A bill to provide for enhanced foodborne illness surveillance and food safety capacity, to establish regional food safety centers of excellence, and for other purposes.

Summary: Food Safety Rapid Response Act - Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to strengthen and expand foodborne illness surveillance systems to: (1) inform and evaluate efforts to prevent foodborne illness; and (2) enhance the identification and investigation of, and response to, foodborne illness outbreaks.

Requires the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to: (1) enhance foodborne illness surveillance systems to improve the collection, analysis, reporting, and usefulness of data on foodborne illnesses; and (2) improve capacity for foodborne illness surveillance in states.

Requires the Secretary to establish five regional Food Safety Centers of Excellence to serve as regional resources for state and local public health professionals in investigating and responding to foodborne illnesses.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Food Safety Rapid Response Act''.

SEC. 2. ENHANCED FOODBORNE ILLNESS SURVEILLANCE.

    (a) In General.--
            (1) Authority.--The Secretary of Health and Human Services 
        (referred to in this Act as the ``Secretary'') shall strengthen 
        and expand foodborne illness surveillance systems to--
                    (A) inform and evaluate efforts to prevent 
                foodborne illness; and
                    (B) enhance the identification and investigation 
                of, and response to, foodborne illness outbreaks.
            (2) Foodborne illness outbreak.--For purposes of this 
        section, the term ``foodborne illness outbreak'' means the 
        occurrence of cases of human illness caused by a specific 
        pathogen with matching subtype characteristics which are--
                    (A) found in 2 or more States; and
                    (B) temporally and geographically distributed in a 
                manner to suggest contamination of a commercially 
                distributed food product or ingredient.
    (b) Foodborne Illness Surveillance Systems.--The Secretary, acting 
through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 
shall enhance foodborne illness surveillance systems to improve the 
collection, analysis, reporting, and usefulness of data on foodborne 
illnesses by--
            (1) coordinating foodborne illness surveillance and 
        environmental assessment systems, including complaint systems, 
        in order to--
                    (A) produce better information on illnesses 
                associated with foods, including sources and risk 
                factors for infections by emerging pathogens; and
                    (B) facilitate sharing of data acquisition and 
                findings on a more timely basis--
                            (i) among governmental agencies, including 
                        the Food and Drug Administration, the Food 
                        Safety and Inspection Service, and State and 
                        local agencies;
                            (ii) with relevant persons in the food 
                        industry; and
                            (iii) with the public;
            (2) augmenting foodborne illness surveillance and 
        environmental assessment systems to improve--
                    (A) attribution of a foodborne illness outbreak to 
                a specific food or food ingredient; and
                    (B) identification and reporting of contributing 
                factors and environmental antecedents in foodborne 
                illness outbreak investigations;
            (3) developing improved epidemiological tools and methods 
        for obtaining quality exposure data, microbiological methods 
        for classifying cases and detecting clusters;
            (4) developing improved environmental assessment tools for 
        obtaining data on contributing factors and environmental 
        antecedents in foodborne illness outbreaks;
            (5) expanding capacity of foodborne illness surveillance 
        and environmental assessment systems, including those owned and 
        controlled by persons in industry, for implementation of 
        fingerprinting strategies for foodborne infectious agents, 
        including parasites and hepatitis A, in order to increase 
        pathogen discovery efforts to identify new or rarely documented 
        causes of foodborne illness;
            (6) allowing timely industry and public access to de-
        identified, aggregate surveillance data;
            (7) at least annually, publishing current reports on 
        findings from foodborne illness surveillance and environmental 
        assessment systems;
            (8) exploring establishment of registries for long-term 
        case follow-up to better characterize late complications of 
        foodborne illness;
            (9) increasing the participation of public health officials 
        at the Federal, State, and local levels in national networks of 
        public health and food regulatory agencies and laboratories 
        to--
                    (A) share and accept laboratory analytic and 
                environmental assessment findings; and
                    (B) identify foodborne illness outbreaks and 
                attribute such outbreaks to specific foods through 
                submission of standardized molecular subtypes (also 
                known as ``fingerprints'') of foodborne illness 
                pathogens to a centralized database; and
            (10) establishing a flexible mechanism for rapidly 
        supporting scientific research by academic centers of 
        excellence, which may include staff representing academic 
        clinical researchers, food microbiologists, animal and plant 
        disease specialists, ecologists, and other allied disciplines.
    (c) Improving State Surveillance Capacity.--The Secretary, acting 
through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
and the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, shall improve capacity for 
surveillance in the States by--
            (1) supporting outbreak investigations with needed 
        specialty expertise, including epidemiological, 
        microbiological, and environmental expertise, to assist 
        identification of underlying common sources and contributing 
        factors;
            (2) identifying, disseminating, and supporting 
        implementation of model practices at the State and local level 
        for--
                    (A) facilitating rapid shipment of clinical 
                isolates from clinical laboratories to State public 
                health laboratories to avoid delays in testing;
                    (B) conducting rapid and standardized interviewing 
                of individuals associated with major enteric pathogens, 
                including prior to designation of clusters as foodborne 
                illness outbreaks;
                    (C) conducting and evaluating rapid and 
                standardized interviews of healthy control persons;
                    (D) providing environmental assessment tools for 
                obtaining data regarding contributing factors and 
                environmental antecedents during foodborne illness 
                outbreak investigations; and
                    (E) sharing information on a timely basis--
                            (i) within public health and food 
                        regulatory agencies;
                            (ii) among such agencies;
                            (iii) with the food industry;
                            (iv) with healthcare providers; and
                            (v) with the public;
            (3) conducting a systematic review of the barriers to 
        sharing data among the entities described in paragraph (2)(E);
            (4) developing, regularly updating, and disseminating 
        training curricula on foodborne illness surveillance 
        investigations, including standard sampling methods and 
        laboratory procedures and improved environmental assessment 
        procedures;
            (5) integrating new molecular diagnostic tools for 
        parasites into Web-based consultation services for parasitic 
        infections to accelerate the identification of foodborne 
        infectious agents;
            (6) supporting research to develop and deploy new subtyping 
        methods for salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, and other 
        pathogens, to increase the speed and accuracy of diagnoses;
            (7) determining minimum core competencies for public health 
        laboratories, and developing self-evaluation and proficiency-
        testing tools for such laboratories;
            (8) facilitating regional public health laboratory 
        partnerships to leverage resources, including equipment and 
        physical space, and increase surge capacity;
            (9) providing technical assistance, which may include the 
        detailing of officers and employees of the Secretary, to State 
        and local public health and food regulatory agencies;
            (10) partnering with the Food and Drug Administration to 
        increase communication, coordination, and integration of 
        foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak investigation 
        activities; and
            (11) developing and periodically updating response and 
        interview procedures so that such procedures are standardized 
        and tested.

SEC. 3. FOOD SAFETY CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE.

    (a) Establishment.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary, in consultation with the working 
group described in subsection (b)(2), shall establish 5 regional Food 
Safety Centers of Excellence (referred to in this section as the 
``Centers of Excellence'') to serve as regional resources for State and 
local public health professionals. The Centers of Excellence shall be 
established at selected State health departments.
    (b) Selection of the Centers of Excellence.--
            (1) Eligible entities.--To be eligible to be designated as 
        a Food Safety Center of Excellence under subsection (a), an 
        entity shall--
                    (A) be a State health department;
                    (B) partner with 1 or more institutions of higher 
                education that have demonstrated knowledge, expertise, 
                and meaningful experience with regional or national 
                food production, processing, and distribution, as well 
                as leadership in the laboratory, epidemiological, and 
                environmental detection and investigation of foodborne 
                illness; and
                    (C) provide to the Secretary such information, at 
                such time, and in such manner, as the Secretary may 
                require.
            (2) Working group.--Not later than 180 days after the date 
        of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall establish a 
        diverse working group of experts and stakeholders from Federal, 
        State, and local food safety and health agencies, the food 
        industry, including food retailers and food manufacturers, 
        consumer organizations, and academia to make recommendations to 
        the Secretary regarding designations of the Regional Centers of 
        Excellence.
            (3) Additional centers of excellence.--The Secretary may 
        designate eligible entities to be regional Food Safety Centers 
        of Excellence, in addition to the 5 designated under subsection 
        (a).
    (c) Activities.--Under the leadership of the Director of the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each Center of Excellence 
shall be based out of a selected State health department, which shall 
provide assistance to other regional, State, and local departments of 
health through activities that include--
            (1) providing resources for interviewing individuals as 
        part of routine surveillance and outbreak investigations;
            (2) providing analysis of the timeliness and effectiveness 
        of foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak response 
        activities;
            (3) providing training for epidemiological and 
        environmental investigation of foodborne illness, including 
        suggestions for streamlining and standardizing the 
        investigation process;
            (4) establishing fellowships, stipends, and scholarships to 
        train future epidemiological and food-safety leaders and to 
        address critical workforce shortages;
            (5) training and coordinating State and local personnel;
            (6) strengthening capacity to participate in existing or 
        new foodborne illness surveillance and environmental assessment 
        information systems; and
            (7) conducting research and outreach activities focused on 
        increasing prevention, communication, and education regarding 
        food safety.
    (d) Report to Congress.--Not later than 2 years after the date of 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to Congress a report 
that--
            (1) describes the effectiveness of Centers of Excellence; 
        and
            (2) provides legislative recommendations or describes 
        additional resources required by the Centers of Excellence.
    (e) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated to carry out this section $20,000,000, which shall remain 
available until expended.