Fragmented food safety.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is right to be worried about the vulnerability of America's food supply to terrorist attack. But bioterrorism isn't the only, or even the greatest, threat to the safety of the nation's food.

Seventy-six million Americans suffer from food-borne illness each year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Yet the food safety system in the United States remains a hodgepodge of fragmented regulatory responsibilities, antiquated laws and self-interested manipulation by food industry lobbying groups.

Concerned about cows? Call the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Concerned about cow's milk? That's regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Which comes first, protecting chickens (USDA) or eggs (FDA)? Who ya gonna call about frozen pepperoni pizza? The USDA, of course. But they'll have to transfer you to the FDA if the problem is with a frozen cheese pizza. Direct your seafood safety questions to the Department of Commerce.

The implications here are obvious. What's good for intelligence operations and homeland security would also be good for protecting the nation's food supply: a unified food safety agency that combined reporting, inspection and regulatory functions from "farm to fork" under one umbrella. The National Academy of Sciences recommended in the report ``Ensuring Safe Food From Production to Consumption'' that Congress establish a unified and central framework for managing federal food safety programs.

New legislation introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., would create a Food Safety Administration to take over the safety, labeling, inspection and enforcement functions now divided among a dozen different agencies, as well as the new authority given to the FDA under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002.

The logic of this proposal is powerful. From the emergence of mad cow disease to the dramatic expansion of Americans' appetite for imported foods, the need for a coherent, unified approach to food safety has never been greater.

The FDA's new regulations requiring food makers, handlers, importers and distributors to keep records of their suppliers and customers are a modest improvement. But Thompson, responding to a question about the new rules, hit the nail on the head last week when he said, "I'm still not comfortable and I still think we have a ways to go."

The right way to go is all the way to a comprehensive 21st century solution. The Durbin-DeLauro bill is a forward-looking approach to an issue that has become even more important as the nation responds to the threat of bioterrorism.