Call issued for better food safety net

By Stephen J. HedgesWashington BureauPublished April 25, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Michael Armstrong was mystified and scared. First his daughter Isabella, 5, and then her sister, Ashley, 2, developed stomach virus symptoms last September. But they did not go away, as kids' illnesses often do, and soon the Indianapolis man found himself taking his girls to the hospital.Isabella Armstrong, who was worse off, was eventually put on dialysis when her kidneys failed. Doctors finally determined that she had been stricken with E. coli contamination from spinach. Though Isabella is off dialysis now, there is a chance that she may need a kidney transplant.

"I don't know what the right answer is," Armstrong told a House hearing on food safety Tuesday, as he and his wife, Elizabeth, held their two daughters in their arms. "I know what the wrong answer is -- just keep doing what we're doing."The session was an attempt to explore whether the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies could be doing more to prevent outbreaks like ones that recently contaminated spinach, lettuce, peanut butter and pet food.While no FDA or Agriculture Department officials were present Tuesday, the subcommittee intends to call FDA witnesses in several weeks to discuss the contamination cases.Tuesday's hearings featured the families, as well as executives from companies that process and deliver the food that was found to be contaminated.

Among those executives were two at the heart of the pet food contamination scandal.Paul Henderson of Menu Foods of Canada, which makes pet food distributed under a number of labels, and Steve Miller of ChemNutra Inc. of Las Vegas, agreed that the tainting of pet food can be traced to a chemical called melamine. That ingredient, which is used to make plastics, was deliberately added to wheat gluten in China, they said.Melamine is high in nitrogen and artificially boosts the protein level of gluten during tests, they said, and the Chinese company selling it could charge more for the higher protein content.The FDA announced Tuesday that China, after weeks of refusals, has agreed to allow FDA inspectors into the plants involved in supplying the wheat gluten now in question.Agency officials also said that the contaminated pet food was sent as feed to hog farms in California, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and possibly Ohio. Urine of some of the hogs tested positive for melamine, according to the FDA.

Officials said they do not know whether any hogs had entered the human food supply but were still investigating."Food-borne illnesses and pet food contamination demonstrate serious flaws in our food safety net," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "With more and more of our food, fruits and vegetables being imported, there appears to be less and less government inspection or oversight."The food executives testified that their companies took speedy steps to initiate recalls once it was clear that people were sick. But Stupak and others asked whether the FDA should have the authority to order recalls.

The agency now can only order recalls of baby formula. The executives said they would not oppose that authority.Armstrong and members of two other families told lawmakers how the simple act of serving and eating seemingly safe foods became a harrowing medical drama, one that left physical and emotional scars.Most difficult of all, they said, was just finding out what was happening to their loved ones. Doctors initially did not include E. coli and salmonella as causes, they said. The families themselves usually prompted the diagnosis after reading and hearing news reports of food recalls."I can't protect them from spinach," Armstrong said of his children. "Only you guys can."Terri Marshall of Louisiana testified how her mother-in-law, Mora Lou Marshall, was hospitalized Jan. 2. Mora Lou Marshall, 85, usually kept a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter next to her bed and would eat a spoonful to supplement her diet.ConAgra Foods Inc., which makes Peter Pan, issued a massive recall Feb. 14, a day after the FDA warned consumers not to eat certain jars of the product, made in a single Georgia plant.Today, Mora Lou Marshall is in a care facility, unable to eat normally. She is fed intravenously, Terri Marshall said.