William Marler: American Food Safety System a "Train Wreck"
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In just a year and a half, the American meat industry has experienced a whiplash of beef recalls. 40 million pounds of meat tainted with highly toxic E. coli O157:H7 has been publicly recalled, up by a staggering factor of two hundred from the 2006 amount of only 181,900 pounds.
“This is beyond the ‘wheels coming off’ of the meat supply system,” said food borne illness attorney William Marler. “It’s the entire train in a tangled heap. And the people caught in the train wreck are you and me and all of our neighbors. When reports say that there is a one in 400 chance that the package of ground beef you pick up at the supermarket will be tainted with a lethal bacterium, the food safety system is no longer functioning, and immediate, radical steps must be taken.”
In more than thirty recalls ranging from a few hundred to millions of pounds, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has deemed E. coli contaminated meat a class I (one) health hazard to consumers. (A class I recall involves a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death.)
“There are many theories as to why there has been such an unprecedented jump in E. coli,” said Marler. “It could be regulatory complacency, better reporting, or immigration sweeps that have left slaughterhouses empty of skilled workers. Global warming may be spreading fecal dust. High oil prices may have led to an E. coli-producing diet for cattle. The microbe itself may even be evolving to elude capture. Another possibility is that the higher costs of slaughterhouse inputs (beef cattle) have collided with retailer’s low price pressures on outputs (hamburger) from those same slaughterhouses. These ideas need investigation and research, so that real change can begin.”
To advance that change, Marler reached out to the food safety community and asked for ideas from experts, scientists, regulators, and food agency brass. He distilled the volumes of submitted suggestions into ten action items (full text can be found here):
- Improve surveillance and reporting of bacterial and viral diseases.
- Require real training and certification of food handlers at restaurants and grocery stores.
- Stiffen license requirements for large farm, retail, and wholesale food outlets.
- Increase food inspections.
- Reorganize federal, state, and local food safety agencies to increase cooperation and reduce wasteful overlap and conflicts.
- Establish tax credits for companies with good food safety records, and greater legal consequences for sickening or killing customers with tainted food.
- Use our technology to make food more traceable.
- Promote university research.
- Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness.
- Provide Presidential leadership on a topic that impacts every single one of us.
“There are a lot of very smart, very dedicated professionals in the food safety community,” Marler concluded. “They have spent their careers working toward a better food supply, and that collective knowledge is available to design and implement change. We need our leaders to get on board, and get the food safety train back on track.”
BACKGROUND: Marler Clark has represented thousands of victims of foodborne illness outbreaks since 1993. The firm’s attorneys have litigated high-profile food poisoning cases against such companies as ConAgra, Wendy’s, Chili’s, Chi-Chi’s, and Jack in the Box. Marler Clark currently represents thousands of victims of outbreaks traced to ground beef, peppers, pot pies, spinach, and peanut butter, as well as other foods. For further information contact Mary Siceloff at msiceloff@marlerclark.com or (206) 719-4705, or visit www.MarlerClark.com.
Avoid eating tomalley in American Lobster (Maine Lobster), regardless of where the lobster was harvested, because of potential contamination with dangerous levels of the toxins that cause Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP). 
spreading through Latino communities in Southern California and suspect the disease is being imported from Mexico in unpasteurized cheese...
We are wondering if the "dirty dairy" bill passes in California if states that discover unpasteurized milk could in the future just send it to the Golden State where it could be mixed into the "bacteria cocktails" for sale by retailers like Whole Foods.
Let’s call it what it is: the “dirty dairy” bill. 
standard of 10 coliform bacteria per milliliter of raw milk.
While the permitting process unquestionably enhances the safety margin of raw milk, and we strongly endorse this program, it is not a substitute for milk pasteurization. 
"We're gathering information from both the FDA and private industry about the labs almost being complicit in helping importers game the system," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-MI, chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee that is investigating the labs and food companies. "Someone told us you pay for the result you want to get from the labs."
Julie Smolyansky, CEO commented, "The Consent Decree has absolutely no impact or affect upon Lifeway's products or production facilities. We vigorously disagree with the allegations of the complaint. These same products have been produced for over 15 years for a very small and select group of customers in the Philadelphia area without one consumer complaint, and while we of course respect the government's position, we do not agree with their unfounded assertions. We know that we are and have been compliant as to any alleged violation asserted in the complaint. We would never place our customers at risk."
has been shutdown on the order of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). But, we ain't seen much.
The article suggests:
Kraemer went into some extensive detail on the legal authority FDA maintains over Chinese imports to the United States; and all the policies and procedures it employs. 
Dr. Robert Tauxe, Deputy Director, CDC Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, said that after marking declining trends for food borne diseases after FoodNet was established in 1996, more recent data--including that for 2007--is not showing progress.
The top health official for Colorado's El Paso County, home of the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Northern Command, and the Northern American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), just acknowledged local restaurants could be unsafe.
the "butter sculpture" at the Harrisburg Farm Show. This year, the buttery likenesses of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell were big hits. At the end of the show, they were converted into high quality biodiesel.
Independent inspectors from auditing firms based in Virgina and Illinois both missed the livestock abuse at the Westland/Hallmark's Chino slaughterhouse that resulted in the plant's entire production for the past two years - 143 million pounds - being recalled.
That last category now applies to at least 100 customers of who ate at Mama Sbarro's at 265 Broadway in Hicksville, New York on Long Island on March 14, 15 and 16. It seems a kitchen worker had come down with Typhoid Fever.
Restaurants in these five states spread bacteria such as E.coli and salmonella, making nearly 3,000 customers sick and putting 65 in the hospital.
Those who heard the testimony at our first food safety hearing of the parents of the children who became very sick or seriously injured from contaminated food understand how important these efforts are.
Goal of the project is to increase reporting of food borne illnesses. Currently only 1-2 percent of all food borne illnesses get reported to health officials. The on-line questionnaire requires the victim to submit pretty much the same information they would be asked to provide if interviewed in person by health officials..png)
With the Chino slaughterhouse scandal bringing the nation's largest beef recall in history, facts are dripping out of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in bits and pieces. USDA's big wigs held a press conference last Thursday (2/21), and the transcript was published on their website this morning (2/25).
Increasingly today, produce is grown in fields close to cattle and, sometimes, wild animals. The E. coli spinach contamination could have come from cattle or boar feces, or from contaminated irrigation systems, federal officials concluded.
Today, New Era Canning Company announced it was further expanding its recall to include all "vegetable products in #10 cans (large cans containing between 6 and 7 pounds) on the list below because they may have been processed under conditions which could have led to contamination by Clostridium botulinum bacterium spores, which can cause life-threatening illness or death."