II 

111TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 1269 

To provide for enhanced foodborne illness surveillance and food safety capacity, to establish regional food safety centers of excellence, and for other 

purposes. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JUNE 16, 2009 

Ms. KLOBUCHAR (for herself, Mr. CHAMBLISS, and Mr. DURBIN) introduced 

the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee 

on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

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. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Food Safety Rapid 

5 Response Act’’. 

6 SEC. 2. ENHANCED FOODBORNE ILLNESS SURVEILLANCE. 

7 (a) IN GENERAL.— 

8 (1) AUTHORITY.—The Secretary of Health and 

9 Human Services (referred to in this Act as the ‘‘SecVerDate Nov 24 2008 09:27 Jun 17, 2009 Jkt 079200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1269.IS S1269

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1 retary’’) shall strengthen and expand foodborne ill2 ness surveillance systems to— 

3 (A) inform and evaluate efforts to prevent 

4 foodborne illness; and 

5 (B) enhance the identification and inves6 tigation of, and response to, foodborne illness 

7 outbreaks. 

8 (2) FOODBORNE ILLNESS OUTBREAK.—For 

9 purposes of this section, the term ‘‘foodborne illness 

10 outbreak’’ means the occurrence of cases of human 

11 illness caused by a specific pathogen with matching 

12 subtype characteristics which are— 

13 (A) found in 2 or more States; and 

14 (B) temporally and geographically distrib15 uted in a manner to suggest contamination of 

16 a commercially distributed food product or in17 gredient. 

18 (b) FOODBORNE ILLNESS SURVEILLANCE SYS19 TEMS.—The Secretary, acting through the Director of the 

20 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shall enhance 

21 foodborne illness surveillance systems to improve the col22 lection, analysis, reporting, and usefulness of data on 

23 foodborne illnesses by— 


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1 (1) coordinating foodborne illness surveillance 

2 and environmental assessment systems, including 

3 complaint systems, in order to— 

4 (A) produce better information on illnesses 

5 associated with foods, including sources and 

6 risk factors for infections by emerging patho7 gens; and 

8 (B) facilitate sharing of data acquisition 

9 and findings on a more timely basis— 

10 (i) among governmental agencies, in11 cluding the Food and Drug Administra12 tion, the Food Safety and Inspection Serv13 ice, and State and local agencies; 

14 (ii) with relevant persons in the food 

15 industry; and 

16 (iii) with the public; 

17 (2) augmenting foodborne illness surveillance 

18 and environmental assessment systems to improve— 

19 (A) attribution of a foodborne illness out20 break to a specific food or food ingredient; and 

21 (B) identification and reporting of contrib22 uting factors and environmental antecedents in 

23 foodborne illness outbreak investigations; 

24 (3) developing improved epidemiological tools 

25 and methods for obtaining quality exposure data, 


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1 microbiological methods for classifying cases and de2 tecting clusters; 

3 (4) developing improved environmental assess4 ment tools for obtaining data on contributing factors 

5 and environmental antecedents in foodborne illness 

6 outbreaks; 

7 (5) expanding capacity of foodborne illness sur8 veillance and environmental assessment systems, in9 cluding those owned and controlled by persons in in10 dustry, for implementation of fingerprinting strate11 gies for foodborne infectious agents, including 

12 parasites and hepatitis A, in order to increase patho13 gen discovery efforts to identify new or rarely docu14 mented causes of foodborne illness; 

15 (6) allowing timely industry and public access 

16 to de-identified, aggregate surveillance data; 

17 (7) at least annually, publishing current reports 

18 on findings from foodborne illness surveillance and 

19 environmental assessment systems; 

20 (8) exploring establishment of registries for 

21 long-term case follow-up to better characterize late 

22 complications of foodborne illness; 

23 (9) increasing the participation of public health 

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1 tional networks of public health and food regulatory 

2 agencies and laboratories to— 

3 (A) share and accept laboratory analytic 

4 and environmental assessment findings; and 

5 (B) identify foodborne illness outbreaks 

6 and attribute such outbreaks to specific foods 

7 through submission of standardized molecular 

8 subtypes (also known as ‘‘fingerprints’’) of 

9 foodborne illness pathogens to a centralized 

10 database; and 

11 (10) establishing a flexible mechanism for rap12 idly supporting scientific research by academic cen13 ters of excellence, which may include staff rep14 resenting academic clinical researchers, food micro15 biologists, animal and plant disease specialists, 

16 ecologists, and other allied disciplines. 

17 (c) IMPROVING STATE SURVEILLANCE CAPACITY.— 

18 The Secretary, acting through the Director of the Centers 

19 for Disease Control and Prevention and the Commissioner 

20 of Food and Drugs, shall improve capacity for surveillance 

21 in the States by— 

22 (1) supporting outbreak investigations with 

23 needed specialty expertise, including epidemiological, 

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1 sist identification of underlying common sources and 

2 contributing factors; 

3 (2) identifying, disseminating, and supporting 

4 implementation of model practices at the State and 

5 local level for— 

6 (A) facilitating rapid shipment of clinical 

7 isolates from clinical laboratories to State pub8 lic health laboratories to avoid delays in testing; 

9 (B) conducting rapid and standardized 

10 interviewing of individuals associated with 

11 major enteric pathogens, including prior to des12 ignation of clusters as foodborne illness out13 breaks; 

14 (C) conducting and evaluating rapid and 

15 standardized interviews of healthy control per16 sons; 

17 (D) providing environmental assessment 

18 tools for obtaining data regarding contributing 

19 factors and environmental antecedents during 

20 foodborne illness outbreak investigations; and 

21 (E) sharing information on a timely 

22 basis— 

23 (i) within public health and food regu24 latory agencies; 

25 (ii) among such agencies; 


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1 (iii) with the food industry; 

2 (iv) with healthcare providers; and 

3 (v) with the public; 

4 (3) conducting a systematic review of the bar5 riers to sharing data among the entities described in 

6 paragraph (2)(E); 

7 (4) developing, regularly updating, and dissemi8 nating training curricula on foodborne illness sur9 veillance investigations, including standard sampling 

10 methods and laboratory procedures and improved 

11 environmental assessment procedures; 

12 (5) integrating new molecular diagnostic tools 

13 for parasites into Web-based consultation services 

14 for parasitic infections to accelerate the identifica15 tion of foodborne infectious agents; 

16 (6) supporting research to develop and deploy 

17 new subtyping methods for salmonella, E. coli, 

18 campylobacter, and other pathogens, to increase the 

19 speed and accuracy of diagnoses; 

20 (7) determining minimum core competencies for 

21 public health laboratories, and developing self-eval22 uation and proficiency-testing tools for such labora23 tories; 

24 (8) facilitating regional public health laboratory 

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1 ment and physical space, and increase surge capac2 ity; 

3 (9) providing technical assistance, which may 

4 include the detailing of officers and employees of the 

5 Secretary, to State and local public health and food 

6 regulatory agencies; 

7 (10) partnering with the Food and Drug Ad8 ministration to increase communication, coordina9 tion, and integration of foodborne illness surveillance 

10 and outbreak investigation activities; and 

11 (11) developing and periodically updating re12 sponse and interview procedures so that such proce13 dures are standardized and tested. 

14 SEC. 3. FOOD SAFETY CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE. 

15 (a) ESTABLISHMENT.—Not later than 1 year after 

16 the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary, in con17 sultation with the working group described in subsection 

18 (b)(2), shall establish 5 regional Food Safety Centers of 

19 Excellence (referred to in this section as the ‘‘Centers of 

20 Excellence’’) to serve as regional resources for State and 

21 local public health professionals. The Centers of Excel22 lence shall be established at selected State health depart23 ments. 

24 (b) SELECTION OF THE CENTERS OF EXCEL25 LENCE.— 


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1 (1) ELIGIBLE ENTITIES.—To be eligible to be 

2 designated as a Food Safety Center of Excellence 

3 under subsection (a), an entity shall— 

4 (A) be a State health department; 

5 (B) partner with 1 or more institutions of 

6 higher education that have demonstrated knowl7 edge, expertise, and meaningful experience with 

8 regional or national food production, processing, 

9 and distribution, as well as leadership in the 

10 laboratory, epidemiological, and environmental 

11 detection and investigation of foodborne illness; 

12 and 

13 (C) provide to the Secretary such informa14 tion, at such time, and in such manner, as the 

15 Secretary may require. 

16 (2) WORKING GROUP.—Not later than 180 days 

17 after the date of enactment of this Act, the Sec18 retary shall establish a diverse working group of ex19 perts and stakeholders from Federal, State, and 

20 local food safety and health agencies, the food indus21 try, including food retailers and food manufacturers, 

22 consumer organizations, and academia to make rec23 ommendations to the Secretary regarding designa24 tions of the Regional Centers of Excellence. 


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1 (3) ADDITIONAL CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE.— 

2 The Secretary may designate eligible entities to be 

3 regional Food Safety Centers of Excellence, in addi4 tion to the 5 designated under subsection (a). 

5 (c) ACTIVITIES.—Under the leadership of the Direc6 tor of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 

7 each Center of Excellence shall be based out of a selected 

8 State health department, which shall provide assistance to 

9 other regional, State, and local departments of health 

10 through activities that include— 

11 (1) providing resources for interviewing individ12 uals as part of routine surveillance and outbreak in13 vestigations; 

14 (2) providing analysis of the timeliness and ef15 fectiveness of foodborne disease surveillance and out16 break response activities; 

17 (3) providing training for epidemiological and 

18 environmental investigation of foodborne illness, in19 cluding suggestions for streamlining and standard20 izing the investigation process; 

21 (4) establishing fellowships, stipends, and schol22 arships to train future epidemiological and food-safe23 ty leaders and to address critical workforce short24 ages; 


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1 (5) training and coordinating State and local 

2 personnel; 

3 (6) strengthening capacity to participate in ex4 isting or new foodborne illness surveillance and envi5 ronmental assessment information systems; and 

6 (7) conducting research and outreach activities 

7 focused on increasing prevention, communication, 

8 and education regarding food safety. 

9 (d) REPORT TO CONGRESS.—Not later than 2 years 

10 after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall 

11 submit to Congress a report that— 

12 (1) describes the effectiveness of Centers of Ex13 cellence; and 

14 (2) provides legislative recommendations or de15 scribes additional resources required by the Centers 

16 of Excellence. 

17 (e) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There is 

18 authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section 

19 $20,000,000, which shall remain available until expended. 

Æ 


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