Washington - Congress has ignored growing outbreaks of tainted beef, fruit and vegetables and other food safety issues during the past decade because of hefty campaign contributions from the industry, a nonprofit group said Thursday.
In a report that analyzed some $41 million in campaign contributions over a 10-year period, the Center for Public Integrity said the food industry has created one of Washington's "most effective influence machines" to block any legislation that would tighten food safety safeguards.
The report found House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republican Sens. Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas ranked among the top recipients. Gramm received $611,484 from meat industry groups between 1987 and 1996, followed by Hutchison with $409,178 and Gingrich with $232,239.
An estimated 10,000 Americans die each year from food poisoning and an unknown number of others are sickened by E.coli, cyclospora, cryptosporidium and salmonella, according to federal statistics. The number is rising, due in part to new and aggressive strains of food-borne pathogens.
"This report has answered a question I've had for a very long time: why, with all the data about foodborne illness and meat inspection, the Congress never did anything about it?" asked Carol Tucker Foreman, a former USDA assistant secretary who now heads a consumer group. "The industry has purchased a great deal of access with key members of Congress."
Many members of the House and Senate agriculture committees collected industry campaign donations and speaking fees, the report said.
"No meaningful legislation ever came out of the (House and Senate Agriculture) committees over the past decade on the issue of food safety," said Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group that studies the impact of campaign finance on government. "Congress has put the industry's needs before the public's needs."
Out of a total of 336 bills considered by the two agriculture committees over a two-year period, only 13 made it to the floors of the Senate and the House to become law.
After Hudson Foods' record recall of some 25 million pounds of hamburger last autumn, the Clinton administration asked Congress to give the U.S. Agriculture Department mandatory recall power over meat. A bill that would expand government regulation of imported fruit and vegetables, which were linked to outbreaks of foodborne disease, is also pending.
But aides on both committees say the legislation has virtually no chance of being adopted this session.
Food industry groups criticized the new study as ignoring the safety of the overall U.S. food supply.
"This irresponsible report unfairly alleges that our industry and Congress don't care about food safety. Nothing could be further from the truth," said Mary Sophos, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
Congress should focus on preventing food safety problems through expanded scientific research rather than expanding the USDA's enforcement powers, said other industry groups.
But the USDA has a long tradition of agriculture secretaries being too cozy with industry, Lewis said.
Current Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, who joined the Clinton administration after representing Kansas in Congress, accepted $37,540 in campaign contributions from slaughterhouses while he was in elected office, the report said.
Since he joined the USDA, "Glickman has been roped in like every other agriculture secretary," Lewis told reporters. "There is a culture of industry accommodation at the USDA that has been around for decades."
Glickman's predecessor, Mike Espy, goes on trial this spring on charges of accepting gifts from meat and poultry companies he regulated. Espy has denied any wrongdoing.
A spokesman for Glickman said he has made food safety issues a higher priority than any other USDA secretary in recent years, pressing for tougher laws and regulations to hold industry accountable.
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