Food-safety roulette.(Memo To Members)(Column)(Editorial)

For years, like many consumers, I didn't think twice about the safety of the food at the supermarket, assuming it was effectively protected by government standards and careful oversight. Much of the time our trust in the food supply is justified. But we've learned that some staples, such as hot dogs, lettuce, and ground beef, can and have caused outbreaks of food poisoning. Recent reports and statistics--and Consumers Union's own work--emphasize that our food-safety system could be better.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year, food-borne pathogens cause 325,000 hospitalizations and 76 million illnesses, resulting in 5,000 deaths. Though technological advances, such as pasteurization, have nearly eradicated some forms of disease, other hazards have cropped up.

Changes over the past century in how food is produced, processed, and transported have created new risks for contamination. For example, with mass production, a single batch of hamburger could contain meat from more than 100 cows. If just one of those cows were contaminated with enough E. coli 0157:H7, hundreds of people could get sick from burgers made with the contaminated meat, if it were not properly handled and cooked. Environmental hazards can also endanger the food supply, as we found when we tested canned tuna for mercury (see page 17).

Changes in our lifestyles and eating habits can create some unexpected risks. If food from a salad bar or open buffet is not held at the proper temperature--or, again, is not properly handled--it could make you ill.

Our present food-safety system is simply not designed to meet today's needs or tomorrow's threats. With responsibility spread among a dozen agencies interpreting some 35 different laws--some of them almost 100 years old--there's no clear authority or coordination of food-safety oversight. Cheese pizza, for example, is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), while pizza with pepperoni is regulated by the U.S. ...