Harmful strains of E. coli and Salmonella shouldn't be showing up on a healthy food like sprouts, yet they are. The fact that hazards are showing up on new foods is a disturbing trend. Today, consumers must rely on weak government oversight of the food industry to correct those problems, and it clearly isn't working. FDA is conducting a fraction of the inspections that it conducted in 1981. Most plants regulated by FDA can expect a visit from the federal agency about once every 10 years.
Inspectors report finding more and more hazardous conditions in the plants they visit.
The Consumer Food Safety Act will require FDA to check food plants quarterly . Import inspections are almost non-existent . FDA inspects only one or two out of every one hundred import shipments. FDA reports that each import inspector now handles almost twice the workload of just five years ago. The Consumer Food Safety Act will give FDA the ability to inspect more food at the border and to send inspectors to foreign countries to check their food safety programs and food processing plants, just as the USDA does today for meat and poultry .