Healthy People 2020 Comment

September 2, 2008 Healthy People 2020 Objectives Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion U.S. Department of Health & Human Services 1101 Wootton Parkway, Suite LL100 Rockville, MD 20852 Re: Comments on the Development of Healthy People 2020 Objectives (FR Doc. E8-18299 Filed 8-7-08). On behalf of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), we appreciate the opportunity to comment on the development of the Healthy People 2020 Objectives. CSPI is a nonprofit health advocacy and education organization focused on food safety, nutrition and alcohol issues. CSPI is supported principally by the 900,000 subscribers to its Nutrition Action Healthletter and by foundation grants. We accept no government or industry funding. CSPI is very concerned by the exclusion of food safety from the list of potential topic area categories to organize the 2020 Healthy People Objectives. Food safety was identified as one of 28 Focus Areas in the Healthy People 2010 Objectives, and these objectives have been widely used to analyze and measure the effectiveness of federal food safety programs. Recent food safety problems indicate that now is not the time to turn attention away from this critical issue. The current proposal lists 12 potential topics, ranging from physical activity to preventive services by life stages, but fails to recognize food safety as a discrete issue. We see this as a critical oversight. While we appreciate the ...