Fact Sheet -- Imported Food Safety Act of 1998

IMPORTED FOOD SAFETY ACT OF 1998
FACT SHEET

The General Accounting Office's (GAO) April 1998 report on food safety confirms that the Federal government cannot ensure that imported foods are safe.
According to GAO, the volume of imported food has doubled over the last five years while the number of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections has decreased during this same period of time.
Thirty-eight percent of the fruits and twelve percent of the vegetables consumed annually by Americans are imported. FDA inspects less than two percent of all imported food shipments. Less than two tenths of one percent of imported fruits and vegetables are tested for microbial contamination. FDA's current tests for the presence of microbes in food can take up to two weeks to produce results. Some microbes have developed mutations that allow them to evade detection.
According to GAO, "up to 81 million cases of foodborne illnesses and as many as 9,100 deaths from these illnesses occur each year." The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service estimates "the costs for medical treatment and productivity losses associated with these illnesses and deaths range from $6.6 billion to $37.1 billion."
Food borne illness is a hazard to all Americans, but more so for our most vulnerable populations. Examples include people living with HIV/AIDS, persons receiving chemotherapy, young children, pregnant women, and the elderly.
The GAO reported that FDA's procedures for ensuring that unsafe imported foods do not reach consumers are vulnerable to abuse by unscrupulous importers. In some cases, when FDA decides to inspect shipments, the importers have already marketed the goods.
According to GAO, some importers ignore FDA's orders to return, destroy or re-export their shipments.
In fiscal year 1997, ALL of the microbiological samples FDA collected and tested were in response to food borne illness outbreaks. NONE was for preventive detection.
In a recent letter, FDA said "FDA has NO assignments for monitoring imported fresh fruits and vegetable for presence of pathogenic microorganisms." [emphasis added]
According to the same letter, FDA stated that there is a "critical need for rapid, accurate methods to detect, identify and quantify pathogens. ... the methods for detecting a wide range of bacterial, viral and parasitic pathogens in or on fresh fruits and vegetables are limited...".

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