Groups Criticize Food Safety Plan 1/12/00 Consumer advocacy groups are criticizing the Clinton administrations Food Safety Council for writing a plan for improving food safety without proposing to consolidate the dozen agencies that now have some responsibility for the issue. The recently released draft strategic plan instead offered several consolidation alternatives for discussion at a public hearing Jan. 19, 2000.The council, which is made up of officials from the agencies, "seems to be designed to fend off efforts to get a single food safety agency," Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said. "The council is comprised of exactly the people whose ox would be gored if an independent agency were to be formed."The plan says the agencies responsible for various food safety issues, "have developed different systems for protecting the food supply, and bring different strengths and shortcomings to the current system." The plan also lays out a series of general goals in risk assessment, management and public communication."The overarching goal of the plan is to improve public health by improving the safety of the food supply," said Catherine Woteki, the Agriculture Departments undersecretary of food safety. "The council is now asking for public comment for what organizational options would further our ability to achieve those goals."The National Academy of Sciences in 1998 urged Congress to "establish a unified, central framework for managing food safety programs" headed by a single person.Carol Tucker Foreman of Consumer Federation of America also criticized the plan for failing to propose specific goals for cutting cases of Salmonella and other pathogens.

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