President Obama has vowed to change fundamentally how the nation handles food safety issues, saying the current system is a “hazard to public health.” On Saturday, Obama announced the creation of a Food Safety Working Group to advise him on which laws and regulations need to be changed.

President Obama: “This Working Group will bring together cabinet secretaries and senior officials to advise me on how we can upgrade our food safety laws for the twenty-first century; foster coordination throughout our government; and ensure that we are not just designing laws that will keep the American people safe, but enforcing them.”

President Obama has also nominated Margaret Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner, to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.