Obama: FDA Too Slow in Tracking Tainted Food

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, whose daughter eats peanut butter several days a week, wants the nation's food safety agency to keep children safe from contaminated foods such as the salmonella-laced peanut products that have sickened 550 people.

Obama says he wants to review how the Food and Drug Administration operates.

"I think that the FDA has not been able to catch some of these things as quickly as I expect them to," Obama said in an interview aired Monday on NBC's "Today" show.

The president said Americans should be able to rely on the government to keep children safe when they eat peanut butter and that includes his 7-year-old daughter Sasha.

"That's what Sasha eats for lunch probably three times a week. And you know, I don't want to have to worry about whether she's going to get sick as a consequence to having her lunch," Obama said.

The FDA had no comment and referred queries to the White House.

White House plans to quickly appoint a new FDA director may be complicated by Senate delays in confirming Tom Daschle to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees the FDA.

Source: The Associated Press