under both USDA and FDA oversight—one pizza, two U.S. inspection bodies.  The cheese on the pizza has FDA regulatory oversight, and the pepperoni has USDA oversight. And a split system creates added hurdles in keeping food safety inspections balanced.  In a sense, under our current system, the USDA is competing with the FDA for federal food-safety funding, and visa versa.

What’s more, at the FDA, food inspection services are overshadowed by regulation of drugs, which receives the lion’s share of federal budgets for the FDA.  There is little relationship between food inspections and drugs approvals, so it makes perfect sense to split the FDA and create a new agency under the direction of the USDA.

The concept of reorganizing our nation’s food safety systems has allies on Capitol Hill.  Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the Senate’s top Democrats, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) have both called for reform of food-inspection service in the past year.  But perhaps this is a change so fundamental that it will require the leadership of the president to get it done.

There are other problems.  The USDA is chronically short of meat inspectors due to a growing shortage of veterinarians.  Currently, it’s estimated that only about 900 of 1,200 of these positions are filled at the USDA.  To make the new food safety administration work properly, it will need a skilled workforce to staff it.  Veterinarians are important players in our food-safety systems.  They inspect meat, keep animals healthy and work at state and federal public health agencies.  Investments in veterinary education will be required to accomplish the goal of improving food safety in America.

It’s important to remember that America does enjoy some of the safest food in the world, but we shouldn’t rest on our laurels when there is such a clear course to improving food safety systems and saving lives.  It’s just common sense—one agency should oversee our nation’s food supply.

Obviously, President-Elect Obama has far more weighty decisions to make than picking a puppy for his daughters. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is warning the incoming president that he may face a food safety dilemma.

In a recent announcement, the GAO outlined 13 urgent issues facing the country — including two wars and the economic crisis — and has included food safety among those urgent issues. This public statement is paired with a new GAO Web site to help guide the president and new members of Congress during this transitional period.

The GAO argues that the federal food safety labyrinth — otherwise known as the numerous and disparate federal agencies that in some part oversee food safety — needs to be reevaluated. “Currently a network of 15 agencies administer over 30 food safety laws,” says Lisa R. Shames, director of Natural Resources and Environment at the GAO. This fragmented system, Shames added, has caused ineffective coordination, inconsistent oversight and inefficient use of resources.

Shames argues that agencies responsible for ensuring the safety of food in America are not funded according to the volume of food they inspect. As a result, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which regulates about 20 percent of the food supply (meats, fruits and veggies), gets about 80 percent of the funding, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees about 80 percent of the food supply yet receives only an approximate 20 percent of federal funding. According to the GAO, this is a good example of where President-Elect Obama, once he takes office, might be able to make some improvements.

Other organizations that impact the safety of our nation’s food — including the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) — argue, however, that volume of food is not the correct measurement to use to allocate resources. Instead, the resources should be allocated on a basis of the amount of risk associated with the different types of foods and the different types of food processing systems.

Additionally, many of these organizations have also called for a reorganization of federal food safety and inspection services. The AVMA, for example, has been calling on the federal government since 1993 to create a “coordinated, integrated, unified food safety regulatory program that is managed by a single federal agency” headed by the USDA.

Considering the overwhelming attention that the ongoing economic crisis, two foreign wars, and homeland security is going to garner in the coming months, KeepOurFoodSafe.org would like to thank the GAO for reminding our nation’s new leaders about the importance of food safety.