48 Million Cases of Foodborne Illness: How the US Manages Food Safety

Every time there is an issue with food safety, a wave of demands to strengthen legislation and regulation rises and then falls away. Without a doubt, legislation and regulation are important factors for food safety, but far from the full picture. In order to improve food safety, we must begin with prevention.

The history of the Food and Drug Administration provides a broad overview of how the U.S. has developed food regulation standards. After more than 100 years of work, the FDA has formed a comprehensive regulatory system, which many other countries have now emulated. The core concept of the system is to protect those that abide by the rules and punish those that break the law, using penalization to prevent further incidents from occurring.

The regulations have been very efficient in decreasing instances of food contamination. However, the FDA believes there is still much to do. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. still has 48 million cases of foodborne illness each year, striking roughly one in six Americans. Of that number, there are about 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 fatalities annually.

This goes to show that strict laws and regulations can prevent the deliberate creation of food contamination crises, but the food production industry is still very prone to errors and mistakes. Any type of accident or negligence is liable to cause product contamination, leading to a wide-scale health crisis.

The FDA believes it still has to address the root causes of food contamination incidents, pushing through the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011. This is the biggest change in legislation the FDA has made since 1938, with a focus on preventing food safety problems, rather than responding to incidents when they occur.

In 2013, the FDA issued two coinciding Food Safety Modernization Act laws, one directed toward farmers and one directed toward food processing plants. In a nutshell, each law requires that all producers have a basic knowledge of science, identify the risks associated with each part of the production process and take measures to minimize these risks.

From a scientific perspective, safe food is created through production, not testing and inspection. There are many factors for why a food product can become unsafe, and testing for each of those factors would lead to astronomical and insupportable costs. However, if the quality of raw materials, the efficiency of the production chain and the cleanliness of the work environment are all properly managed during the production process, many risks for food contamination can be drastically reduced. These [measures] would greatly lower the possible problems with a product, and testing and inspection could more efficiently stop suspicious items from entering the market. For instance, because France has such a refined manufacturing practice for milk production, there is no need to test milk for aflatoxins. Of course, this is not to detract from the importance of inspection, which can be very valuable for evaluating products for their associated risk factors.

Another aspect worth noting about these two regulations is that they are both directed toward mass producers. These laws apply to about 40,000 large-scale farms across the U.S. There are 70,000 more farms operating on a smaller scale that sell their products directly to consumers or restaurants. These farms only have to comply with a portion of the laws. As for the 30,000 or so small farms that sell less than $250,000 a year, neither law is enforced.

This requirement is very reasonable and practical. With large-scale production, the cost of production per unit falls. If large-scale producers perfect manufacturing processes, this guarantees that the vast majority of products on the market are safe. As for small-scale producers, their low production rate has a smaller impact on the market. If they are required to comply with the laws regardless, they may have difficulty meeting the requirements and bearing the necessary costs.

Simply by regulating large-scale producers, the FDA provides a much higher guarantee of safety for consumers. This is of great importance to consumers. Small-scale producers, regulators acknowledge, are outside the scope of regulation. If consumers want to buy products from these producers, they will have to decide for themselves whether to take the risk.