Lobbyists' Role in Food Rules Questioned
Industry Figures Attended 10 Meetings, Group Says
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 30, 2004; Page A23

Food industry lobbyists met privately with Bush administration officials 10 times while the government was crafting rules to protect the food supply from bioterrorism, and those congressionally required rules emerged in significantly weakened form as a result, a consumer group said yesterday after analyzing meeting records.

Most of the lobbyists had one meeting each with the Office of Management and Budget, but lobbyists for the Grocery Manufacturers of America and for Altria Group Inc., parent company of Kraft Foods, met with OMB officials three and four times each, according to records on the agency's Web site.

The meetings focused on proposed regulations to implement the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. The law requires companies importing food to give advance notice to the Food and Drug Administration about arriving shipments and to keep records of where the food came from and where it is going.

In the winter and spring of 2003, the FDA issued proposed regulations on both issues that consumer groups considered tough and effective. But the final rule on prior notice, issued in October 2003, greatly reduced the advance notice requirements on industry, and the final rule on record-keeping has not been released yet.

"It seems pretty obvious that the additional lobbying done by the industry had an impact," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, who has followed the issue for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Industry got another bite at the apple and, as far as we can tell, none of the consumer groups did. And the result is regulations that the industry likes, but that don't fully protect the public interest."

Because of the changes, she said, "FDA may well not have the appropriate authorities to respond quickly if there was a terrorist attack using the food supply."