In this country right now, an estimated 30,000 to 70,000 people are dying every year because of antibiotic resistant bugs. This is a totally solvable problem. And some of our most valuable medicines are being rendered useless by desire of industry just to have their poultry and their hogs grow a little faster.
Pathogen control is also possible - and I keep on coming back to Denmark - Denmark is one of the world's leading exporters of meat. They have a huge, huge hog industry. They are by far the biggest exporter of pork. And in Denmark they found there was a real problem with salmonella being spread in the 1980's by poultry, in the 90's by hogs, and in the late 1990's by eggs, so they came up with a very strict salmonella control program.
They also found, once they did this, a huge decrease in salmonella in the human population. I'll just give you some statistics and then I'll move on from this. Per 100,000, in 1998, the number of human illnesses linked to poultry for salmonella was 30.8 per 100,000. Twenty years later that had fallen to 0.3 per 100,000. The number of salmonella cases caused by pork had been 22 per 100,000. That had fallen to 2.0 per 100,000. And the rate of salmonella caused by eggs in the human population had gone from 57.7 per 100,000 down to 3.3. These are extraordinary drops in salmonella infections within a decade or so, simply by strict enforcement on the farm and in processing.
So how are we handling that same problem in the United States? Well, about a million and a half Americans are sickened by salmonella every year. There is a new, nasty, nasty form of antibiotic resistant salmonella being spread by ground beef. And what is the USDA rule on salmonella? It is perfectly legal to sell ground beef in the United States that is completely riddled with salmonella because our government has decided that salmonella is a naturally occurring organism and therefore it is not an adulterant of ground beef.
Now, the salmonella in ground beef comes from something else that's naturally occurring: manure! And it's the contamination of our meat by manure that's put the salmonella there and the consumer who goes to the supermarket to buy ground beef has no way of knowing which ground beef is riddled, riddled with high loads of salmonella, and which ground beef would be safe to purchase. So you have two completely different approaches by one government and another. And the meatpacking industry's line in this country - their argument is the same argument they made in 1906 when they were fighting against the Meat Inspection Act: "Just cook it." It's the consumer's responsibility to deal with the contamination. And, you know, in Denmark, they put the responsibility on the polluters not to be polluting their food system.
Now the meatpacking companies and the food processing companies in this country are not evil. But they are operating from a very different point of view. They don't want their customers to get sick but they also don't want to be held legally responsible when they do get sick. So they don't want traceability, they don't want testing, they don't want mandatory recalls, because that will hold them legally responsible for what they're doing.
A very good food safety system in this country would not be very expensive. I mentioned, in terms of hogs, it would be an extra $0.32 per animal to get rid of the antibiotic use. In terms of ground beef, a very good pathogen testing system like the one Jack in the Box has costs an additional one penny per pound of ground beef. We can afford to do this. So limits should be placed on the amounts of pathogens that our food can contain and, above all, our food safety system should be governed by common sense. Companies that produce contaminated food shouldn't be permitted to sell it. And companies that are selling wholesome food should be rewarded for doing so.
And it's amazing to me that this FDA bill is stuck, because this food safety issue isn't like abortion, it's not like gun control, it's not like there are passionate advocates in this country who are for contaminated meat. "We want salmonella!" The Tea Party has embraced some bizarre positions, but I've never heard Tea Partiers campaigning on behalf of antibiotic resistant salmonella.
So, most importantly, we need a single, strong, central food safety agency that can coordinate looking at our food safety from the farm, to the retail establishments - and this is something, again, that the National Academy of Sciences has been calling for for years, YEARS. We need quite simply to be able to test, to trace, and to recall. And our food will never, ever be perfectly safe. There is nothing in life that is perfectly safe. But it's outrageous how many children are being sickened every single day unnecessarily.
And I'm gonna end by quoting John F. Kennedy, who really was a supporter of the modern consumer movement. And, in his special message to Congress in March of 1962... he laid out what the fundamentals of a consumers' movement should be, and that is basic rights that our citizens should have:
1. The right to safety; that is, to be protected against the marketing of goods that are dangerous or hazardous to our health.
2. The right to be informed; that is, to be protected against false or misleading advertising and information, but also the right to have adequate labeling of products so that consumers are given the information to make informed decisions about their purchase.
3. The right to choose; because without adequate labeling, without adequate information, there IS no choice. There IS no meaningful choice. And you're basically being forced to buy what these companies want you to buy.
The right to safety, the right to information, the right to choice... we have NONE of these in a meaningful way right now with our food supply. We deserve, and must have, all of them. And I would add one more thing to this before wrapping up. Safe and healthy food is not and should not be a privilege. It should be a fundamental right. And I hope that all of you, in your own communities, and also while you're here in DC, will really do something so that we get that right. Thank you.
