Des Moines Register (link not available)
By PHILIP BRASHER, [email protected]
Washington, D.C. – A near-death experience after eating E. coli-tainted lettuce turned Karen Hibben-Levi into an activist for changing the way the government regulates food safety.
This week, the retired court administrator from Waterloo made her second trip to Washington this year to join others affected by food poisoning to lobby for legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration significant new authority over farms and food processors. The administration regulates 80 percent of the food supply, everything but meat.
“I’m the one who ate contaminated lettuce and ended up in the hospital for seven days,” she said as she greeted Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin at a Senate office building.
Hibben-Levi, 67, believed she had the flu a few days after eating the lettuce in a Taco John’s burrito, but she went to the hospital at the recommendation of a friend. Her kidneys were failing, as it turned out, but she recovered.
No one in the Senate is better positioned to do something about the legislation than Harkin. The Democrat recently took over the chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Hibben-Levi wanted him to act on the bill.
The House overwhelmingly approved an FDA bill in June that would impose new regulations on farms and processors, increase scrutiny of imported food and boost the FDA’s budget through a new fee on manufacturers.
No answers yet for action
The Senate, however, has yet to act.
The coalition of consumer advocates that organized the lobbying trip, Make Our Food Safe, wants the Senate to pass a bill soon so work can begin on crafting a compromise version. Next year is an election year, and it could be harder then to pass major legislation like this.
“Is it feasible that there’s a chance of being done yet this year?” Hibben-Levi asked Harkin.
She didn’t hear the answer she was looking for.
The Senate has been bogged down in the debate over health care reform, and Harkin said his staff is tied up working on other must-pass bills. He said he hoped to have the committee take up the bill in December, but he assured her the issue wouldn’t die.
“We’re going to get it done,” he said.
Recent food scares linked to peanut butter and other products have spurred interest in Congress in increasing the FDA’s authority. Michael Taylor, a senior adviser at the FDA, told the victims and their families that the agency was poised to tighten its regulation of foods if Congress would just pass the legislation. “The forces have come together,” he said. “Society is finally ready to deal with this problem.”
Leafy greens targeted
Products such as the lettuce that sickened Hibben-Levi are among the foods that are the focus of the legislation. Leafy greens are the leading source of outbreaks among foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, according to a report released this week by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the groups in the Make Our Food Safe coalition.
California growers have tightened their production standards in response to recent scares. The House-passed bill would go further and require the FDA to set growing and handling standards for fruits and vegetables, a prospect that is controversial among small-scale producers.
From 1990 to 2006, leafy greens were responsible for 363 outbreaks involving 13,568 reported cases of illness, according to the Center for Science report.
“Some of the healthiest foods we’re supposed to eat are the worst in terms of contamination,” Harkin told Hibben-Levi.
She agreed: “Yes, yes.”
Hibben-Levi’s fellow activists included, for example, the mother of a 7-year-old from Burlington, Vt., who survived an infection last year linked to peanut butter crackers but still suffers from fevers and intense pain in his bones. Another activist’s 80-year-old mother died earlier this year in Medina, Ohio, from an illness also blamed on peanut butter.
Unlike Hibben-Levi, most victims of food poisoning don’t know the company responsible because the source of the contamination isn’t pinpointed. That means the victims don’t get compensated for the illnesses, which can mean paying huge medical bills, said Donna Rosenbaum, executive director of Safe Tables Our Priority, another advocacy group.
Another Harkin promise
Although Hibben-Levi didn’t get a commitment from Harkin to get the food safety bill through the Senate before the end of the year, she did get one commitment from him.
Leaning into his ear, she told the senator she wanted to be at the White House when President Barack Obama signs the bill into law.
“I think I can make that happen,” he said. “That’s not a heavy lift.”
Hibben-Levi said “it took me months, months, to recover” from the infection. “It was just a very, very slow recovery process to get my energy level back.”
Then, she had to endure something else: After her illness, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and died in February.
But she said her lobbying forays have made her realize how fortunate she was to survive and to receive a settlement from Taco John’s.
“I didn’t lose a child,” Hibben-Levi. “I didn’t lose another loved one like a father and a mother and that type of thing, whereas a lot of other people did.”
