Caroline Smith DeWaal is the director of the food safety program for the Center for Science in the Public Interest and co-author of Is Our Food Safe? A Consumer’s Guide to Protecting Your Health and the Environment (Three Rivers Press, 2002). She represents CSPI in Congress and in the regulatory arena on such issues as meat and poultry safety, seafood safety, food additives, pesticides and sustainable agriculture, and animal drugs. She also has extensive media exposure on these issues, including appearances on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Nightline, Dateline, and regular coverage on evening network news shows, and in national newspapers, like the Washington Post, New York Times, and USA Today.
Ms. DeWaal is the leading consumer analyst on reform of laws and regulations governing food safety. Since 1999, she has maintained and annually published a listing of foodborne illness outbreaks organized by food source that now contains over ten years of outbreaks reports. She has presented CSPI’s outbreak database at numerous scientific conferences, including the American Public Health Association, International Association for Food Protection, and the American Society for Microbiology.
Over the years, Ms. DeWaal has testified before numerous committees of Congress, including the House Committee on Government Operations, House Committee on Commerce, Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She has presented papers on food safety at over 50 scientific and public policy conferences. She participated in the World Health Organization Strategic Planning on Food Safety and other international meetings. She represented the International Association of Consumer Food Organizations at the 9th Session of the Codex Committee on Meat and Poultry Hygiene in New Zealand. She was a member of the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection from 1997-2000. She is currently on the Editorial Board of the Food and Drug Law Journal and a member of the International Association of Food Protection.
Prior to coming to CSPI, Ms. DeWaal was Director of Legal Affairs
for Public Voice for Food and Health Policy, where she spearheaded
Public Voice's lobbying effort on seafood safety in Congress, at
the FDA, and in the media. Ms. DeWaal graduated from the University
of Vermont and Antioch School of Law. She is a member of the Massachusetts
Bar.