This CAST report summary with a few modifications was used by the President s National Science and Technology Council and was sent to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and to Congress for consideration during debate on the farm bill and funding for the next year s budget. The Institute of Food Technologists issued a commendation of the report and praised its emphasis on the need to obtain more information about the incidence of foodborne diseases as well as the virulence of individual pathogens. She subsequently spoke at hearings on Reinventing the Federal Food Safety System . A New Strategy for the 21st Century . In the last five years there has been a change in the public perception of food safety, including the legal responsibility and regulatory philosophy in the United States.
Information continues to be the critical food safety problem.
Pathogens cannot be seen with the naked eye, so the public cannot readily detect the safety of meals, foods, or ingredients purchased anywhere along the food continuum. The ability to link human illness with foodborne pathogens also is difficult. Thus, the majority of foodborne illness cases are unreported. The complexity of food safety from farm to table requires many types of scientific expertise to design sensible public and private interventions. At the request of producer organizations, government, scientists, and public interest groups, the CAST Board of Directors, given the national attention to food safety issues, approved an update of the 1994 CAST report recommendations as a valuable contribution to current food safety issues.