Contrasting this situation with the E. coli outbreak in 1993, there is a vast improvement in the type of public health information that is available in these situations. The information we received from the Colorado Department of Public Health enabled us to quickly identify the disease-causing organism and link it to a food source. Improving even further the types of information that are available, and our response to this information, are important challenges for the future. I advocate maintaining the size of the current workforce and providing education and training to make sure everyone is well-equipped for the changing nature of their jobs. Public participation in our policy development and priority-setting activities is critical to our success.
Public participation is important in all facets of government, whether it's research or regulation.
We need as much public input as we can possibly get, and it is especially important in a regulatory agency that sets policies that will affect the public directly. Since the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade established that governments have the right to set appropriate levels of protection, FSIS has vigorously pursued the development of a transparent equivalence policy, and it has worked closely with its trading partners to review their emerging policies. While FSIS has had some success in narrowing the issues under consideration, we have a lot more work to do in implementing agreements and continuing a dialogue with the European Union and other countries on issues that have not been satisfactorily resolved.