--- title: If Bill Marler Had a Food Safety Magic Wand date: 2026-05-21T05:39:00-07:00 author: Bill Marler canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/if-bill-marler-had-a-food-safety-magic-wand" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Firm News](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/firm-news) / # If Bill Marler Had a Food Safety Magic Wand Look, I'll tell you what my wish is. It's the same one I've been saying for over thirty years. **Put me out of business.** That's it. That's the whole thing. I'd happily go find another line of work if kids stopped landing in kidney dialysis machines because they ate a hamburger or a salad. But since nobody's done it yet, let me tell you exactly what I'd do if I had a magic wand — because I've been pretty clear about this for a long time. **First: Merge the damn agencies.** Right now, USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service and the inspection arm of the Food and Drug Administration share the food safety mission. The system is bifurcated, which leads to turf wars and split responsibilities. We need one independent agency that deals with foodborne pathogens. One agency. One mission. One set of rules. The fact that a pizza with a meat topping is regulated by the USDA while a cheese pizza is regulated by the FDA tells you everything you need to know about how broken this is. **Second: Actually, inspect and sample food — for real.** The GAO has warned that the USDA's food samplings are so scattered and infrequent that there is little chance of detecting microscopic E. coli or any other pathogen. So, hire more inspectors and give them real authority to sample meat and stop its distribution as soon as a pathogen is detected. Implement a sampling system that provides a reasonable chance of preventing another outbreak. Doing so might add a nickel a pound — maybe less — to the price of hamburger. A nickel a pound. That's all. If you won't pay a nickel a pound to keep a child out of a hospital, something is deeply wrong with your priorities. **Third: Use your mandatory recall authority.** Voluntary compliance sounds nice. But when a company is sitting on millions of pounds of product and facing a billion-dollar write-off, "voluntary" gets pretty slow. Give regulators the authority to pull the trigger immediately. No negotiating. No delays. **Fourth: Real traceability — from farm to fork.** Require the food industry to document where specific lots of food are sold. That way, it can be recalled quickly if a pathogen is detected. In most E. coli outbreaks, there is no recall because retailers do not know where the meat came from and processors rarely step forward. Timely online records would allow food to be efficiently tracked down and recalled as soon as inspectors get a positive test result. We've been asking for this for decades. The technology exists. The will, apparently, does not. **Fifth: Transparency. Name the source.** The information identifying a grower or processor is important because it can prevent further cases, pressure growers to improve sanitation, and identify repeat offenders. When the FDA redacts the name of a contamination source because the outbreak is "over," they're protecting the company — not the public. The next outbreak at that same farm isn't hypothetical. It's probable. People deserve to know. **Sixth: Stop gutting the agencies doing the work.** "It is disappointing, but with 20,000 employees at Health and Human Services being fired, investigating and reporting on outbreaks and alerting the public to the cause is clearly not a priority for this administration." You can't have food safety without the people who do food safety. Cutting FDA and CDC inspectors doesn't save money — it shifts the cost to the families of the dead and the sick. **And finally: Industry, lead.** I think standards within industries and, in a sense, self-policing and using best practices is really the way to go. The Jack in the Box story — as horrible as it was — is actually proof that industry, government, and consumers *can* work together. The post-Jack in the Box work that was done by FSIS, the USDA, the industry, and consumer groups is really a roadmap for things that can go right when people work together. It can be done. It has been done. We just need to stop waiting for the next dead child to do it again. His ultimate goal is a food system so safe that no consumer ever needs a lawyer like him again. That's the magic wand. Not a complicated one. Not a revolutionary one. Just the simple, stubborn idea that **people shouldn't get sick from eating food.** Put me out of business. Please. ### Lawsuit updates about foodborne illnesses [Reactive Arthritis Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=reactive-arthritis&year=all) [E. coli Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=e-coli&year=all) [Guillain-Barre Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=guillain-barre-syndrome&year=all) [Salmonella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=salmonella&year=all) [Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hemolytic-uremic-syndrome&year=all) [Listeria Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=listeria&year=all) [Irritable Bowel Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=irritable-bowel-syndrome&year=all) [Hepatitis A Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hepatitis-a&year=all) [Norovirus Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=norovirus&year=all) [Botulism Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=botulism&year=all) [Campylobacter Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=campylobacter&year=all) [Shigella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=shigella&year=all) [Cyclospora Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=cyclospora&year=all) ### Lawsuits updates by year [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1998](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1998) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1999](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1999) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2000](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2000) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2001](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2001) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2002](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2002) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2003](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2003) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2004](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2004) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2005](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2005) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2006](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2006) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2007](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2007) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2008](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2008) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2009](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2009) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2010](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2010) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2011](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2011) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2012](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2012) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2013](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2013) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2014](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2014) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2015](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2015) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2016](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2016) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2017](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2017) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2018](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2018) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2019](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2019) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2020](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2020) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2021](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2021) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2022](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2022) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2023](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2023) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2024](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2024) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2025](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2025) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2026](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2026) ##### Get Help #### Affected by an outbreak or recall? 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