Advocacy Project: Letter to Public Official

Danielle Wall

2824 Branch St.

Duluth, MN 55812

December 5, 2009

wall0743@d.umn.edu

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Al Franken

United States Senate
320 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2304

Dear Senator Franken:

I am writing to ask you to support Bill S.1269, titled:  A bill to provide for enhanced foodborne illness surveillance and food safety capacity, to establish regional food safety centers of excellence, and for other purposes. I am a fourth year student at the University of Minnesota Duluth majoring in Community Health. I did a summer internship at Kandiyohi County Public Health, and I believe that this bill could greatly assist public health facilities.

The purpose of this bill is to help out existing public health facilities as well as establish regional food safety centers.  It proposes enhanced foodborne illness surveillance which is critical in recent times where we have seen huge E. Coli and Salmonella outbreaks. For example, the Salmonella outbreak found in spinach in 2007 forced the recall of 8,000 cartons of spinach, as well as the recall of certain types of peanut butter in 2009 both showed a gap in our food safety system. Bill 1269 would allow for better surveillance to help prevent these types of happenings.

I think that this is an important bill. It will benefit not only consumers by assuring safer production of food products, but it will also benefit the already overwhelmed public health workers. Opening more safety centers will provide more jobs to public health workers while relieving some of the burden on current public health employees.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Danielle Wall