Schumer Calls for FDA to Track Produce

NEW YORK - In response to the recent E. coli outbreaks, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is calling for the Food and Drug Administration to launch a new produce tracking system. Under the program, every box of fresh produce would have a bar code that would contain information about the origin of the product. This would enable authorities to find out where else the produce was distributed in the event of an outbreak. The new system could cost several hundred million dollars in its first year, according to Schumer, and the FDA acknowledged the program would be costly. Schumer said Democrats in the Senate plan to reintroduce the Safe Food Act, a bill the senator co-sponsored in 2005 that would establish a Food Safety Administration that would trace produce.