Jake came down with flu-like symptoms in January 2009. We cared for him as such until we noticed blood in his diarrhea. We took him to the pediatrician who dutifully ran tests of his stool sample. As we waited for the lab results we were encouraged by the pediatrician’s office to give him food if he would eat it and keep it down. We were given the green light by our doctor for him to eat his favorite comfort snack food: Austin Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter, manufactured by Kellogg.

Jake was sick for 11 days and eventually got better; but we were devastated to find out thereafter that while he was sick, we had unknowingly been continuing to feed him the very food that had poisoned him. It was not until 15 days after he became ill that we found out that he had become one of the more than 700 Americans from 46 states to be sickened by a major outbreak of Salmonella-contaminated peanut products from the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA)-which ultimately killed at least nine people.

Over time, we came to find out the outbreak was not just a random occurrence, but a part of a pattern of outbreaks impacting tens of millions of Americans every year. Like many Americans who are impacted by foodborne illness, I was shocked to find out that the nation’s food-safety system is based, in large part, on century-old laws. Furthermore, the agency charged with overseeing about 80 percent of the U.S. food supply–the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–inspects domestic food-processing facilities on average only once every 10 years. In the area of inspections, as well as other components of our food-safety system, the laws and regulations are severely lacking and simply unsatisfactory in successfully managing what has evolved into a complex global food supply.

Americans were alarmed by the peanut product outbreak. Over 3,000 products were recalled–one of the largest single food recalls in U.S. history. Outraged lawmakers convened hearings and promised to implement meaningful food-safety reforms. President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders from both parties have called for action. According to a bipartisan poll commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts, nine out of 10 Americans favor legislation to strengthen our food-safety laws. Yet, here we are, one year after the outbreak was identified, and Americans are still waiting for Congress to enact comprehensive FDA food-safety legislation.

Since Jake’s illness, we have become food-safety advocates. Last year, Jake and I testified at the PCA Congressional hearing. We later returned to D.C. to meet with Congressmen Walden and Schrader to discuss and lobby for the House of Representatives’ Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749). The House has since passed this bill. Jake and I then returned to D.C. for a third time to meet with Oregon’s Senators Merkley and Wyden’s staff to push for the passage of the Senate’s version of the bill, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). We’re headed to D.C. next week to lobby for food-safety reform–again.

Recently, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions unanimously approved S. 510. This bill is strongly supported by Senators on both sides of the aisle–something that is not often seen in Washington these days. This says to me that the time has come to make food safety a priority and enact sweeping changes to the nation’s food oversight system.

Last month–on the anniversary of the peanut butter outbreak–many of the victims of food borne illness, including myself, wrote a letter to lawmakers, asking them to keep their promise of reform. My son’s firsthand account is a painful reminder that despite continued outbreaks–from peanut butter, hazelnuts, fresh fruits and vegetables, to cookie dough, and many other foods–Congress has yet to pass food-safety legislation.

Had legislation been in place a year ago, things could have been different for Jake and for tens of thousands of other Americans. The legislation under consideration shifts the FDA’s regulatory approach from reaction to prevention, establishes minimum inspection frequencies for processing plants and requires processors to establish food-safety plans. If these measures had been in effect, PCA would have been required to develop a food-safety plan and FDA would have been inspecting its plants more frequently. Instead, hundreds were sickened, dozens will have life long health issues, and nine families have lost a loved one.

It is outrageous that a company and its employees could knowingly allow tainted product to go out the door and into the nation’s food supply, as it appears PCA did. We need to strengthen the FDA and its ability to oversee our food supply. Without doing so, the outbreaks of contaminated food are sure to continue, causing millions more Americans to suffer the devastating and sometimes fatal consequences. We were lucky–it could have been very different for us. On behalf of all Americans, our whole family, Jake and I ask that our government be given the power to put our public health and food-safety first. The American people deserve better; as a nation, we cannot continue to let this happen.

Historic reform to protect Americans is in sight. I am asking my Senators Merkley and Wyden to urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring S. 510 to the floor for a vote as soon possible. I’m asking you do the same with your senators. The longer it takes Congress to pass this comprehensive legislation, the more consumer confidence in our food supply will erode, and the more people will get sick.

Originally published on Huffington Post

As new peanut butter products are added to the recall list, more public school lunch programs are being red-flagged. Add South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oregon and Texas to the list of states whose school cafeterias received products that originated from the salmonella-tainted Peanut Corporation of America.

They join Idaho, California, and Minnesota, which were recently alerted by the USDA that their school-lunch inventories included products from the company responsible for killing eight people and sickening 500. Those three states were already late to receive official word of the contamination – Idaho schools officials were told to pull the peanuts from their inventories two weeks after American companies began a voluntary nationwide recall.

Would there have been an easy and quick way for the public to know that the Peanut Corporation of America was the source of one of the national school lunch program’s staples? There should have been, but the answer is no. It takes some online digging even to turn up the USDA’s list of approved packaged goods providers – i.e., the folks who take the raw materials and process them into entrees, pastries, condiments and other ready-to-eat fare. Once I located the list, I saw that it includes three peanut butter vendors: Velmar Foods of Phoenix, Ariz.; J.M. Smuckers of Akron, Ohio; and Integrated Food Service of Gardena, Ca.  A Velmar representative told me that the USDA information is wrong – the company doesn’t process any peanuts (“It should say, ‘beans’ ”). I already knew that J. M. Smuckers has no products involved in the recall. That left Integrated Food Service, and from its representative I learned that the company had indeed received USDA “diverted product” from the Peanut Corporation of America – over a year ago. Long before Integrated got an email from the State of California alerting it to the recall, the finished product had been shipped out. The good news is, no schoolchildren got sick from eating it. The bad news is, that was sheer luck.

As it happens, Integrated also processed beef that came from Westlake-Hallmark, the California meat packer caught last year slaughtering “downer” cattle. The USDA ordered about 140 million pounds of beef pulled off the market – the largest recall in U.S. history – but not before about 20 million pounds had been served up in school lunchrooms.

When Alice Waters and I began writing an article on the problems with the current National School Lunch Program, I consulted nutrition and food-service authorities and, of course, relied on the web sites of the USDA and its affiliates for up-to-date information. An overview of the National School Lunch Program appears in dozens of USDA-related documents, most of them referencing the commodities program that forms the backbone of the public-school lunch menu. But in searching for the answer to one central and seemingly simple question – How do we track commodity food back to its source? – I came up empty. In light of the peanut crisis it’s a more important question than ever. The USDA’s food-safety notification process is cumbersome and flawed, and this latest crisis is further proof that more food served under the auspices of the National Food Lunch Program should be locally sourced.

Photo: AP/John Amis