The government of Guam's laws and regulations regarding food
safety are egregiously outdated and must be updated quickly. The
primary food safety law is almost three decades old, having been
adopted in 1984. There has been a lot of change since then in
terms of what's required to best ensure the safety of food, from
how it's handled to how it's stored and cooked. The longer we
wait to update our standards, the greater the chance that people
will get ill or even die from food-borne illnesses. Bill 307,
the Guam Food Code, was introduced last September. It's based on
the 2005 U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Food Code and would
go a long way toward improving food safety. But the federal
government updates the Food Code every four years, with
supplemental updates every two years. So even if Bill 307 passes
this year, parts of it will be outdated by seven years. One of
the concerns about the legislation is how much it will cost
establishments to conform to the code -- upgrading or replacing
equipment and simil