President Barack Obama said yesterday he is forming a Food Safety Working Group to "upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century," and he appointed former New York City health chief Margaret A. Hamburg as Food and Drug Administration commissioner.
"There are certain things only a government can do," Obama said. "And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and do not cause us harm."
The Obama administration fully banned the butchering of disabled cattle reversing a move by the Bush administration that allowed exceptions to the rule.
"The closing of the loophole improves the welfare of animals and strengthens the safety of our nation's food supply," the Humane Society said in a statement.
Obama said in his taped address that many of the nation's food-safety laws "have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt," and that the Bush administration underfunded and understaffed the FDA, which is responsible for handling food safety.
Referring to his own children, Obama said: "No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch, just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they are buying will cause them harm,."
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