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American consumers spend more than $1 trillion on food each year. The combined efforts of the food industry and government regulatory agencies often are credited with making the U.S. food supply among the safest in the world. Nonetheless, public health officials have estimated that each year in the United States, many millions of people become sick and thousands die from foodborne illnesses caused by any of a number of microbial pathogens and other contaminants. At issue is whether food safety agencies have the resources, authority, and structural organization to afeguard the public, and whether they use resources effectively. Also at issue is whether federal food safety laws, first enacted in the early 1900s, have kept pace with the significant changes in the food production, processing, and marketing sectors since then.