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Association of Public Health Laboratories Applauds Senator Obama's Introduction of the 'Improving Food-borne Illness Surveillance and Response Act of 2008'

Thursday, September 4, 2008 General News
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and its members, the nation's state and local governmental public health laboratories, are pleased by Senator Barack Obama's (D-IL) introduction of S. 3358, the Improving Food-borne Illness Surveillance and Response Act of 2008.
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"Passage of this legislation would greatly enhance the ability of all state and local laboratories to monitor and measure food-borne illnesses in the US population, dramatically reducing the incidence of disease and its impact," said Frances Pouch Downes, DrPH, president of APHL and director of Michigan's public health laboratory.
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The outbreaks of food-borne disease just over the past couple of years, including the most recent salmonella outbreak, provide more than sufficient evidence of the need to make significant improvements in the state and local capacity for surveillance, outbreak detection and response.



"APHL has consistently advocated the need to strengthen and expand food-borne illness surveillance systems," said Philip W. Haines, DrPH, chair of APHL's Food Safety Committee and former deputy director, Maine Bureau of Health, and former director, Maine Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory. "It is deeply gratifying to see that our message resonated so clearly in the provisions of this act. S. 3358 offers an extremely sophisticated and carefully considered approach that would quickly produce measurable improvements in surveillance and detection."



The Association of Public Health Laboratories is a national non-profit located in Silver Spring, MD, that is dedicated to working with its members to strengthen governmental laboratories with a public health mandate. By promoting effective programs and public policy, APHL strives to provide public health laboratories with the resources and infrastructure needed to protect the health of US residents and to prevent and control disease globally.



SOURCE Association of Public Health Laboratories
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