The following editorial appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Dec. 29:

Amid all the controversy over tax cuts, gays in the military and a nuclear arms agreement, you may have missed the news that the lame-duck Congress finally approved the first update to food safety laws in more than 70 years.

The changes will allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to order recalls of tainted food products. Previously, the FDA had to convince distributors and processors to “voluntarily” recall contaminated products — something distributors and processors occasionally were slow to do.

The new law authorizes the creation of a tracking system. Under the new law, when problems occur, the source readily can be identified and all of the dangerous products can be recalled. Under the existing system, precious days and weeks could be lost while authorities tried to determine where questionable ingredients had been distributed. That was especially true when the tainted foods were sold to processors who used them to manufacture other foods sold to consumers.

And the new law beefs up safety inspections for imported food, which makes up an increasingly large part of what consumers find on supermarket shelves.

Since 1938, the last time food safety laws were addressed, Americans have seen a revolution in food production and distribution. We routinely eat vegetables grown in another hemisphere and fish caught off other continents. Processed foods fill our pantries and freezers. But the laws remained unchanged.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen the results in scores of food recalls.

A half-billion eggs were pulled from supermarket shelves in August. Last March, it was hydrolyzed vegetable protein — a key ingredient in dozens of processed foods.

Before that, it was raw cookie dough, peanuts and peanut butter, imported seafood, spinach and tomatoes.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 48 million Americans — one out of six people — are sickened by food-borne illness every year. Each year, about 128,000 are hospitalized, and roughly 3,000 die.

Given all that, it’s difficult to understand why anyone would oppose updating food safety laws. But at least a few people did.

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck urged Congress to reject the bill, which he said was part of a plot to “control your food” and “control you.” He fingered St. Louis-based agricultural company Monsanto as the force behind the changes.

Others on the paranoid right claimed the bill would make it illegal to grow food for your own consumption, or that it would put small farmers and roadside produce distributors out of business.

None of those fevered claims is true. In fact, the bill specifically exempts roadside stands, farmers markets and community gardens from paperwork requirements aimed at tracking tainted food. As for the ability of consumers to grow their own food, that remains unchanged.

The FDA was created more than 100 years ago in response to very real safety concerns. It long has been hampered by outdated laws.

The Food Safety Modernization Act is an important step forward. But, in some ways, it doesn’t go far enough.

Responsibility still is split between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA. Americans would be better protected by centralizing federal food safety efforts in a single government entity.

Whatever oversight exists will have to be adequately funded, even during a period of tight budgets and reduced spending. But for now, at least, the new food safety law gives the FDA the authority it needs.