Category: food safety

Food Safety Deserves Seat At Presidential Table

In 1993, US Vice President Gorerecommended that the nation’s food industry and regulators move towards a preventative system for ensuring food safety.

In 1994, USDA established the Office of the Under Secretary for Food Safety.

In 1995, FDA introduced a compulsory HACCP program for the seafood industry.

In 1996, USDA introduced a compulsory HACCP program (the “MegaReg“) for the meat and poultry industry. CDC introduced the FoodNet surveillance system, and President Clinton signed both the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Food Quality Protection Act.

In 1997, the Clinton Administration introduced its National Food Safety Initiative, the “Food Safety from Farm to Table” program, and the “Partnership for Food Safety Education.” And approved the irradiation of meat.

In 1998, PulseNet knitted together a network of public health laboratories to speed the detection and identification of disease outbreaks. The Joint Institute for Food Safety Research sought to bring together expertise from government, academia and industry to coordinate research activities. The Administration established the President’s Food Safety Council.

In 1999, FDA and the Treasury Department began to tackle the problem of unsafe imported foods.

In 2000, George W. Bush took office.

The President’s Council on Food Safety issued its Food Safety Strategic Plan in January 2001. The Plan contained the following recommendations:

  • The Council recommends the development of near-term legislative proposals to strengthen the existing food safety statutes enabling stronger prevention, enforcement, and record keeping activities.
  • The Council recommends near-term efforts to strengthen agency coordination to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Federal food safety activities.
  • The Council recommends the development of comprehensive, unifying legislation, followed by the development of a corresponding organizational reform plan that protects the public’s health by allowing risk-based allocation of resources and utilization of science-based regulation, enforcement, and education. This comprehensive framework should address food safety standard setting, inspection, enforcement, research, and education.

Earlier today, the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University – a Pew Charitable Trusts initiative – issued its assessment of the government’s response to this year’s outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul. The report highlights:

  • the failure of federal and state agencies to communicate clearly with the public during the outbreak;
  • the lack of organization, capacity and coordination in the government’s response to the outbreak;
  • and the failure of the federal government (i.e., the FDA) to establish and implement mandatory preventative safety standards for fresh product, even though the agency has the statutory authority to implement those standards.

What happened to all of the Clinton initiatives?

President-Elect Obama is inheriting a full plate from the Bush Administration. But he cannot afford to ignore the pent up problems in our food safety system. Reactivating the President’s Council on Food Safety might be a good place to start.

**US Mandates Food Irradiation**

Washington, DC. August 28, 2033–The Secretary of State for Food Safety announced today that – effective January 1, 2034 – all food shipped interstate for retail sale must be sterilized by irradiation. The Secretary urged food regulators in all fifty states to follow suit.

When asked whether this new mandate would also apply to imported foods, Secretary Jenna Bush replied, “You betcha!”

The announcement was made on the 25th anniversary of the date that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared the largest produce-related Salmonella outbreak in US history to be at an end. That outbreak, which was traced eventually to contaminated jalapeño and serrano peppers imported from Mexico, sickened 1,442 people, sending nearly 300 of them to hospital.

In the 25 years since that watershed outbreak, the number of food poisoning incidents linked to meats, eggs, poultry, produce and dairy products has increased steadily. And the number of different types of disease-causing E. coli in the environment, in livestock, and in our food supply has grown dramatically.

“It’s not just about E. coli O157:H7 anymore,” said Secretary Bush. “There are at least two dozen different toxin-producing E. coli that are just as deadly as O157:H7. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, we might have been able to clean up feedlot runoff. We could have prevented these pathogens from overrunning our agricultural areas. But we didn’t – it would have cost too much.”

Slaughterhouse operators and meat packers welcomed the announcement. “It’s great news,” said the CEO of Universal Beef, “we’ll finally get away from all the expensive and burdensome HACCP/SSOP regulations that were imposed on us by the government a generation ago.” Spokespeople for the produce and poultry industry associations were equally effusive.

Not everyone, though, welcomed the announcement. Small-scale farmers, livestock operators and food processors expressed concern about the cost of implementing this new mandate. And “natural food” activists were fighting mad. “This is disgusting,” said one woman who asked not to be identified, “Irradiation will destroy the nutrients in our food. We’ve polluted our water and soil, and we should clean it up. What kind of a world are we leaving our children?”

We contacted Phyllis Entis, the now-retired founder of eFoodAlert and author of the classic text Food Safety: Old Habits, New Perspectives, for her reaction to the announcement. “I saw this coming 25 years ago,” said Ms. Entis. “I predicted in 2008 that we were on a slippery slope to mandatory food irradiation.”

Most of the country’s trading partners reacted angrily to the US announcement. “It’s an unfair trade barrier,” exclaimed the President of Mexico. “Not fair dinkum,” commented Australia’s Minister of Trade, “our food is clean and we should not have to irradiate in order to sell to the US market.” “I’m outraged that we were not consulted beforehand,” commented the President of the EU, “we must consider very carefully before deciding to allow irradiated US foodstuffs into Europe.”

When contacted, the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs declined to comment. His aide, however, hinted that Canada would soon be announcing its own mandatory food irradiation policy.

The US Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of radiation for the first time in 1963, permitting its use to control insect infestation in wheat and wheat products. During the following decades, additional applications of gamma radiation and electron beam sterilization were approved, including spices, certain fruits and vegetables, as well as fresh meat and poultry. And on August 22, 2008, spinach and iceberg lettuce were added to the list.

But these were voluntary uses, to be accompanied by appropriate retail package labeling. Now the rules have changed, and almost everything we eat will be irradiated.

Will this be a change for the better, or the downfall of our food supply?

No one really knows. Are we worried?

In the words of our Secretary of State for Food Safety, “You Betcha!”

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**Disclaimer** Of course, this is pure fantasy. Will it happen? We don’t know. Could it happen? Yes. Should we worry? You Betcha!

Food Safety And Good Corporate Citizenship

Bill Marler wrote yesterday evening (July 5, 2008):

“Frankly, I think the grocery stores – especially the big box types – need to take a more active role in seeing that plants like this perform – that is – they do not produce meat products contaminated with E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, etc. Perhaps stores should be less concerned about sales and more concerned with safety.”

Bill’s statement reminded me of an experience I had back in the mid-1990’s, when I was Research Director of QA Life Sciences, a company that developed and supplied rapid test systems to the food industry. One of our customers was a supermarket chain (not one of the Kroger’s group of companies).

My contact at Company X was the QA Manager (“Q”), an old-timer who felt a responsibility for the safety of the foods his employer sold to consumers. He was especially concerned about the beef and trimmings that Company X was purchasing for grinding, and he decided to put pressure on the company’s meat suppliers to clean up, or risk losing Company X’s business.

Q adopted our rapid test, which produced simultaneous counts of total E. coli and E. coli O157 within 24 hours. He could then determine the “H7” part of the E. coli O157:H7 within an additional 24 hours. After receiving grudging corporate management support for his plan, Q contacted Company X’s beef suppliers and proposed that they meet specific standards for total E. coli and for E. coli O157:H7.

Q was ahead of his time. USDA had recently (October 1994) named E. coli O157:H7 as an adulterant in ground beef, but not in beef destined for grinding. He met stiff resistance from several of the company’s suppliers, especially for his E. coli O157:H7 proposal. Eventually, he was able to negotiate standards based on total E. coli and E. coli O157.

Why the resistance to completing the H7 portion of the test? Company X’s suppliers did not want to know that their beef was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Were they advised of a positive E. coli O157:H7, they would have to act on the knowledge. But if the test was limited to E. coli O157, the beef suppliers could accept returned meat that failed Company X’s standards and resell it to a less demanding customer.

Q told me on several occasions that his program was successful. The overall safety and cleanliness of Company X’s ground beef was much improved.

The beef screening program stayed in force until Q retired. Company X dropped the program soon afterward.