Make sure the food for your kids is safe to eat

By Hillary Rodham Clinton

This weekend, millions of families across our country will be celebrating America's birthday with the traditional festivities -- fireworks, picnics and the nearly sacred backyard barbecue. As we load up our grills with hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken slathered in barbecue sauce and as we chop the cabbage and carrots we'll heed for coleslaw, very few of us will be concerned that the feasts we're preparing could make us sick.

Four years ago this month, Nancy Donley had few worries as she cooked preformed hamburger patties at a family barbecue. She had no idea that while the grill fires had eliminated the meat's pinkness, they had not killed the deadly E. coli bacteria in the burger she served her 6-year-old son, Alex. Within hours, the bacteria invaded and destroyed her only son's organs, killing him after a nightmarish four days.

Today, Donley has channeled her grief into action, working to ensure that no other family ever has to endure the same heartbreaking loss. She shares Alex's story with parents across the country reminding them that color is never a reliable indicator of whether meat is fully cooked and that hamburger must be heated to at least 160 degrees before it is safe to eat. And she continues to press our government for stronger food-safety regulations. As she wrote in a letter to me last month, "No one can bring back my son or the thousands of others who die each year, but we can save others from the same fate through prevention."

For nearly 100 years, Americans have relied on government to make sure the world's most bountiful food supply is also its safest. In the early years of this century, people became outraged at the filthy conditions in meat-packing plants. They recognized that the industry would never be able to regulate itself.

So they called on their government -- mounting protests, writing letters, signing petitions and lobbying political leaders until they put in place safeguards and standards for food production. Many of these regulations continue to protect us to this day.

This story has been repeated time and again in our century -- from the earliest protesters to the environmental movement of the 1970s, when activists finally persuaded congress to enact landmark legislation to protect drinking water and to keep cancer-causing pesticides off food.

While they may seem rather mundane, our food-safety regulations are a powerful example of the essential role the only government can play in our lives. The fact that fat grams and calories are often the only worry we have when we sit down to dinner is perhaps the most compelling rebuttal there is to anyone who believes that government is useless or that government regulations stifle progress rather than promote the common good.

The food we eat passes through so many hands -- from the farmer to the food producer to the store owner to the consumer -- before it reaches the dinner table. One false step such as failing to refrigerate an item promptly or to disinfect a surface, and someone can get sick. That is why a government which answers to all of us must lead the effort to ensure that our food makes its way safely through each of these stops.

Recent reports of food-contamination outbreaks remind us that we can never let down our guard. We've watched in horror as students became infected with hepatitis from frozen strawberries, as hundreds became debilitated by cyclospora found on raspberries, and as young children died after eating meat or drinking apple juice contaminated with E. coli.

In May, Vice President Gore announced a new plan to strengthen our country's food-safety protections. The plan calls for the grater use of the latest science to dramatically reduce food- borne illnesses and, in partnership with the private sector, launches a full-scale public education campaign about the dangers of food contamination. It also calls for stricter safety precautions for fruit and vegetable juices, improved seafood inspections, and increased investment in research, risk assessment and surveillance.

These changes and other recent efforts to improve food safety would never have come about without the commitment and advocacy of our scientist, public health specialist and private citizens like Nancy Donley who recognize their own power to bring about change and progress.

A year ago this weekend, Donley stood in the Oval Office as Bill announced new meat and poultry inspection regulations that would require slaughterhouses to conduct rigorous scientific tests for salmonella and E. coli, the bacteria that killed her son. Her commitment, faith and continuing advocacy should remind us all that the government created on the Fourth of July more than 200 years ago is not something outside us or even irrelevant to us, it is us.

-- Creators Syndicate