— OPINION —

When you are sitting comfortable at home feeding your kids or going out to dinner, remember that there are a lot of people that have your back. I will be profiling them over the coming days as Poisoned begins streaming on Netflix. One of my favorite parts of the movie is Rosa’s call for consumers to get off the sidelines and to put pressure on their government to fix this mess.

Rosa DeLauro is the Congresswoman from Connecticut’s Third Congressional District, which stretches from the Long Island Sound and New Haven, to the Naugatuck Valley and Waterbury. Rosa serves as Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and sits on the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and she is the Ranking Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, where she oversees our nation’s investments in education, health, and employment. 

At the core of Rosa’s work is her fight for America’s working families. Rosa believes that we must raise the nation’s minimum wage, give all employees access to paid sick days, allow employees to take paid family and medical leave, and ensure equal pay for equal work. Every day, Rosa fights for legislation that would give all working families an opportunity to succeed.

Rosa believes that our first priority must be to strengthen the economy and create good middle class jobs. She supports tax cuts for working and middle class families, fought to expand the Child Tax Credit to provide tax relief to millions of families, and introduced the Young Child Tax Credit to give families with young children an economic lift.

Rosa has also fought to stop trade agreements that lower wages and ships jobs overseas, while also protecting the rights of employees and unions. She believes that we need to grow our economy by making smart innovative investments in our infrastructure, which is why she introduced legislation to create a National Infrastructure bank.

Rosa is a leader in fighting to improve and expand federal support for child nutrition and for modernizing our food safety system. She believes that the U.S. should have one agency assigned the responsibility for food safety, rather than the 15 different agencies that lay claim to different parts of our food system. Rosa fights against special interests, like tobacco and e-cigarettes, which seek to skirt our public health and safety rules.

Here are just a few of her accomplishments in food safety:

DeLauro Introduces Bill to Strengthen Food Safety Oversight of Corporate, Confined Animal Feeding Operations – Press Release 2023

DeLauro Statement on One Year Anniversary of Abbott Infant Formula Recall – Press Release 2023       

Single Food Safety Agency – Press Release in 2019

Our Food Safety System is Not Working – Press Release 2011

Congressional Food Safety Advocates Urge Farm Bill Conferees Not To Impede Food Safety – Press Release 2013

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News,click here)