Idea #296 for December 11th, 2009: Food Fight or Improving Food Safety In School Lunches

Considering that many American children rely on school lunches on a daily basis, we should expect that this government-subsidized program delivers a quality product. That’s why it’s disheartening and surprising to hear that meat used by school lunch programs is not even up to the standards of fast-food restaurants, in some cases. Jack in the Box, for instance, sets the acceptable level of bacteria in their beef ten times lower than the USDA does for school lunch meat. And the type of chicken used in school lunches is deemed sub-standard by KFC and Campbell’s Soup. In fact, this type of chicken is normally reserved for pet food.

If not properly cooked, the meat in school lunches could contain enough bacteria to cause food poisoning. Tougher standards don’t have to come at a high cost. The safety changes that Jack in the Box implemented only added a fraction of a penny to the cost of a pound of beef. That’s trivial compared to the cost of treating children sickened by E. coli or salmonella from tainted meat. At the very least, school lunch programs should strive for the level of quality demanded by the fast food industry.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-12-08-school-lunch-standards_N.htm

Idea #145 for July 13th, 2009: One Step Closer or FDA Urging Ban On Antibiotics In Livestock

Today the principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, recommended the banning of antibiotics for use in healthy livestock. He also said farmers should only be able to administer antibiotics to animals under the supervision of a veterinarian. Sharfstein and the FDA are backing a bill introduced by Representative Louise Slaughter that would ban seven classes of antibiotics from being used on livestock.

Possibly 70% of antibiotics in this country are used on farms, and often on healthy animals as a means of prevention. But using antibiotics in this fashion also breeds resistant strains of bacteria, and those pathogens can end up in our food supply. Farm lobbies will certainly resist any attempt to change the law, which is unfortunate. They argue that antibiotics keep the animals healthier and safer for us to consume. The European Union effected a similar ban years ago, though, and their animals have not become less healthy. Hopefully, this bill will pass because it will not only improve our food safety, but it will also improve the effectiveness of antibiotics we need to use on humans.

For more coverage see these two news stories.

Idea #129 for June 27th, 2009: More Tainted Food or The FDA and Cookie Dough

This month, seventy people have been sickened after consuming uncooked Nestle cookie dough products The culprit: a virulent strain of E. coli, a bacterium normally associated with tainted beef products. The contamination has been traced back to a processing plant in Virginia, and 300,000 cases of the product have been recalled by Nestle.

Certainly, it’s troubling that a contaminant from cattle is ending up in cookie dough. The FDA is now attempting to investigate the source. However, the weak authority that the FDA actually has in cases like this has hampered their investigation. Under current law, companies are not required to turn over all food safety records to the FDA during an investigation, so Nestle has opted not provide those records — nor have they over the last several years.

On the bright side, new legislation is attempting to give the FDA more authority for patrolling food safety, including compelling companies to turn over their records during an investigation. It’s long overdue, but at least it should give the FDA a better chance of getting to the bottom of why these foreign contaminants seem to keep ending up in our food.

See coverage in the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times.

Idea #120 for June 18th, 2009: Food for Thought or Changes at the FDA

As blogged about previously, the FDA has a few problems that need to be addressed in their handling of both food and drugs. On the food side, it looks like Washington is moving forward with a plan to plug some of the gaps. Legislation that will improve oversight of food safety is one step closer to becoming law, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bill, which includes giving the FDA authority to order food recalls, setting safety standards, and requiring annual inspections of high-risk facilities, has made been approved by a House committee. A fee imposed on food facilities is expected to help fund the costs associated with the new duties.

In the wake of events like salmonella-tainted peanut products and E. coli in spinach, it’s vital that the FDA be given more authority to police the food industry. As of now, the FDA does not have the power to order recalls of tainted food, which is absurd. Merely suggesting a food recall does not cut it when people’s lives are on the line. Inspections are all-too-often carried out by private auditors, but without upping the number of inspectors under the FDA’s employ, that is unlikely to change. Imposing new civil penalties, as this legislation outlines, could make food producers take safety more seriously though. It’s a positive step forward, but whether this bill passes, and to what extent it will be altered during its passage, remains to be seen.

In the media, see articles by: the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.

Idea #98 for May 27th, 2009: Nowhere To Go But Up or Change at the FDA

The new leadership at the FDA is promising to change the way the organization operates, along with changing the way success should be defined. In an essay published in the New England Journal of Medicine, new FDA head Margaret Hamburg wrote that “the ultimate measures of the FDA’s success should reflect its fundamental goals and go beyond such intermediate measures as the number of facilities inspected or drugs approved.” The new leadership is making it clear that the primary concern of the FDA should be Americans’ health, not industry (as it seemed to be in the past).

Regarding food safety, Hamburg wants the FDA to focus on prevention of foodborne illness instead of simply reacting after the fact, as they tend to do now. Also, they want to be able to work closer with the USDA on the matter, which has been a source of trouble in the past. Outside of food safety, the FDA now plans to work closer with the CDC on matters such as swine flu. Inter-agency cooperation has been difficult in the past, and getting by that obstacle would certainly make the FDA more effective.

Given their failures in the past, it’s a positive development that the FDA now seems to be learning from debacles like the salmonella outbreak in peanuts last year. The FDA has a long way to go before the public regains confidence in the organization. It’s refreshing to hear that the they are taking a new approach, but whether the promised changes will come to fruition is still up in the air. We’ll see how much of that idealism fades with the realities of bureaucracy and private interests.

In the media, see: the Wall Street Journal, the AP, and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Idea #80 for May 9th, 2009: A Step In The Right Direction or FDA Increasing Food Safety Budget

Prominent foodborne illness outbreaks in the last few years have brought to light some of the FDA’s failings regarding food safety. President Obama is now requesting that the FDA’s budget get an additional $300 million for fiscal year 2010. Because of a series of budget cuts since the ’90s, this funding will actually only bring the FDA’s staffing back up to where it was in 1994. But in this case, going backwards is a step forward.

President Obama is also requesting that the amount of money the FDA budgets on food safety be increased by over $200 million. Some of the funding will go towards increasing the number of FDA food inspectors by 25%. Federal inspectors are currently understaffed and much of the inspection duties are left to private auditors, which were partly responsible for the salmonella/peanut problem earlier this year. Also helping: incoming FDA commissioner Peggy Hamburg (that’s her real name) vows to focus on food safety problems during her tenure. It’s good to hear that the FDA is starting to take a more serious approach to protecting the safety of our food supply, but whether adding a couple hundred more inspectors is sufficient to prevent any future outbreaks remains to be seen.

In the media, see: the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press story on the matter.

Idea #62 for April 21st, 2009: Striving To Be Like Minnesota or Consistent Foodborne Illness Response

I’ve blogged a few times about the FDA’s problems with food inspections and the resultant outbreaks of foodborne illness. There’s another layer of ineffective government bureaucracy at play here too, though, that needs to be reformed. The system of recognizing and stopping foodborne illness outbreaks is unorganized and riddled with problems.

The New York Times points out that Minnesota has unusually high rates of sickness whenever multi-state food poisoning outbreaks occur. The reason is not that Minnesotans are more susceptible to illness; rather it is a reflection of the state’s unrivaled reporting and response efforts to food poisoning outbreaks. Because of the diligence of Minnesota’s Department of Health, national outbreaks are often detected in Minnesota first before most other states are even aware that their populace is sickened.

Minnesota’s efforts are admirable, and worthy of replication in other states, where surveillance and response is often underfunded. For instance, while some states may pay little attention following-up after foodborne pathogens are found in patients, Minnesota health workers will conduct interviews and follow-ups with patients to uncover the source of the illness. Further complicating the matter are inconsistent protocols across different counties and states, and lack of coordination between relevant agencies.

Food products might be harvested or processed at a single site, but they are distributed across multi-state regions. We need to have an approach that addresses that reality, whereas now we have counties and states operating under disparate protocols. Since rapid response is vital in containing these outbreaks, establishing standards at a federal level would be a good first step in organizing a consistent surveillance and response effort.

Amid all this, states are slashing budgets, and surveillance programs are sometimes a causality of those cuts. When you consider that an estimated 300,000 are hospitalized yearly because of foodborne illness, those are budget cuts we can ill afford to make.

Read the New York Times’ story about this topic here.

Idea #60 for April 19th, 2009: Inspectors Wanted or Produce Industry’s Self-Regulation

In past posts, I’ve touched on the inadequate FDA inspection system that allowed salmonella-laden peanuts and other products into the food system. Now some food industries are taking matters into their own hands. The vacuum created by the FDA’s inability to deal with inspections has forced some farmers to seek out other government agencies to handle food inspections.

In California, the leafy-greens industry lost $100 million in 2006 after the public shunned spinach during a salmonella outbreak. In hopes of preventing another such problem, the industry turned not to the FDA, but to state auditors from the Department of Agriculture instead. The industry pays the auditors about $1 million a to carry out 500 produce inspections. There have been no new food poisonings linked to their produce since.

Other food industries are following suit. The California almond industry enlisted the USDA to oversee a pasteurization program in the wake of a salmonella outbreak. And tomato growers in Florida use state inspectors for their farms and packing houses.

It’s heartening that food producers have taken steps to enlist inspectors, but there are still concerns about their effectiveness. The fact that inspectors are paid by the industries they are overseeing raises some red flags, as does the fact that guidelines are drawn up by industry. Food producers are partly to blame for this mess in the first place, as they lobbied for looser regulation years ago. Ideally, the FDA will have the money and manpower to effectively regulate food safety, but until that time comes, this system is a passable stopgap.

Read more about the food auditors in the NY Times here, and a similar effort in Arizona.

Idea #54 for April 13th, 2009: Salmonella-Free Peanut Butter or Improving The Safety of Our Food Supply

Multiple high-profile cases of foodborne illness recently have made the issue of food safety a priority in the minds of Americans. In the last few years we’ve seen deadly outbreaks of salmonella in peanut butter and pistachios, and E. coli in spinach, among other cases.

Now the CDC is reporting that, after decades of making headway in preventing foodborne illness, progress has plateaued in the last few years. Rates of food poisoning have stopped declining. Illness from animal products have always been a concern, but now higher incidence of tainted produce is a major problem. Salmonella, which was responsible for recent peanut and pistachio scares, is the most common pathogen in cases of food poisoning. Between all foodborne pathogens, there are an estimated 87 million cases of food poisoning a year.

Ineffective government regulation are partly to blame for the problem. In recent months, the FDA has made an effort to ramp up inspections by hiring 150 more food inspectors and scientists. However, that only comes after shedding 600 inspectors and 20% of its food scientists from 2003 to 2007. And as mentioned in a previous post, third-party private auditors have had to step in for an inadequate government inspection process.

Another problem with our food safety is the distribution of responsibilities among agencies. The FDA and USDA are responsible for different domains in food safety, and have inconsistent approaches to preventing foodborne illness.  Also, the FDA has not adapted to a changing food market. Presently, about 60% of our fruits and 75% of our seafood come from foreign countries, but only 1% of imported food is inspected. Our current system only reacts to problems to contain them, rather than preventing them in the first place.

The new administration says they will reform our nation’s food safety system. We need a reorganization that will make for consistent regulatory approaches between the FDA and USDA; if that means creating a new agency for food safety, so be it. More federal inspectors are needed to plug the holes currently filled by private auditors. Also, the FDA needs to be able to initiate mandatory food recalls, rather than suggesting voluntary recalls. While inspecting every product that comes from overseas is impossible, we will have to find a way to adapt our current regulation efforts to a new reality wherein imported foods make up a sizable portion of our consumption.

Read more about the CDC report in the news from CNN, the LA Times, and this editorial about food safety reform.

Idea #22 for March 12th, 2009: FDA Approves Salmonella or Who is Inspecting Our Food Supply?

Yesterdays headline in The Onion was extremely clever, “FDA Approves Salmonella“. It’s a great headline for a laugh because deep down you know that the FDA and our oversight of the food supply this year is in such dire shape that you wouldn’t be completely surprised to see that as a real story. This year, we’ve had the largest food recall in our nation’s history, as over 3,000 different peanut-containing products were recalled after being linked to the spread of salmonella. Several people have died — and possibly thousands sickened — as a result of this outbreak. Unsanitary practices at a Georgia peanut processing plant are blamed, and it is believed that the contamination continued for a period of nine months before being detected. Citizens are left wondering how this can happen when the FDA is supposed to be monitoring our food supply.

Well, the FDA isn’t exactly inspecting our food, as this recent story in the New York Times points out. Unbeknownst to many Americans, the task of food inspection has been largely turned over to private entities whose interests may not align with those of the consumer. The FDA just doesn’t have the resources or time to handle inspections all by themselves. There are a number of troubling things about the private auditors overseeing our food safety. For instance, they rarely test the food for pathogens, they are paid by the company they are testing (setting the stage for conflict of interest), and they don’t spend as much time doing the inspection as the FDA does. Despite this, the FDA would like to increase the number of private auditors and entrust them with inspecting foreign food makers whose products end up in the US.

In light of this, some legislators are proposing creating a new food safety agency. Increasing bureaucracy isn’t usually helpful, but right now there are 12 different agencies involved in food safety so something has to be done to consolidate their roles. Most importantly, the federal government has to be given the authority to issue mandatory recalls when contaminated products are detected in our food supply. Unbelievably, recalls are done on a voluntary basis right now and unsurprisingly most commercial companies opt-out in all but the most headline grabbing incidents. Also, there needs to be more funding for inspections and stricter rules must be set in place for private auditors. Taking nine months to discover the source of contaminated peanut production is inexcusable in this country.

I won’t dive into food manufacturing acceptable tolerances in this post but note that a jar of peanut butter has a legally allowable limit of up to 6 rodent hairs and 120 “insect fragments” to begin with so salmonella is far from our only problem. I think the food regulators at the FDA need to reduce the allowable limit of sauce in their morning coffees and get back on the job, lest next week we see the NYT carrying the “FDA Approves Salmonella” headline.

For more information, see this Washington Post blog entry and this outline of proposed legislative action.