Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Food Poison Blog

Few subjects draw more immediate attention or concern than the safety of the food we eat. Recent years have seen a plethora of food warnings and recalls, raising new questions about the quality and integrity of our existing system for assuring food safety. In addition to explaining how our present system works, this program is intended to generate discussion on how changing consumer preferences are affecting the development and distribution of food, examine whether Federal, state, and industry oversight roles are changing, and discuss how regulatory and judicial processes can be most efficiently balanced. Participants include national and local representatives of government, the food industry, consumer organizations, and scientists.

Join Seattle University, Marler Clark, and Stoel Rives in welcoming renowned food safety experts from across the globe at the Seattle food safety conference:  Who's Minding the Store?  The Current State of Food Safety and How it Can be Improved.

Who should attend:
• Food Industry Professionals
• Regulators and Policy Makers
• Consumer Advocates
• Plaintiff & Defense Attorneys
• Public Interest Representatives

SPACE IS LIMITED; REGISTER EARLY.

Conference Agenda

April 11, 2008
8:15 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.

Welcome & Introductory Remarks

Kellye Testy, Dean, Seattle University School of Law

Barbara Kowalcyk, Director of Food Safety, Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention

Richard Raymond, MD, Under Secretary for Food Safety, USDA FSIS

9:15 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. Defining the Problem
How concerns about food safety are viewed by physicians, disease experts, state regulators, and consumers.

Tom Billy, President, International Food Safety Consulting LLC

Sandra McCurdy PhD, Extension Food Safety Specialist, School of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Idaho

Carlota Medus PhD, MPH, Epidemiologist, Acute Disease Investigation and Control Section, Minnesota Department of Health

William Keene, PhD, MPH, Senior Epidemiologist, Oregon Public Health Services, Acute and Communicable Disease Program

Richard Siegler MD, Professor Emeritus, University of Utah School of Medicine

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. How the Regulation of Food Safety Works
The roles and responsibilities as seen by Federal and State regulators, industry, and consumers

Mansour Samadpour PhD, CEO, IEH Laboratories

Christine Bruhn PhD, Director, Center for Consumer Research, University of California-Davis

David Goldman MD, MPH, Assistant Administrator, Office of Public Health Science, Food Safety and Inspection Service, USDA

Bala Swaminathan PhD, Vice President, Technical and Business Development, IHRC Inc.

Caroline Smith DeWaal, Food Safety Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest

12:30 - 1:45 p.m. Lunch, Seattle University School of

Kellye Testy, Dean, Seattle University School of Law

Luncheon Speaker: Governor Christine Gregoire

1:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Zones of Responsibility
What are the responsibilities of growers/producers, sellers, government, and consumers in the food safety system?

John Munsell, President, Montana Quality Foods & Processing; Manager, Foundation for Accountability in Regulatory Enforcement

Craig Wilson, Assistant Vice President / GMM, Food Safety & Quality Assurance, Costco Wholesale

Scott Rickman, Associate General Counsel, Del Monte Foods

Andrew Benson PhD, Professor, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska -Lincoln

Devon Zagory PhD, Senior Vice President, Food Safety & Quality Programs, NSF Davis Fresh

3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Roles of the Civil and Criminal Justice System
Different perspectives on foodborne illness litigation

Neal Fortin JD, Director & Professor, Institute for Food Laws & Regulations, Michigan State University

Bradley Sullivan JD, Managing Attorney, Lombardo & Gilles LLP

Denis Stearns JD, Marler Clark LLP PS

Sarah Brew JD, Partner, Greene Espel PLLP

Alan Maxwell JD, Weinberg, Wheeler, Hudgins, Gunn & Dial LLC

5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Reception, Seattle University School of Law Court Level Gallery

SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2008
8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Patricia Griffin MD, Chief, Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. How is Food Protected Overseas?
International perspectives on food safety

Liu Zhouhui, Deputy Director General of Certification and Accreditation Administration, People’s Republic of China

Jorgen Schlundt, Director, Department of Food Safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne Diseases; Acting Director, Department of Nutrition in Health and Development, World Health Organization

Canice Nolan PhD, First Counselor, Food Safety, Health, Consumer Affairs, Delegation of the European Commission, Washington DC

Chris Griffith PhD, Professor, Head Food Research and Consultancy Unit, University of Wales Institute-Cardiff

Deon Mahoney, Principal Microbiologist, Food Standards Australia New Zealand

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Role of Media in Public Health and Food Safety
The contributions of media and science writers to food safety

Douglas Powell PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology, Kansas State University; Scientific Director, International Food Safety Network

Andrew Martin, Reporter, New York Times

Stephen Hedges, Reporter, Chicago Tribune

Philip Brasher, Washington Correspondent, Des Moines Register

Jim Pervor, Editor-in-Chief, Perishable Pundit

12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Lunch and Closing Remarks

John Kobayashi, MD, MPH, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Washington School of Health

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In the third of its three-part series on US food safety, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published Health Day's shopping list of US food safety solutions.  This last part focuses on what's to come for food safety -- changes are needed in our food safety net, but what changes are needed, and how drastic do those changes need to be?

• Some have proposed a federal "superagency" that would take on the food safety responsibilities currently housed within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).  Some of the reasoning behind this idea was expressed early on in the article by food safety experts.

Dr. Pascal James Imperato, head of the department of preventive medicine and community health at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center commented, "Food is not produced, processed or distributed the way it was 20 to 30 years ago. Farming is now a major agribusiness, and it introduces a variety of problems that didn't exist before. It's much more complicated and can't be addressed by regulations that were written 30 years ago."

And Jessica Milano, author of "Spoiled: Keeping Tainted Food Off America's Tables", remarked, "You have a system that developed organically from the turn of the [20th] century. As economies developed with more commercial food manufacturers and multi-ingredient products, you have some overlaps and redundancies."

• Mandatory recall authority for the FDA is discussed as an option for improving food safety, but some say recall authority is not necessary since companies typically cooperate when FDA approaches them about recalling product.
  
• And, as mentioned yesterday, the safety of food imports is an important challenge going forward.  Today's article once again focused on imports:
  

The need for solutions is taking on added urgency, with the consumption of imported foods soaring in the last 10 years. Government statistics show that from 2003 to 2005 alone, food imports rose from 9.3 million shipments a year to 13.8 million shipments annually. Now, imported foods make up 13 percent of the typical American diet.

But, according to Milano, "as the volume of imports keeps rising but the number of [FDA] inspectors doesn't, the percentage of foods that is actually getting checked is getting squeezed."

The FDA's own statistics show that its inspectors sample only 1.3 percent of all food being sent to the United States from other countries.

• There is also much debate about the need for additional food inspectors, which is addressed in the article.  And an increase in food inspectors would result in an increase in the amount of food entering the country that would be inspected.  Imports and inspectors essentially go hand-in-hand.  FDA Commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach provided his views on inspections and food safety in regards to imports:
  

"But we realize the world is changing," von Eschenbach acknowledged during a November 2007 teleconference after the FDA presented its Food Protection Plan to the White House. "There was a time when we produced the food ourselves. Now we've noticed that much of this food comes to us 365 days a year, because it is being produced in other parts of the world.

"Globalization has radically changed our food supply and our food-supply chain," von Eschenbach added. And that means, he said, that the FDA needs to catch up with those changes.

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and HealthDay continued their coverage on the US food supply today.  This time, though, the focus wasn't on foods produced in the US - it was on foods imported from countries such as China, Mexico, and Costa Rica.  Imported produce such as green onions and cantaloupe have led to hepatitis A and Salmonella outbreaks in recent years, and concerns about the quality of imported foods have risen.

Today's article profiled Richard Miller, a Marler Clark client who contracted hepatitis A and received a liver transplant after eating Mexican green onions at a Chi-Chi's restaurant in 2003.  It also featured a discussion on several hot food safety topics:

• Melamine in pet food, antifreeze in toothpaste, and chemical-contaminated fish feed resulted in large recalls of imported products this year.  Illness and death due to imported products such as these has increased American consumers' skepticism about whether imported foods are safe to eat.
  
• An increase in the availability of fresh produce year-round through import programs has led to an increase in the amount of food we consume that contain high levels of pesticides.  According to the article's authors, the source of the problem is under-funding and a lack of resources at the Food and Drug Administration:

Trouble is, inspections by the FDA -- either at the source of production or at the borders -- can't keep up. The agency is responsible for inspecting all imported foods with the exception of meat and egg products, which are covered by the Food Safety and Inspection Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Overall, "there's been an 81 percent drop [in FDA inspections] since 1972," noted Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, in Griffin. "That's a huge reduction, and, at the same time, compared to 1972, we have a huge amount more of food imports."

In fact, the FDA's own data show that the number of inspectors at its Office of Regulatory Affairs dropped from 1,642 in 2003 to 1,389 in 2005 -- even as food imports rose from 9.3 million shipments per year to more than 13.8 million shipments annually.

The reason for the shortfall is simple, Doyle said: "Reduced budgets."

• Finally, the article discusses the traceability of products.  In the United States, public health officials are fairly successful at identifying the source of outbreaks beyond a brand - they can trace spinach to a specific field or supplier and meat to a particular slaughter house.  But in developing countries, some of which we import from, trace-back systems are not fully in place and can complicate outbreak investigations.

More information about illnesses caused by contaminated foods can be found at foodborneillness.com. 

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The US food safety system was profiled today in an article published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  The article, which is the first in a three-part series, focused on what we know about our food safety system: 

• Fresh produce is more and more popular, and has become the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks.  Spinach, lettuce, sprouts, parsley, basil, tomatoes, and other fresh produce items have been identified as the source of E. coli, Salmonella, and other foodborne pathogens in recent years.
  
  Bruce Clark, a partner in Seattle-based Marler Clark, commented on the increase in produce-related outbreaks for the story:

The widening of E. coli cases from protein products to fresh fruits and vegetables is related to "the fact that U.S. agricultural commodities tend to be grown in areas that have cattle, which are reservoirs for bacteria," explained Bruce Clark, a partner in the Seattle law firm of Marler Clark, which represents victims of food poisoning. "As soon as you have manure on the ground, and you have birds and wild animals and water, you have all these vectors for transferring bacteria to fresh fruits and vegetables.

And, most of the time, Clark added, produce is not subjected to the "kill step" (usually cooking), which would eliminate the pathogens. In fact, washing may not even help because of the ability of the organisms to cling to food surfaces.

• Meat, which was previously the most prevalent cause of foodborne illness outbreaks, is back on public health officials' and food safety experts' radar, as 2007 brought several recalls due to E. coli contamination.
  
• Large food firms have begun purchasing smaller firms, and the consolidation of food resources has resulted in wider distribution of food products by fewer suppliers.  A small amount of contaminated food can now travel greater distances and be more geographically disbursed, thus leading to widespread outbreaks that are not geographically concentrated and are harder to trace.
  
• Government agencies charged with the responsibility for ensuring our nation's food is safe face challenges.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) works with 20 percent of the nation's food safety budget, but regulates 80 percent of food products.  The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) works with 80 percent of the nation's food safety budget, but regulates only 20 percent of food products.  

The story's author, who will continue the article series with a piece on imported produce, wrote:

The whole food production system has grown increasingly concentrated, overwhelmingly complex, and -- paradoxically -- at times fragmented.

At the same time, critics charge, U.S. government oversight is not adequate.

"Our real issue here comes down to appropriate oversight and regulation by our government agencies," said Mickey Parish, chairman of the department of nutrition and food science and acting chairman of the Center for Food Systems Security at the University of Maryland. "They have been cut back so severely in the last six to eight years that, quite frankly, it is more difficult to do the proper inspections that need to be done to ensure that the food is absolutely as safe as it possibly can be."

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As the year comes to a close, many publications are looking back on the year and assessing our nation's food safety system.  From the Wall Street Journal to USA Today and Reuters, everyone has something to say about the American food supply. 

The Wall Street Journal focused today on the USDA and the number of E. coli outbreaks in 2007.  Bill Tomson wrote about the Topps E. coli outbreak and the impact it has had on USDA's food safety policies:

It took one of the largest-ever beef recalls -- 21.7 million pounds of frozen hamburger patties linked to severe illnesses -- in 2007 to make USDA officials question whether beef processors around the country were following safety guidelines when it came to E. coli contamination. The New Jersey-based Topps Meat Co., the producer behind the massive recall, certainly wasn't, USDA officials said.

"When we sent food-safety assessors into the Topps plant, we found that their policies they had in place were not being followed nearly as vigorously as they had been just two years ago when we did a food-safety assessment in the same plant," USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Richard Raymond said in an interview.

The Topps event led to several tough questions. The first was whether the Topps situation was unique.

"We don't know if Topps was the tip of the iceberg and other plants have gotten sloppy, or Topps was kind of an isolated incident," Mr. Raymond said.

USA Today focused on under-funding at the FDA and what that means for American consumers purchasing food products regulated by FDA.  Julie Schmidt wrote:

The appropriation is 12% more than the agency got for food safety in fiscal 2007. But half the increase will be eaten up by annual cost increases, including pay raises, and the FDA won't get the other half until July — and only then if it has a performance plan in place that lawmakers find adequate.

"In the budget climate we're in, any increase is better than nothing," says Scott Faber of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents foodmakers. "But we're disappointed and surprised in light of soaring imports and declining consumer confidence." A broad coalition of groups, including the GMA, have pushed for bigger food-safety increases in the past year because of a string of high-profile food recalls. The Coalition for a Stronger FDA, which includes three former secretaries of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, has sought 15% increases for the FDA for each of the next five years.

And Reuters carried an article about foods imported from China and Americans' worries about foodborne illness coming from Chinese imports.  Missy Ryan wrote:

China is struggling to meet food safety demands from trading partners as it slowly modernizes a food production system still rooted in small-scale family farms, U.S. and Chinese officials said on Tuesday.

"China is a country in economic transition and it has a mixture of traditional problems and modern problems that both coexist," Wu Yongning, an official at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a seminar on food safety at a Washington think tank.

Those problems, he said, now range from improper food preparation on family-run farms to shortcuts taken on industrial chicken farms.

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John Munsell, a former meat-processing facility owner, was recently interviewed by Meat & Poultry Magazine about what he learned while conducting interviews of industry players.  While Munsell has been a critic of USDA meat inspection practices and policies, he is working for change through FARE, the Foundation for Accountability in Regulatory Enforcement.  What he had to say about his findings follows:

Munsell said that judging from the comments his survey elicited, inspectors appear to be as frustrated about the situation as small-plant operators. "Meat-inspection personnel are throwing their hands into the air, as they again are being forced to implement policy, which was stillborn before it left Washington, D.C.," he told M&P. "The OPEER office in FSIS is totally closed to new suggestions, and bulldozes ahead with no semblance of common sense or scientific underpinnings. Agency field personnel must quietly acquiesce to these inane demands, or face diminished career advancement and/or reassignment to remote locations without family."

When he’s talked to researchers and scientists about his concerns, their reaction to current E. coli inspection policy is, he said, "incredulous." "They remind me that the scientific method requires immediate and thorough documentation of every factor potentially influencing the eventual outcome, with no artificial restrictions. Yet when FSIS inspectors collect samples for analysis at USDA labs, the inspectors do not document the origin of the meat," he said. "The official form has no place on which to record the data, and the inspectors are not to document such info. So what happens if the sample comes back positive? Simple: blame it on the downline plant, since the agency failed to record where the meat originated. This is not the scientific method. If our foreign trading partners were aware of this snafu, they’d be justified in blacklisting us."

Meat & Poultry's coverage of current issues facing USDA are in line with problems FDA is facing in policing the rest of the food supply.  In a hearing last week, Michael Taylor testified that FDA's current food safety plan is not adequate to protect public health.  Mr. Taylor outlined five policy elements he thinks FDA needs to take to improve our nation's food supply in testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

1. Treat food safety as a farm-to-table, system-wide problem.

2 Make prevention of food safety problems the central focus of the system.

3. Recognize that the primary duty for prevention falls on the food industry.

4. Focus FDA on setting and enforcing standards that make the food industry accountable for prevention.

5 Strengthen FDA’s mandate and tools for providing national leadership on food safety and managing a science- and risk-based regulatory program.

Mr. Taylor's testimony was central to the committee's session on developing a comprehensive response to food safety, after which they asked for more money dedicated to food safety. 

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USA Today published two articles about food safety for this weekend's USA Today.  In the first article, titled, "Report: FDA so underfunded, consumers are put at risk," Julie Schmidt reports on a report that was released by an advisory panel to the FDA which concludes:

The Subcommittee concluded that science at the FDA is in a precarious position: the Agency suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities.

The Subcommittee found that the deficiency has two sources:

• The demands on the FDA have soared due to the extraordinary advance of scientific discoveries, the complexity of the new products and claims submitted to FDA for pre-market review and approval, the emergence of challenging safety problems, and the globalization of the industries that FDA regulates.
• The resources have not increased in proportion to the demands. The result is that the scientific demands on the Agency far exceed its capacity to respond. This imbalance is imposing a significant risk to the integrity of the food, drug, cosmetic and device regulatory system, and hence the safety of the public.
  

The Subcommittee further noted that the impact of the deficiency is profound precisely because science is at the heart of everything FDA does. The Agency will flounder and ultimately fail without a strong scientific foundation. That foundation rests on three pillars. The first pillar is strong selective scientific research programs that are appropriately mission-supportive, in all areas of FDA responsibility. This research is critical because it is not conducted by other public or private entities, but is fundamental to the discharge of FDA’s statutory responsibilities to protect and promote the public health. The second pillar is excellent staff with cutting-edge scientific expertise appropriate to the mission. This expertise includes the ability to access, understand and evaluate science; effectively apply this science to the regulatory process; and communicate the implications of its findings for product safety and efficacy to the public. The third pillar is an information infrastructure and processing capability that ensures the FDA has access to the best data and information necessary to support the regulatory science required to fulfill FDA’s mission.

The USA Today article provides more background on the report, and highlights deficiencies identified by the advisory committee:

The report — developed in the past year by experts from academia, industry and other government agencies — delivers a scathing review of the state of the FDA, which regulates 80% of the nation's food, its drugs, vaccines and medical devices.

The report details a "plethora of inadequacies" in the agency, including:

•Inadequate inspections of manufacturers, noting that foodmakers, for example, are inspected about once every 10 years.

•A "badly broken" food-import system and food supply "that grows riskier each year." In the past 35 years, FDA inspections of the food supply have dropped 78% due to soaring numbers of products and inadequate FDA funding.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Food and Drug Administration | Food and Drug Administration | William Hubbard

•A depleted FDA staff, which is about the same size as it was 15 years ago despite huge growth in agency responsibilities. Instead of being proactive, the agency is often in "fire-fighting" mode.

•A workforce with a "dearth" of scientists who understand emerging technologies. Turnover rates in some scientific positions at the FDA run twice that of other government agencies.

•An "obsolete" information-technology system.

As Bill Marler stated on his blog post titled, "Government Puts Consumers At Risk": 

The report says Congress has given the FDA more responsibilities over the past two decades, but no funds to cover the extra work. Meanwhile, the agency hasn't been able to recruit the sophisticated scientific expertise needed to oversee complex medicines and food. The report says the FDA needs at least an extra 350 million dollars to address drug safety, and 450 million more dollars to improve food safety. Actually, the same holds true for the USDA. Just in the last two months we have seen the USDA move slowly on the Topps recall, putting people at risk, and then we see them announce one day that the USDA is getting tough on Canadian E. coli imports, only to turn around quietly and stop testing a week later.

His comments are along the lines of another USA Today article's topic - the USDA.  Julie Schmidt partnered with Barbara Hansen to write, "Most recalled meat is never recovered, likely is eaten," an article about meat recalls conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture.  In the article, Schmidt and Hansen describe the current recall process and point out inefficiencies that result in ineffective recalls.

A particularly alarming statistic pointed out in the article is that ,"for five recalls that followed reports of consumer illness, recovery rates per recall averaged just 20%," which means that most of the meat recalled had already been eaten or was in consumers' freezers but never made it back to the manufacturer.  Improvements in the recall process are expected to come, but what is most promising in the short-term is, as reported:

To get more consumers to check homes for recalled meats, the USDA next year plans to publicize names of retailers selling meat that was later recalled. "We think it would be helpful for people to know, 'Gee, that is my store,' " says Petersen.

Recall notices now posted on the USDA's website typically name states where a product was sent but not retailers, unless their names are on the product. Retailer names have been considered confidential business information, as with any customer lists.

While much more must be done to improve our food safety system, the FDA report and USDA's proposed improvements to the recall process are baby steps in the right direction.

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The Washington Post reported today on the Bush Administration's decision to ramp up inspections of products, including food, being imported into the United States.  The decision comes after several products imported from China were recalled in recent months. According to the Washington Post:

The plan is something of a departure for the administration, which has generally opposed increasing regulation. Its import-safety proposal aims to keep hazardous food and products from entering the country through targeted inspections of high-risk products or producers, and increased cooperation with foreign governments and among U.S. agencies.

Although the plan includes some proposals being considered by Congress, such as making it illegal to sell recalled products, it fell short of advocating many of the changes Democratic lawmakers have called for, including consolidating the disjointed system for food safety into a single agency.

Prospects for the administration plan are unclear. Some proposals would require action by the Democratic Congress. And the cost of the plan will not be determined until the administration releases its fiscal 2009 budget next year.

But the safety of imported food should not overshadow issues involving American companies producing unsafe food for Americans.  Investigative reporters Dave Savini and Michelle Youngerman from Chicago's CBS 2 and the Naperville Sun followed Chicago-area food delivery trucks and looked into the safety of the products these trucks were delivering over a four-month period.  The investigation into Chicago-area food safety revealed some remarkable truths about the US food supply:

The CBS2/Sun investigation uncovered repeated temperature violations while meat was in transport. CBS2 surveillance cameras caught restaurant and grocery store owners shipping meat out of state in trunks of cars, in minivans and non-refrigerated trucks while temperatures outside reached as high as 95 degrees.

Also uncovered in the probe was a lack of food inspectors to investigate after trucks hauling meat are involved in crashes and refrigeration units are destroyed.

In one case, 30,000 pounds of turkey - destined to be turned into deli meat - sat in warm September temperatures for six and a half hours. CBS2 cameras documented boxes of turkey that were crushed and meat that was exposed, thawing and dripping from the heat.

The load became tainted when the truck struck a viaduct near Chicago's stockyard district. No food inspector was called, as Illinois law mandates. Instead it was transferred to a new refrigerated trailer, cooled down overnight, then shipped the next day to a Chicago warehouse operated by Ashland Cold Storage.

The entire story can be read on the Naperville Sun website or viewed on the CBS 2 website.

As Bill Marler, food safety lawyer, said yesterday, "The reality is that nearly every major foodborne illness outbreak has been “home grown.” USA food companies do a great job of poisoning fellow countrymen – 76,000,000 a year according to the CDC."

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Today, the recommendations of an advisory committee which was formed to assess the safety of the nation's food supply will issue a report to President Bush and Congress.  An article that appeared last night on the New York Times website provided some insight into the reasons behind the formation of the committee and what will be included in the report:

Neither the FDA nor the USDA had the authority to order ConAgra to recall the products. In fact, all food recalls, except for those involving infant formula, are voluntary. Often, the government gets a product recalled by warning the company it could face bad publicity if it does not withdraw the food.

An advisory committee created in response to concerns about recalls of imported products -- including dog food and toothpaste -- will suggest changing that.

The commission, created in July in response to concerns about recalls of imported items, will recommend to President Bush that the FDA be empowered to order recalls of products deemed a risk to consumers, an administration official said Monday. Congress would have to approve such a step.

Here is what critics who were interviewed had to say of the food supply as it is: 

''FDA's food program is very small compared to its task.''  -- William Hubbard, a top FDA official for 14 years.

''I think the food industry has a very long history of not doing anything on food safety unless it has to.''  -- Marion Nestle, a New York University professor who wrote a book on food safety.

Bill Marler, another food industry critic, recently wrote in Food Safety Magazine:

Ultimately, dedication to food safety must go beyond the company's HACCP programs in terms of compliance, implementation, testing and auditing. This commitment starts at the top of the organization with the CEO, president and senior management team. Managing the business in a way that pays more than lip service to food safety will produce high-quality, profitable products that don't make people sick, and is essential to the continued health of your bottom line and the health of your consumers.

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A new article from the Investor's Business Daily focuses on a drop in consumer confidence in the American food supply:

"There's a great interest by both the supplier community and retailers to identify and trace foods," said Jill Hollingsworth, FMI's group vice president of food safety programs. "Retailers want to know more about where foods come from. The old system is just not enough anymore."

A new system can't come soon enough. Only 66% of shoppers, the lowest since 1989, are confident that the food they buy at grocery stores is safe, according to a survey by the Arlington, Va.-based FMI, whose members represent three quarters of domestic grocery sales. That's down from 82% last year.

People are even less comfortable with restaurant food, with only 42% feeling safe about meals eaten away from home, the survey said. No fewer than 38% of consumers have stopped buying items, led by produce, meat and poultry, because of outbreaks and recalls in 2006, the association said.

And while consumers are feeling less confident in the safety of our food, the Dow Jones MarketWatch published a story on how we can do more to protect ourselves when shopping at supermarkets.  Tips include:

• At the grocery store, make sure to double bag meats, and keep using bags even in your cooler. The bags will help to prevent cross contamination by containing any juices that can leak from the thin plastic wrap. If you don't see plastic bags near the meats, head back to the produce section and snag a few.
  
• When it comes to fresh produce, choose products with less damage, bruising and punctures. The skin of produce such as apples and cucumbers provides a barrier to contamination, says Michelle Smith, a scientist with the FDA's food safety office
  
  "The worst kind of damage would be a wound that would allow pathogens into the interior," she says.
  
• When you get to the grocery store, look at its layout, and figure out how to make sure that you pick up meats and dairy last, recommends Sam Beattie, a food safety extension specialist at Iowa State University.
  
• Just as you wouldn't want the local market to store meats and produce together, it's important for you to use the separate bins in your refrigerator.

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Today's Mercury, the Manhattan, Kansas, newspaper, contained a feature article on the International Food Safety Network's approach to teaching and informing audiences about food safety.  The article's author, Luke Thompson, writes about the evolution of the Food Safety Network and the new approach to sharing information about food safety:

Then, in 2004, the FSN reported a research project that showed during 60 hours of watching celebrity cooking shows, mostly in Canada, the chefs made a food safety mistake every four minutes. Powell said the report drew a huge response, and he realized he'd discovered a new way to communicate to his audience.

Soon, the FSN website was redesigned, and Powell, who had briefly been a reporter, began writing commentary designed to catch people's attention.

Rather than just telling people to wash their hands or take care of their food, the FSN uses catchy slogans and pictures and disgusting stories designed to liven up issues that can sometimes be deadly.

"If I say, 'Wash your hands', people might not listen, but if I say 'Don't eat poop'…" Powell said as he smiles, knowing he doesn't have to finish the sentence.

Visit the International Food Safety Network website for more information about food safety.

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A New York Times editorial from today begins:

President Bush took a potentially useful step last week, appointing a cabinet-level committee to find ways to ensure the safety of imported food and other products. But his actions would be a lot more credible if the administration had not been cutting the staff and budget of food safety programs at the Food and Drug Administration while also planning to eliminate half of the agency’s laboratories.

Hearings before a House oversight subcommittee raised serious questions about the F.D.A.’s ability to protect the public against contaminated or adulterated foods. William Hubbard, a former top agency official who consults for a coalition of industry and consumer groups, told the committee that the F.D.A. has lost some 200 food scientists and 700 field inspectors over five years, exactly the wrong direction when food imports are skyrocketing. He also noted that the small budget increase the White House has proposed for food safety next year would be a decrease after accounting for inflation.

Details behind the potential closure of food testing laboratories and inspections of imported foods are further discussed in the editorial, which is titled:  Is It Safe to Eat?
Increasing fears over foods imported from China and other countries, and the FDA's assertions that only one percent of food imports are inspected every year are major concerns surrounding the safety of the American food supply.  And it's not just the federal government and food safety advocates who are speaking up about their issues with the safety of the American food supply.  Bill Marler posted the following email he received from a client who became ill after eating E. coli-contaminated spinach on his blog recently:

Please pass this on: I am 55 years old and having been married for 37 years, so I have been grocery shopping for at least that long. I got sick from spinach; last month I opened a can of Geisha brand peaches (from China but distributed from New York) only to find a dead fly in the can; and this past week I purchased 2 cans of Castleberry's hot dog chili sauce distributed from Augusta, GA that have been recalled. Am I being paranoid or is someone out there trying to kill Americans with the food chain, or just me in particular? What's going on here and how can we protect ourselves other than reverting back to growing our own food. I know growing up if we didn't shoot it, reel it in or grow it, we didn't eat it (ie; deer meat, fish (lots & lots of fish) and fresh vegetables & fruits grown by family members.) What's going on here with the food chain is scaring the h_ _ _ out of me. Too many things happening in a very short time frame to me.

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Marler Clark attorneys Denis Stearns and Drew Falkenstein put on a mock trial at last month's National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) Annual Conference.  The mock trial was part of Handwashing for Life's conference session on food safety and protection titled, "Handwashing on trial." 

The abstract for the panel is as follows:

Financial and health risks for those serving food increases sharply where hand hygiene is not a senior management priority. For restaurants, schools and other institutional operators to better understand both the problem and solution active learning techniques are used to drive commitment and action.

A risk assessment piece opens the session pitting two of the most experienced
foodborne outbreak lawyers against one another in a compelling reality check, complete with a 12-member jury. This prosecutor-defendant exchange uses drama as a driver to achieve a deeper audience understanding. Facts and experience illustrate the pitfalls of trivializing hand hygiene and the value of best practices.

Management and food prep worker motivations are explored and woven into a behavior changing practical solution. The value of employee competition is explored and demonstrated as a means to bridge language barriers and convert peer pressure into handwashing compliance. Both techniques and technologies are shared to take home a hand hygiene program based on behavior change, measurement and Continuous Improvement.

More on the mock trial can be found on the Handwashing For Life blog.

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Michigan legislatorss introduced a bipartison food safety bill in an effort to help curb food poisoning outbreaks at restaurants.  Measures included in the bill are:

• Every restaurant would be required to have at least one manager on staff who had passed an accredited food safety exam. 

• Employees exhibiting symptoms of illness, including vomiting, diarrhea, or a sore throat with fever could not return to work until 24 hours after symptoms are gone.  Employees with norovirus could not return to work until 48 hours after symptoms are gone. 

• Bare-hand contact with food would be more closely regulated.

An Associated Press article quoted state legislators who had introduced the bill:

"We will help squash the types of high-risk practices that can result in food-borne illnesses such as norovirus outbreaks," said state Rep. Jeff Mayes, a Democrat from Bay City and sponsor of the bills along with Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom, a Republican from Norton Shores.

The legislation also would let the Michigan Department of Agriculture create rules for hiring managers and track certification of restaurant managers.

"There is nothing more important than food safety," Van Woerkom said at a news conference with Mayes and state Agriculture Director Mitch Irwin. 

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The June 2007 QSR Magazine features an article on trying to ensure food safety when serving fresh produce at quick-serve restaurants.  The article's author interviewed different players in the food industry, asking their thoughts about how to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks.  Weighing in were representatives from the National Restaurant Association, the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management, Rutgers University, and other organizations with a stake in the food industry and food safety. 

Director of Science and Regulatory Relations for the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF), Kristie Grzywinski, says areas like sanitation, supply-chain practices, and holding temperatures are all areas where contaminations are easily introduced. “Really a lot of it is just making sure you have good practices in your establishments,” she says.

Dr. Peter Snyder, Hospitality Institute of Technology & Management president, says one of those good practices is trusting your instincts when picking suppliers, especially for produce.

“If he’s stupid enough to come in a filthy truck that means there’s bad management,” he says. And that could mean trouble or even a potential outbreak for restaurants having their food supplied by the company. Most importantly, Snyder says only buy from suppliers who get their products from approved sources. He says going to the site to see the operation makes this decision easier. Also, he suggests scheduling food deliveries for off-peak hours so that there is ample time to inspect the food and packaging for problems and potential hazards.

Some of the people interviewed in the article argued for more federal oversight and regulations of the food industry, as a way to increase food safety and prevent foodborne illness. Fred Gordon, an attorney who represents food industry companies who face claims of foodborne illness in claims against their suppliers, was interviewd for the article:

Gordon admits that responsibility lies on everyone in the supply chain to maintain the safety of the food but says just because the spotlight falls on the restaurants, farms should not ignore the important role they play in creating a safe product from the start.

...

“It’s, in my opinion, solely driven by economics,” he says. “We have plenty of laws already on the books that if there were sufficient resources to actually police the entities, we’d be great.”

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The North Jersey Media Group provides excellent food safety information in an article titled, "Take your food's temperature correctly".  The article, which was published on June 18th, highlights a Good Housekeeping Research Institute study, and shows the result of tests conducted on food thermometers:

The Good Housekeeping Research Institute tested 17 new kitchen thermometers. Three samples of each were evaluated by checking their precision in measuring the temperature of ice water and the temperature of boiling water. The best of the bunch were then assessed for their accuracy in measuring the temperature of roast beef and for their ease of use.

In general, digital thermometers proved to be more accurate than analog. And although remote thermometers might be convenient, they tended to be slightly more difficult to use. So before making a purchase, consider your cooking needs and match them against each thermometer's distinctive features.

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Newsinferno.com added a post titled, "CDC, FDA, ConAgra or Peter Pan himself, Who’s to Blame for the Underreporting of Sickening and Potentially Deadly Salmonella & E-Coli Food Poisoning Cases?" which offers an interesting discussion on foodborne illness outbreaks.  

The federal agency responsible for insuring food safety was also been taken to task for its role in the incident. In April 2007, the Washington Post published documents proving that the FDA, as well as ConAgra, knew of contamination problems at the plant as far back as 2004. The agency took few corrective measures, assuming that ConAgra would address the situation itself. ConAgra apparently did little to nothing to fix the problem.

And this was not the first time the FDA knew about food safety problems but did little to correct them. The Post article also cited evidence that the agency had been aware of problems with contaminated spinach and other California greens as far back as 1995. In the fall of 2006, hundreds of people were sickened and three were killed after contracting e-coli from contaminated California Spinach.

Critics say that under-funding and a lack of trained inspectors at the FDA have left the nation’s food supply in a perilous condition. A congressional fact sheet published by Henry Waxman (D-Calif) in 2006 said funding for the FDA fell short by $135 million. The number of scientists employed by the FDA’s food division dropped from 1,000 to 800 in the past three years. This decrease in personnel and the ongoing budget cuts have overwhelmed the agency, greatly impacting its ability to watch over the food supply. The results of this shortfall are apparent — according to the CDC, contaminated foods cause 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths each year.

Maybe Newsinferno.com will post about the recent E. coli outbreaks traced to ground beef and include USDA in its next analysis.

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The Daily News-Tribune out of Waltham, Massachusetts, published a guest column by Doug Powell, Ph. D., Scientific Director for the International Food Safety Network today.  Dr. Powell's message was that all food handlers should undergo some kind of food safety training before being allowed to work in restaurants.  He argues that if children's hockey league coaches have to report for a few hours of training, it makes sense to have mandatory food safety training for food workers:

There should be mandatory food handler training, for say, three hours, that could happen in school, on the job, whatever. But training is only a beginning. Just because you tell someone to wash the poop off their hands before they prepare salad for 100 people doesn't mean it is going to happen; weekly outbreaks of hepatitis A confirm this.

Next is to verify that training is being translated into safe food handling practices through inspection and those inspection results should be publicly available.

Various jurisdictions are using a blend of websites, letter or numerical grades on doors and providing disclosure on request. In Denmark, smiley or sad faces are affixed to restaurant windows. Publicly available grading systems rapidly communicate to diners the potential risk in dining at a particular establishment and restaurants given a lower grade may be more likely to comply with health regulations in the future to prevent lost business.

More importantly, such public displays of information help bolster overall awareness of food safety among staff and the public. People routinely talk about this stuff.

The interested public can handle more, not less, information about food safety. The best restaurants, those with nothing to hide and everything to be proud of, will go ahead and make their inspection scores available - today

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The Press Democrat out of Santa Rosa, California, reported today that California will introduce new food safety rules on July 1, 2007.  The rules, which have been in the making for ten years, will improve current food codes regarding the following:

• Food worker personal hygiene, including updated hand washing guidelines.
  
• Hot and cold holding temperatures for food, specifically setting standards for heating, reheating, and cooling foods, and including the assurance that food is transported safetly, and at an appropriate temperature to prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria or viruses.
  
• Proper cooking.
  
• Equipment contamination, down to a specification that preset tableware must be covered or inverted, and unused table settings must be changed between customers.
  
• And obtaining food from safe sources.

Restaurant employees will also be required to notify a person in charge if they have an open or exposed wound, or are ill, and restaurants will be required to keep a person familiar with food safety regulations on-site while the restaurants are open.  After July 1, cooks will be able to make their own decision about whether to wear gloves or not while they're cooking.

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In an article titled, "Better Safe Than Sorry" for US News and World Report, nancy Shute highlighted food safety efforts being made by a Washington farmer, and focused on what consumers can do in their own homes to protect themselves from foodborne illness.

Andrew Stout's farm in Carnation, Wash., is one of the most successful small organic farms in the country. Each week, Full Circle Farm delivers fresh lettuce, green peas, spring garlic, and spinach to 17 farmers' markets in the Seattle area, as well as to dozens of restaurants and retailers, including Whole Foods Market. Some 2,400 boxes of produce a week go out to families who have bought a share in the farm's riches. His customers are counting on getting freshness and taste-and also on Stout's care when it comes to hygiene. "Bacteria exists everywhere," he says. So he keeps the manure pile away from the packing shed, tests the water used to irrigate and wash vegetables, and keeps an eye on his workers to be sure they wash their hands. "I'm a food provider," he says. "You want to do the absolute best that you can."

US News followed up the article with a list of foodborne illness outbreaks beginning in 1971. 

Meanwhile, CBS 3 out of Philadelphia ran a story with a focus on home food safety, emphasizing the importance of washing fruits and vegetables before eating them, or even cutting into them - as in the case of cantaloupe and other melons.  Below is some of their food safety advice:

"It's really important to wash fruits and vegetables of all kinds before you cut into them even if you're not going to eat the rind. This cantaloupe grew pretty close to the ground so it could have picked up bacteria from the soil that could be on the surface. As you pull a knife though it, you're going to drag bacteria that's on the outside, in to the inside if you haven't washed it off first," said Sharon Franke from The Good Housekeeping Institute.

If you like leftovers, keep them in the refrigerator for no more than 4 days, then toss them. When you're cooking food, use a food thermometer to determine its internal temperature.

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SEATTLE, WA (May 17, 2007) – Food safety is a hot topic these days. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal ran stories on the subject on Wednesday, May 16th, and CNN is airing a special on food safety both Saturday and Sunday, May 19th and 20th.

Most media attention geared toward food safety in recent months has focused on foodborne illness outbreaks traced to contaminated spinach, lettuce, and peanut butter. But Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who exclusively represents victims of foodborne illness, says that dangers presented by contaminated meat products should not be forgotten or overlooked.

In the last two weeks, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan residents have been stricken with E. coli after eating contaminated ground beef. “It’s almost official grilling season, and although the meat industry has done a tremendous job of cleaning up and reducing the number of E. coli outbreaks traced to ground beef, E. coli contamination in meat products is a real danger,” Marler said.

Marler, who was recently retained by a Minnesota woman who became ill after eating E. coli-contaminated ground beef produced by Minnesota company PM Beef Holdings, has represented victims of E. coli outbreaks traced to ground beef, steaks, apple and orange juice, lettuce, spinach, sprouts, cantaloupe, and other foods. Marler’s firm, Marler Clark, currently represents over 100 victims of last year’s E. coli outbreaks traced to spinach and lettuce, nearly 5,000 victims of the recent Salmonella outbreak traced to contaminated peanut butter, and several victims of an E. coli outbreak traced to ground beef served at a church picnic in Longville, Minnesota, last summer, including the family of a woman who died.

“I think people will be shocked with what they learn from watching the CNN special,” Marler added. “Americans like the people featured in the special shouldn’t have to learn the hard way that the food supply isn’t as safe as they think it is. We should be able to trust that we’re putting on our tables and feeding our families is pathogen-free before it ever reaches our homes.”

Marler, a food safety advocate, recently joined clients on a trip to Washington, DC, where they participated in a hearing titled, “Diminished Capacity: Can the FDA Assure the Safety and Security of the Nation's Food Supply?” He spends several days per month traveling around the country speaking on topics related to food safety and foodborne illness litigation through a non-profit consulting firm, OutBreak.

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CNN's investigative unit spent months putting together a one-hour special on food safety and foodborne illness, which will air this Saturday and Sunday at 8pm EST.  Marler Clark worked with CNN producers to identify victims of recent foodborne illness outbreaks who could share their stories for the special, which is titled, "Danger:  Poisoned Food".  Attorney Bill Marler was also interviewed for the piece, and shared his perspective on foodborne illness, food safety, and food litigation.

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The USDA is expected to announce today whether 20 million chickens who were fed melamine-contaminated feed are to be released into the US food supply.  Bloomberg News reported on USDA's investigation and decision-making process:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it is keeping as many as 20 million chickens from slaughter this weekend as officials investigate whether the birds were given tainted feed.

The chickens are in several states on farms contracted to ``large commercial operators,'' USDA spokesman Keith Williams said today in a phone interview. The chickens are being voluntarily held until at least May 7 while the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency decide whether they are safe for eating.

The chickens received feed believed to be tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical that has been found in wheat gluten imported from China, Williams said. The contaminated feed has been connected to the deaths of at least 14 pets and caused the quarantine of hog farms in six U.S. states this year.

Pet food contaminatin and the FDA's creation of a new position - assistant commissioner for food protection, or what has been dubbed "Food Safety Czar," have both been widely discussed in food safety circles, as well as on editorial pages of newspapers like the New York Times and the Seattle Times.
 
In today's New York Times, the editorial board focuses on pet food contamination and the need for government action to ensure the safety of imported food:

As the global trade in foodstuffs expands, the Food and Drug Administration must be given more legal authority, money and inspectors to ensure the safety of imported foods. It would be even more tragic if the next episode were to kill thousands of people before being detected and contained.

It now looks as if two Chinese companies sold wheat gluten and rice protein spiked with an industrial chemical, melamine. Their apparent goal was to cut costs. Last week the F.D.A. rushed to upgrade its food safety programs, creating a new position — assistant commissioner for food protection — and naming a respected scientist to fill it. That should focus needed attention on a subject that often seems secondary in an agency straining to regulate drugs and medical devices. But not much will change until Congress provides money and legal authority to police foreign producers.

The Seattle Times editorial board focused more on the Food Safety Czar and on upcoming legislation:

This week, the FDA established a new position — assistant commissioner for food protection. The first task for David Acheson, a physician who has researched food-borne pathogens extensively, is crafting a strategy to ensure food safety and defend the food system from people who would deliberately try to compromise it.

The U.S. Senate also this week approved a provision by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to strengthen the food-safety system. The amendment to a Food and Drug Administration reauthorization bill would establish an early-notification system for food problems, increase inspections of foreign imports and create a database to help spot patterns needing investigation.

Imports aren't the only challenge. During the past year, hundreds of people were sickened by salmonella in peanut butter and by E. coli in organic spinach. At least five people died between the two cases. A surveillance system might have noticed earlier the pattern of problems in the Central California area where the spinach was produced.

Senator Durbin has also introduced the Safe Food Act of 2007, which is the focus of a blog post at The Ethicurean, where it is stated that: 

The Safe Food Act calls for the creation of a single cabinet-level Food Safety Administration with a singular mission: safe food. The bill aims to increase the frequency of inspections of food processing plants, create a method to trace food ingredients to their points of origin, and to step up monitoring of food imports. Unlike the current FDA, the administration will have the power to order mandatory recalls of unsafe foods.

More food safety discussions are occuring across the country.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked its readers whether they wash fruits and vegetables before eating them.  Answers to the question have been posted on the AJC Web site.  The LA Times reported on Los Angeles County's attempt at requiring food handlers to be vaccinated against hepatitis A, pointing out that, "The county cannot legally require food workers to be vaccinated against hepatitis A," but noting that the state of California has the legal authority to put such a requirement in place.  And the Bioblog posted recently about the debate over whether grass-fed beef produce E. coli.

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In an interview with Phyllis Jacobs Griekspoor from the McClatchkey News Service, Dr. Douglas Powell of the International Food Safety Network said, "[Food safety] all boils down to three words.  Don't eat poop."  The interview was for an article that appeared at NorthJersey.com on Wednesday. 

In the article, which focuses on the International Food Safety Network's research, Ms. Jacobs Griekspoor points out that keeping foodborne pathogens out of the food supply is not easy and that most consumers aren't aware of proper food handling practices that are necessary for ensuring any pathogens present in food are killed.

Microbial contamination -- such as E. coli or salmonella -- is not visible, and has no taste and no smell. It can come from any number of sources along a chain of growing, harvesting, processing, packaging and selling.

It can come from water that drains from a livestock operation and runs through a field after a rain. It can come from irrigation water drawn from a contaminated pond.

It can come from processing vats, storage bags, tools, or workers' hair, skin or saliva.

While food scientists agree that proper cooking will kill most kinds of harmful bacteria, nobody is convinced that the bulk of consumers know what proper cooking is.

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Former heads of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) testified yesterday that more must be done to protect our nation's food safety.  The statements came the same day the FDA announced that it had created a new position - termed the Food Safety Czar by members of Congress - to coordinate food safety efforts.  Bloomberg News covered the story for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Regulators don't have the money, equipment and staff to keep industrial chemicals, salmonella and E. coli from contaminating the American food supply, former commissioners of the Food and Drug Administration testified yesterday.

"Simply put, our food safety system is broken," said David Kessler, who was named to head the agency by President George H.W. Bush and served from 1990 to 1997.

"The reality is that there is currently no mandate, no leadership, no resources, nor scientific research base for prevention of food safety problems," Kessler told a hearing of the House Oversight Committee in Washington.

The hearings come on the heels of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in which the US food safety system was deemed high-risk and, on a smaller scale, a Massachusetts independent state auditor's report on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts food protection program.  Concerns of the Massachusetts State Auditor's report echo concerns previously pointed out about the nation's food safety system.  Areas of concern listed in the Massachusetts Auditor's report were:

1. Resource constraints that impair the Department of Public Health's (DPH) ability to oversee local health board food protection activities and DPH's ability to conduct wholesale food inspections.
2. Understaffing of local health authority food inspection activities.
3. Inadequate local inspection frequency and rare use of appropriate risk-based scheduling systems.
4. Inadequate training and qualifications of local inspectors.
5. Inadequate documentation and standardization at local authorities.
6. Deficiencies in foodborne illness and general complaint investigations and responses at local and state levels.
7. Lack of proper information technology systems.
8. Needed improvements to quality assurance systems to promote safe food practices.
9. Inefficiencies and administrative problems resulting from decentralization of food protection activities.
10. Lack of strategic long term planning by DPH for food protection efforts.

The full Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Auditor's report is available at the Auditor's Web site.

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