Pressure on for more stringent food safety legislation

[PaleoPhil]

Looks like it might become even more difficult for businesses to sell raw or lightly cooked products.

<<Cost of food-borne illnesses is deemed much higher than earlier estimates
A report sponsored by the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University puts the health-related price tag at $152 billion a year. That's more than four times an earlier USDA estimate
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-food-safety3-2010mar03,0,411644.story

The report is aimed at pressuring Congress to pass more stringent food safety legislation by making the case that such oversight is a matter of national economic well-being as well as public health, according to backers of the report.
 
A food safety bill that would increase inspections, fund research and force the industry to beef up its record-keeping cleared the House of Representatives last summer. ...
 
Industry research shows that most illnesses are caused by consumer mishandling of produce, so the public shouldn't expect food safety legislation to be a panacea, said Ray Gilmer, spokesman for United Fresh Produce Assn., a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. ....>>

[TylerDurden]

I'm not so worried re the above. Every attempt to force the heating/pasteurisation of raw foods has been either blunted in the case of raw dairy or completely overthrown in the case of raw oysters.  We need to build up a big enough RPD community, of course, so that we can lobby Congress and others to get into line.  The real battle nos is to cripple the big producers and save the smaller, higher quality farmers.