In his weekly address to the nation this Saturday Obama said that the nation’s food safety system is a “hazard” to public health and in need of an overhaul. He promised to reorganize the nation’s food-safety system.

President Barak Obama is currently working on creating a Food Safety Working Group, which will advise him what needs to be changed or revised as far as food and agriculture laws and regulations.

Obama said that there are way too many agencies which are responsible for food safety and therefore the food safety system is too spread-out and cannot be controlled well.

Three decades ago Food and Drug Administration did annual inspections of at least a half of the nation’s facilities that process food. Last year FDA inspected only 7,000 out of 150,000 facilities.

Obama said many of the food-safety laws “have not been updated since … the time of Teddy Roosevelt”.

“That is a hazard to public health,” Obama said. “It is unacceptable. And it will change under the leadership of Dr. Margaret Hamburg.”

Obama appointed Dr. Margaret Hamburg to run the troubled U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Hamburg, is a physician and bioterrorism expert in Washington who was an assistant health secretary during the Clinton administration.

Obama promised to ask Congress for $1 billion in new funds to add inspectors and modernize laboratories. He said that the Agriculture Department is already working on a rule change banning all sick or disabled cattle from entering the food supply.

“Food safety is something I take seriously,” said Obama. “Not just as your president, but as a parent.”

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