Dean Florez Senate Majority Leader: Food Safety & Security

“You can’t stand for your convictions if you always stand with the crowd.”
-Dean Florez

California Food Czar

Our own FDA warned: "The nation's food supply is at risk. Crisis management in FDA's two food safety centers, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and Center for Veterinary Medicine, has drawn attention and resources away from FDA's ability to develop the science base and infrastructure needed to efficiently support innovation in the food industry, provide effective routine surveillance, and conduct emergency outbreak investigation activities to protect the food supply." Dean will work to reconfigure the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Department of Public Health into a Division of Food Safety reporting directly to the Governor. Dean is a proponent of sustainable agriculture and believes that consumers ought to be allowed access into the debate about the food they eat through more disclosure and transparency.

Test Food Early

Improvement in the surveillance of bacterial and viral diseases is key to ensuring that victims of food poisoning are quickly treated and outbreaks are addressed rapidly. Dean is committed to implementing a public policy standard that is premised upon the need for a system aimed at preventing food-borne illness outbreaks linked to both domestically-grown and imported produce, rather than a system that just responds once outbreaks have begun. Minimizing contamination within the food chain will require a rigorous science-based pathogen testing protocol that must be followed at every level of food production, processing and distribution. Dean will work to ensure these preventative measures are implemented on a mandatory basis, as opposed to the voluntary system currently in place.

Label Food Safety

A lack of federal action has resulted in a patchwork-quilt approach to food safety that has left a good portion of the food industry to watch itself. Dean will work to create a real certification process for food handlers and stiffen licensing requirements for large farms, retailers and wholesale food outlets. Penalties for selling contaminated food needs to be strengthened, including the imposition of criminal penalties and jail time for offenders.

Trace it Back

Once an item has been linked to an outbreak of food-borne illness, a traceback works from the point of sale or service of the food backwards through the distribution chain to the source of the product. Improving technology to make food more traceable is a giant step that needs to be taken so that when a food-borne outbreak occurs, health officials can quickly identify the source and stop its disruption of the health system and the economy. Dean will work to promote university and industry research to bring the most advanced traceback technology to the market to ensure that our food is safe. Dean is committed to implementing a publicly transparent testing system so that contamination, if it does occur, can be isolated and not widely spread throughout the food supply.

In the wake of several high-profile E. coli outbreaks in California’s leafy greens, Dean pushed for the creation of a committee on Food-borne Illness and he held hearings to bring attention to the industry and to develop legislation (SB 200, 201, 202; 2007) to move the industry toward improved safety practices.

Florez also authored legislation to ensure the continued availability of raw milk in California – considered by many to bolster the immune system and alleviate a host of ailments, while also further protecting consumbers by strengthening testing standards for harmful bacteria in the end product (SB 201; 2008).

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