WASHINGTON (FNS) -- The food industry last week firmly defended its practices and motives in response to a report that charged it with using campaign contributions to influence food-safety legislation.
The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that studies the effects of political giving on legislation and public policy, charged in a report that Congress has ignored public-health threats posed by the slaughter and meatpacking industries, distributors, wholesalers and food retailers.
The group reported that, during the past decade, the food industry spent $41 million on congressional campaigns and that more than one-third of the spending was for members of the Senate and House agriculture committees, who influence legislation governing the industry. Congressional leadership also received a share of the industry's largesse, the report said.
"During the escalating public-health crisis of the past decade, the food industry has managed to kill every bill that has promised meaningful reform," said the 100-page report, dubbed, "Safety Last, the Politics of E. Coli and Other Food-Borne Killers."
"Tougher government regulation simply never made it out of the Senate and House agriculture committees," the report charged.
The industry responded swiftly to the report. Mary Sophos, senior vice president of government affairs at the Grocery Manufacturers of America here, called the report "irresponsible and out of line." She went on to note in a statement that the GMA and its members "have long supported meaningful food-safety initiatives based on principles of sound science. This irresponsible report unfairly alleges that our industry and Congress don't care about food safety. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Sophos pointed to creation of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system as an example of a science-based program aimed at ensuring safe food practices in processing plants. The Center for Public Integrity, however, criticized HACCP as a program largely permitting industry to inspect itself and said that HACCP stood for "Have a cup of coffee and pray."
The report also charged that the meat industry has built "one of Washington's most effective influence machines, partly by recruiting federal lawmakers and congressional aides for its lobbying juggernaut." Of the 124 lobbyists the center identified as working for the meat industry last year, at least 28 formerly worked on Capitol Hill.
Sara Lilygren, spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute, Arlington, Va., said contributions are given to politicians "we think will best represent our industry's point of view in Congress" but are not aimed at specific legislation.
Janet Riley, vice president of public affairs for the AMI, said the industry had petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture for creation of HACCP. She also noted that even though Congress has not passed an abundance of legislation regulating the industry, "that doesn't mean they haven't been involved in food safety."
Regarding political giving, Riley said that it "makes sense" for industry to give to political candidates who understand its issues.
John R. Block, president of Food Distributors International, Falls Church, Va., said the importance of food safety is "monumental" to the industry because, "If we sell a product that gets someone sick or kills them, we'll be put out of business. To suggest that is not an incentive to do the best we can do is totally false. The incentive is monumental."
Karen Brown, senior vice president of the Food Marketing Institute here, said that, based on a summary of the report, the center's agenda was not food safety but rather campaign finance reform. On the matter of food safety, Brown said, "It is our belief that the federal agencies have enough resources and authority to keep contaminated food out of the marketplace, and although the government does not have mandatory recall authority, it has the ability to shut down any manufacturer or production plant if it deems that is necessary."
