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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., joined by a Wilton family, called for stronger food safety provisions Wednesday at a markup session of a Senate committee, along with the development of consistent federal guidelines to manage food allergies in schools.

Wilton residents Rita and Larry Bernstein joined Dodd at a session of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Also attending the session was the Wilton couple's daughter Haylee, who, at age three, became ill after eating lettuce contaminated with E. coli and spent 14 weeks in the hospital, suffering kidney failure, a seizure that led to bleeding in the brain, and temporary blindness.

Included in the legislation addressed by the committee Wednesday was Dodd's Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act, which requires the development of consistent, voluntary federal guidelines for the management of food allergies in schools and the resources schools need to carry out the voluntary guidelines. The bill has broad bipartisan support, with 35 cosponsors.

Dodd, a father of a daughter with a severe peanut allergy, has been a longtime advocate for improved food allergy guidelines.

"Americans deserve to know that the food that they and their families eat is safe," said Dodd. "Food-borne illnesses take a tremendous toll each year: 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States alone. Few things are more important than ensuring that the food we eat is safe--and this bill takes critical steps towards providing the FDA with the resources and authority it needs to keep our food supply free from contamination ...

"There are 12 million Americans with food allergies; three million of these Americans are children. Those of us with a child with food allergies -- myself included -- must be constantly vigilant about protecting their son or daughter from trigger foods like nuts or dairy. For children with food allergies and their parents, the management of those allergies is the most important food safety issue they face," the senator added. "The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act will hopefully provide some relief to those parents -- and their children -- by providing support to schools to carry out key guidelines for managing food allergies."

As a result of her illness, Haylee developed diabetes, and today, suffers from a vision deficit, weakness in her right side, and reduced kidney function. The Bernstein's older daughter, Chelsea -- seven years old at the time of Haylee's affliction -- also contracted an E. coli infection and spent three days in the hospital.

"No family should have to go through what we went through when our daughters, Haylee and Chelsea, became sick from an E. coli infection they contracted from unclean lettuce," said Larry and Rita Bernstein in a statement released by Sen. Dodd's office. "One case of food poisoning nearly killed our youngest daughter, Haylee -- and she will live with the after-effects for the rest of her life. Our daughter Chelsea spent three terrifying days in the hospital. It is our hope that legislation like the one being considered today will prevent these kinds of food supply contaminations from devastating other families. We are thankful that Senator Dodd has been a champion on these issues for so many years and is advocating for us in the hearing room today."

The HELP Committee marked up the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act on Wednesday, legislation aiming to provide an approach to food safety that will prevent future illness and death due to food-borne illness. The legislation offers new guidelines for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including records access, mandatory recall authority and administrative detention when the FDA has reason to believe that a food is adulterated or misbranded. Dodd, a senior member of the HELP Committee, is an original co-sponsor of the legislation.

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