Outbreaks of foodborne illness have been on the rise over the past decade. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report estimates that harmful bacteria in food causes 76 million cases of foodborne illness and 5,000 deaths a year.

While the U.S. food supply is touted as the safest in the world, changes in the way food is grown, processed, and transported make it easier for contaminated food to reach more people. For example, a single batch of tainted ground beef from one processing plant can end up in hamburger patties distributed all over the country.

The present food safety system is a patchwork of a dozen different federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Customs Service.

In 1998, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) urged Congress to establish a "unified, central framework for managing food safety programs" headed by a single individual. The NAS did not recommend a single agency to coordinate food safety.

The President's Council on Food Safety was established in August 1998 to strengthen and focus existing federal efforts to coordinate food safety policy and resources. The council opposes the creation of a single food safety agency.

On One Hand...

A unified agency would reduce the risk of foodborne illness in the U.S. With so many different governmental bodies regulating the food supply, one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. The current system was patched together over decades to respond to health threats from specific products. The agencies that oversee the current process are poorly coordinated, use their resources inefficiently and are slow to respond to outbreaks.

On the Other Hand...

The country needs a unified food policy, not a new agency. A coordinated approach to food safety that focuses on risk assessment, management and communications will better protect the public.

Rather than wasting valuable resources to create a new agency, the government should fund research focused on improved methods of detecting harmful bacteria, and controlling, reducing and eliminating them.

• Foodborne diseases cause 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. every year.

• Campylobacter, a pathogen found in poultry, is the most common cause of foodborne illness.

• The current food safety system is made up of a dozen federal agencies administering as many as 35 different laws.

• Following numerous food scares in Europe, including mad cow disease in Great Britain and the discovery of dioxin contamination in livestock feed in Belgium, the European Union created a single, unified food safety agency.

Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Center for Science in the Public Interest, American Meat Institute