Associated Press
ATLANTA --- A sweeping new food safety measure proposed in the wake of the salmonella outbreak easily passed its first key legislative hurdle Wednesday.
The Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously approved a plan that would require food makers to alert state inspectors within 24 hours if a plant's internal tests show its products are contaminated.
The proposal was introduced after the salmonella outbreak was linked to the Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Ga.
Investigators say the company knowingly shipped salmonella-laced products even after internal tests showed they were contaminated.
State law did not require the company to share those test results, and state officials say they might have been able to stop the outbreak if they had known about them sooner.
"If this bill had been in place six months ago, a red flag would have been raised," said Republican state Sen. John Bulloch, the committee chairman and the measure's sponsor. "I think we could have identified this plant had a problem."
Food safety experts, government groups and industry lobbies say they don't know of any other state that requires food manufacturers to share internal data.
The bill, which now goes to the full Senate, also empowers Georgia agriculture officials to order plants to have products tested at their own expense. And it allows state officials to set policy guiding how often the plants should test.
The proposal would exempt meat, poultry and other manufacturers under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's watch. Instead, it focuses on the thousands of other plants focused on the Food and Drug Administration's scrutiny.
Of course, there's no way to make certain the companies are reporting the data. But those found withholding or concealing the reports could face felony charges that carry a prison sentence of up to five years.
