MS. DIANE VOGELWelcome back. I'm Diane Vogel, managing producer of "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," sitting in today for Kojo. And for the remainder of this hour, we'll be talking about food safety. Yesterday, in the Senate, in a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, the Senate approved the biggest change to our nation's food safety laws in more than 70 years. Now, grocery shopping isn't a topic that usually gets a lot of attention on the Senate floor. But the legislation calls for the FDA to hire thousands of new food inspectors, and to require farmers and food manufacturers to do much more in order to prevent contamination that causes food-borne illnesses.

MS. DIANE VOGELSo, question is how much will these changes cost us? Will they make you feel more confident about buying the food you already buy your family? And how will they affect your neighbors or others who work in the farming or agricultural industries? To start talking with us about this today, we've invited back Lyndsey Layton. Lyndsey is a reporter with The Washington Post, and she covers all kinds of FDA and USDA investigations. We've talked to Lindsay before about contaminated eggs and spinach, I believe. Lyndsey, thanks so much for being here.

MS. LYNDSEY LAYTONHi, Diane. Nice to be here.

VOGELNice to be -- nice to talk with you too. Let's start with some of the basics, because I recall that when I first started learning about the food safety system in the U.S., I was pretty shocked at how lax it was that the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, doesn't even have the ability to insist that food producers recall their products. What is the current layout? Sketch it out for us now, the food safety system, how it currently works in the U.S.

LAYTONWell, Diane, you're right. The food safety system, as it's currently laid out, is basically the same one that we've had since 1938. It's antiquated, really, and it's diffused. There are 15 different federal agencies that play a role in food safety. Mostly, the responsibility is divided between the USDA and the FDA. The USDA regulates meat, poultry, some egg products, about 20 percent of the food industry. And the FDA has the rest of it, about 80 percent of the food industry. But the FDA only has about a quarter of the resources that the federal government spends on regulating food. So it's been underfunded chronically for years, understaffed. It only right now gets around to inspecting food facilities on average once every 10 years. And it basically has had no presence on farms. It just doesn't go on the farm, and that really was revealed during the summer when we have the massive egg recall tied to two farms in Iowa. So it's basically an outdated system. It's complicated. And the responsibility is cut up across different agencies. And it's been underfunded for a very long time.

VOGELWell, we'll definitely get back to the conversation about funding a little bit later in this conversation, because my guess is that the new Republican-led Congress coming in might have some issues with regard to how much...

LAYTONDo you think?

VOGEL(laugh) ...because it's my understanding this new law would provide enough funding to hire over 17,000 new inspectors. Tell me what else are some of the key ways that we would see changes in the safety of our food through this bill.

LAYTONWell, this bill basically -- what it tries to do is shift the paradigm. It tries to prevent contamination. You know, right now, the federal government response to contamination after the fact. People get sick, they trace it back to the source. They try to figure out what caused it, and then they try to take it off the shelves. That's the way our system works right now. The action that was approved by the Senate yesterday would put new responsibilities on food makers and on farmers to figure out where in their production there might be contamination, and to put controls in place to prevent contamination. And then to test continually to make sure that those preventive controls are working. The idea is to prevent the illness from the -- in the first place. And so, it's a much more forward-thinking, smarter approach. A lot of other countries -- you know, in Europe, they work this way. It makes a lot of sense. And so, that's the system that was approved by the Senate yesterday.

VOGELAre you able to give us an example? One of the things -- as I was reading the articles about the passed of the law -- I admit, I didn't read the law -- is that it said that the food manufacturers and farmers have to use, quote, unquote, "scientific techniques to test and to continue to test to prove that their food is safe." And I was wondering, for instance, maybe in your egg investigation or in an investigation to spinach or something else, can you give me an example of what that kind of scientific technique would look like? What are we asking farmers to do?

LAYTONYou're really basically -- it's -- in microbiology, you're testing for contaminants, for pathogens, for bacteria, the presence of bacteria in your facility, on the equipment, in the product. It's just -- it's a matter of, you know, basic testing to make sure that that there is -- that there -- you have to figure out what are the likely contaminants, what are the kind of food that you're making, what is a likely bacteria that would get in there that could cause illness, and then you test for it. And if you find it, you disinfect and then you test again to make sure that it's clean. And then, you know, it's just -- it's really basic. And frankly, a lot of the big manufacturers already are doing this. They've been doing it for years now because it's a huge liability if they sell adulterated food, you know, food that's contaminated. People get sick. They get hit by multi-million dollar lawsuit. So most of the major responsible big brands already do this and already have controls in place and do this kind of work. So for them, it's not really much of a change. It's gonna be a big change for the smaller producers, you know, who have to now create processes and controls and spend money on testing and laboratories and all of that. So that's -- it's a big change for sort of the middle players and some of the smaller people. But the big ones are already doing this.

VOGELYou are listening to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show." That was Lyndsey Layton, reporter from The Washington Post, talking to us about the recently passed food safety bill that has bipartisan support and is expected to win President Obama's signature. We are gonna go to the telephones now. And, Sally, you're on the air. Go ahead, Sally, in Nokesville, Va.

SALLYHi. I just wanna say I want the FDA out of my food. I don't trust them. They are already -- you say it's the small guys this is gonna make a change for. Yes. How are those small guys going to pay for all that testing and everything if they're not already doing it? And the big guys who are supposed to be doing all that testing, they're the ones that are making the huge contamination problem -- like the eggs and the peanut butter and the spinach and all that -- that is contaminating and sickening thousands of people. The small guys, if a sickness happens, they know it because they have a personal relationship with those customers. And I'm talking small family farmers that are just selling locally -- directly, a lot of times -- to the consumer. And they're not gonna be able to afford all this stuff unless the Tester-Hagan Amendment goes through, which would exempt them. But even then, this is giving the FDA huge power over interstate commerce, not just the interstate commerce that they already have power over.

VOGELThanks for calling, Sally. I think that Lyndsey can address some of your concerns directly because I think that amendment may have made it through. Did it, Lyndsey?

LAYTONYes, it did, Diane. So Sally is talking about the Tester-Hagan Amendment, which is part of the law that was -- or part of the legislation that was approved by the Senate yesterday. And that would exempt small producers, small farmers, small food processors and anyone who sells directly to the consumer -- so a farm stand, farmers' market, that sort of thing -- because the lawmakers were recognizing the objections that Sally was, you know -- had just voiced. And so this is the way that they thought would be the best way to address those concerns.

LAYTONBut, you know, Sally does make a really big point -- a good point in that the very big producers, those tend to also have the greatest impact. When something goes wrong at an egg farm that produces 73 billion dozen eggs a year, it can spread across the country really fast and sicken thousands of people. A small producer who sells locally to, you know, one little market in town is not -- and something goes wrong in that producer's henhouse, that's not going to affect thousands of people. So she's right in terms of -- the realization is that we have a very consolidated food industry right now. And we've got massive agriculture companies, and they pose greater risks. If there's something wrong in their facilities, it can go viral and affect the nation.

VOGELThanks for your call, Sally. Yeah, I -- the numbers I saw were that one in four Americans becomes ill from tainted food each year, and that 5,000 at least die annually, according to government figures. Have you or anyone in your family had a case of food poisoning recently? Were you able to track where it came from? Or have you changed the way you shop or the decisions you make at the grocery store or at a restaurant because of us -- because of it? If so, give us a call, 1-800-433-8850. Or e-mail us at kojo@wamu.org. You can always send a tweet at kojoshow.

VOGELWe're talking with Lyndsey Layton, reporter from The Washington Post. And, Lyndsey, I know that a lot of our food is imported to the U.S. How is this -- any of these changes gonna affect the foods based on where they come from? Because it's my understanding that, right now, the FDA inspects less than 1 percent of imported food products.

LAYTONThat's true, Diane. And that's been a really big problem in our food safety system for some time. But it's increasing because we're eating so much imported food. You know, we want fresh produce and fresh fruit year round. So if it's December and I want a mango, you know, that's not being grown domestically. That's -- comes from somewhere else. And about 20 percent of our food supply now is imported -- it changes with the season. In the winter, it's higher. Eighty percent of our seafood is imported.

LAYTONAnd the FDA, as you said, is only inspecting about 1 percent, so it's a teeny, teeny fraction of the wave of food that's coming over. The bill that was approved yesterday by the Senate would hold importers to the same safety standards that we hold domestic food producers to. In other words, they have to certify that the food that they're bringing into this country meets the same safety standards as what's grown and processed here. So that should help.

VOGELMmm. I'm wondering, too. It's funny we think of -- I don't think much about the lobby of people who -- of food importers because they seem diffused there from all over the world. But we certainly know the American farm lobby is a powerful one. And I'm -- but, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if many in our audience are thinking, wow, it's hard to find something for Democrats and Republicans to agree on these days. And with the power of the farm lobby, you might think it's surprising that they finally got to agree on this. How surprising is it that it passed both the House and the Senate? And do you anticipate any problems for it in the future because, as we said early -- earlier, funding this, funding the ability to cover 17,000 new jobs in the next four years might be a strain on the new Republican Congress?

LAYTONWell, that's true. The first point about bipartisanship, it was remarkable. The vote yesterday in the Senate was 73 to 25, which you just don't see these days in this town. So -- and the measure that passed -- the version in the House that passed more than a year ago also had very strong bipartisan support, and the coalition of groups that were backing this bill was really remarkable. You had the U.S. Chamber of Commerce aligned with U.S. PIRG. You know, you just really don't see that around of lot of issues. You had consumer groups and major marketing and produce organizations and the grocery manufacturers with the, you know, Center for Science in the Public Interest. So it was quite an array of groups that were backing it.

LAYTONBut even with that kind of support, it's a big question mark about whether the next Congress is going to fund this bill adequately. You know, there's a new austerity mindset coming in with the Republican majority that that's gonna take over the House. They want to do across the board cuts so they don't -- they wanna shrink programs. They're not really looking to grow them, and this bill would cost $1.4 billion over four years. And as you mentioned -- it calls for hiring 17,000 inspectors. So that's a pretty big bump in the FDA budget, and it's really unclear whether the new Congress is gonna go for that or whether we'll see something much more modest.

VOGELWe will have to just wait and see. I'm wondering also about some of the complaints that we've heard for years about the problem that the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, the USDA, don't actually talk to each other. It's been said that they don't actually talk to each other as much as they should or interact as much as they should. Does this legislation address that at all? And is that statement kind of accurate from what you've learned from your reporting? Do you see a lot of places where perhaps things fall through the crack between the two agencies or maybe there's duplication because they're not in communication?

LAYTONThat's a very good question, Diane. And the short answer is yes, you see that a lot. And it was one of the criticisms that opponents of this bill lobbed, saying, you know, we're gonna pass this bill, but it really doesn't address the underlying problem, which is that there's no single food safety agency in this country and you've got it divided between these different agencies who tussle and, you know, have turf battles and waste resources and you could have much more effective food safety if you had a single coordinated effort.

LAYTONSo that was the argument that was made by some of the opponents to this legislation. And I think from my reporting, you know, I can see many examples where the USDA and the FDA were loggerheads or not miscommunicating. We saw, as recently as last spring and summer, in the egg case, because the -- one of the two farms that were at the center of the recall in Iowa, Wright County Egg, was getting its eggs inspected by the USDA. They were in there to grade them. You know, it's a cosmetic...

VOGELMm-hmm.

LAYTON...program. They look at them. They decide whether they should carry the grade A or the grade AA label. And so they had USDA personnel in the packing plant at this egg farm noticing sanitary problems in the packing plant. Every day, there were problems and -- but never communicated that to the FDA, whose responsibility was to make sure that those eggs are free from salmonella. So under Obama, you know, the president created a high level, cabinet-level food safety working group and he put the USDA secretary and the Health and Human Services secretary. Health and Human Services is the department...

VOGELYup. Were -- I'm gonna just encourage you to wind it up because we're running down on time.

LAYTONI'm sorry.

VOGELThat's okay.

LAYTONThey've tried -- the Obama administration is pledging better communication and coordination, but you still have the structural problem, and you can see it again and again.

VOGELWell, we're gonna just have to leave it there. But with one of the more frightening stories that I've heard about the eggs and the USDA person right there not being able to tell the FDA. Anyway, Lyndsey Layton, thank you for reporting on the issue. Thank you for joining us today. Lyndsey is a reporter with The Washington Post.

LAYTONThank you so much for having me.

VOGELThank you so much. Oh, our pleasure. You've been listening to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show" on WAMU. I'm Diane Vogel, managing producer of the show, sitting in with Kojo. Thanks so much for listening.