U.S. Food Safety: A Shopping List of Solutions

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However, one former FDA commissioner doesn't think recall authority would make much of a difference.

"It's helpful, but the professionals at FDA say that recall authority is way overblown in importance, because [the] FDA usually goes to a producer and says, 'We found a problem with your food and we need to recall it,' and the producers always do it," said Bill Hubbard, who was associate commissioner at the FDA for 14 years before retiring in 2005.

Overseeing Imported Foods

The solutions to the problems with imported foods basically mirror those for domestically grown foods -- creating a federal oversight superagency, a more balanced distribution of funding and duties between the FDA and the USDA, and granting the FDA recall authority.

The need for solutions is taking on added urgency, with the consumption of imported foods soaring in the last 10 years. Government statistics show that from 2003 to 2005 alone, food imports rose from 9.3 million shipments a year to 13.8 million shipments annually. Now, imported foods make up 13 percent of the typical American diet.

But, according to Milano, "as the volume of imports keeps rising but the number of [FDA] inspectors doesn't, the percentage of foods that is actually getting checked is getting squeezed."

The FDA's own statistics show that its inspectors sample only 1.3 percent of all food being sent to the United States from other countries.

Short of creating one federal "superagency," another obvious solution: Give the FDA, especially, more cash to boost the number of inspectors and inspections of imported goods.

That sounds simple. However, in testimony delivered at a congressional hearing recently on the issue of food safety, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt went on record as saying that, "We cannot inspect our way to safety."

"The federal government cannot, and it should not, attempt to physically inspect every product that enters the United States," he said. "Doing so would bring the international trade of this country to a standstill."