Food safety law is being delayed

THE FOOD AND DRUG Administration is recalling cantaloupes grown in southern Indiana that may have been a source of a salmonella outbreak that has led to two deaths in Kentucky and sent 62 people to hospitals. Last year, cantaloupes grown in Colorado contaminated with listeria killed 33 people and sickened 147. When peanut products werecontaminated with salmonella in early 2009, one father fretted about his young daughter eating a peanut butter sandwich. “No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch,” he said.

That father was President Obama. In his weekly radio address March 14, 2009, he also declared, “There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and don’t cause us harm.” In 2011, the president signed the Food Safety Modernization Act, the most ambitious overhaul of the nation’s food safety system since the 1930s, which passed Congress with broad bipartisan support and industry backing.