020338 Ridge Proposes Food Safety Measure

Washington - Homeland security chief Tom Ridge says the Bush administration, concerned about preventing a bioterrorist attack on the food supply, is looking at combining rival agencies with responsibility for keeping deadly toxins out of everything from beef to broccoli.

"We have to see whether the system that has developed over the past two decades is the one we need in the future," Ridge told food industry officials Tuesday.

Food inspection programs are divided between the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration. FDA, which is responsible for safeguarding for nearly all foods except meat and poultry, only has a fraction of the staff that USDA has and weaker legal authority. FDA has about 750 inspectors to check 55,000 food plants nationwide. The Agriculture Department has 10 times as many inspectors for 6,000 meat processors.

"One of the question we need to answer is ... whether or not we need multiple agencies dealing with food safety responsibilities," Ridge said.

Consumer advocates and the supermarket industry have long pushed for creation of a single food agency. But food makers have resisted, and officials in the two agencies also are reluctant to lose any power.

Ridge assured food industry officials they would be consulted as the Bush administration considered consolidating the inspection system.

Kelly Johnston, executive vice president of government affairs for the National Food Processors Association, said any merger now would be "very disruptive" to the industry.

The General Accounting Office told Congress last fall that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 made it more imperative than ever to consolidate the inspection agencies.

GAO has pressed Congress for years to consolidate inspection programs into one agency and said the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 have made it even more imperative.

There has been only one recorded terrorist attack on the U.S. food supply, in the 1980s when a religious sect contaminated salad bars in Oregon with salmonella bacteria.

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