Obama Nominates Key Food Safety Official

President Obama finally [1]announced on Monday [2] his nominee for undersecretary of food safety at the USDA, a.k.a. the head of the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). The nominee, Elisabeth Hagen, is currently the Chief Medical Officer at the USDA, and before that she was a senior executive at FSIS.

FSIS, the agency in charge of inspecting and ensuring the integrity of meat, poultry, and eggs, has been without a permanent leader since Oct. 2008.

At this point, both industry and consumer groups are supporting the nomination, though it’s in a manner I would describe as tentative. Food Safety News has an article [3] on the nomination in which Tony Corbo from Food & Water Watch has a good quote:

"We like her public health credentials," said Corbo. "The fact that she has already worked at the Food Safety Inspection Service may be a plus since she should know where the deficiencies are within the agency and she will not need a tutorial in meat, poultry and egg products inspection."

"I don't know what kind of political experience she has in dealing with the White House -- in particular the Office of Management and Budget -- and with Congress. This job requires that the incumbent deals with the politics of food safety as well as the science." 

The nomination was officially [4]sent to the Senate yesterday. Now it’s time for the Senate to get on the stick. The Agriculture Committee should schedule a hearing and a vote post haste, and the full Senate should vote on Hagen as soon as possible.