New York Times focuses on E. coli, food safety
Marian Burros, a journalist with the New York Times, interviewed Marler Clark client Elizabeth Armstrong, asking her about her recent testimony in front of the US House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, for an article titled, "Who's Watching What We Eat?" that appeared in today's edition of the New York Times. She started her column about food safety with a recount of the events that led up to Elizabeth and her husband Michael becoming food safety advocates:
ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG did not give the Food and Drug Administration much thought until her children became ill from eating contaminated bagged spinach.Her 2-year-old daughter, Ashley, one of more than 200 people affected by the outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 in spinach last year, is still dealing with the effects of kidney failure. Today she is off dialysis and home from the hospital. But she is on daily medication and will eventually need a kidney transplant, said her mother, who lives with her family in a suburb of Indianapolis.
The incident galvanized Ms. Armstrong, turning her into something of a food-safety activist. Testifying before Congress in April, she said that the Food and Drug Administration, the agency responsible for regulating much of the food we eat, including spinach, needed to be reformed.
She continued her article with a report on efforts to overhaul the US Food and Drug Administration, and included comments from important players in the food industry, including a quote from former FDA commissioner Dr. David Kessler, who stated, "Our food safety system is broken," and mentioned the recent Government Accountability Office designation of food safety as being "high risk":
This year the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, added the country’s food safety system to its list of “high risk” operations. The fact that 12 different agencies have some responsibility for food safety does not help, said a G.A.O. report, which recommended that all food safety matters be regulated by one agency.
The entire article, which includes many perspectives on food safety, is available on the New York Times Web site.
