James Andrews | Food Safety News

Food Fraud a Bigger Problem Than Many Realize, Experts Say

James Andrews — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 05:01:52 +0000

Pick up any item in the supermarket and read through the ingredient labeling. Nearly all of the ingredients listed have the potential to be vulnerable to food fraud, according to food fraud investigator Mitchell Weinberg. “Around the world, food fraud is an epidemic. In every single country where food is produced or grown, food fraud is occurring,” Weinberg said to a roomful of food safety professionals at last month’s annual meeting of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) in Portland, OR. Weinberg, a former attorney, is founder, president and CEO of INSCATECH, a food fraud detection agency that plants “undercover operatives” in foreign food facilities that supply food and ingredients to the U.S. food industry. Joining him on a panel presentation discussing food fraud was George Hughes, senior adviser for the Office of Criminal Investigations at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Andrew Clarke, director of certification and audit for Maple Leaf Foods. According to the presenters, food fraud is much more prevalent than most American consumers understand. It affects everything from seafood to milk, spices and even food coloring — anything with “even a moderate economic value,” as Weinberg put it. Food fraud is, of course, not a new phenomenon, as Clarke pointed out in his presentation. Since the 13th century, Britain has had laws against diluting wine with water, adding ash to pepper, or padding flour with chalk. But food fraud trends appear to be worsening these days. Recent years have seen a rise in the number of fraud cases involving deadly adulterants, as well as an increase in fraudulent labeling and legal prosecution for food fraud. More high-profile food fraud cases than the speakers had time to address have occurred just in the past year. In June, more than 100,000 tons of smuggled, frozen, expired meat — some of it decades old — was seized in China from groups selling it for consumption. In September, global walnut crop failures lead to an increase in fraudulent peanut substitution. South Africa experienced an enormous recall of supermarket products in October after they were found to be colored with banned dyes. A fraud case can be as simple as a steak producer selling a cut as certified Angus when it truly isn’t, Clarke said. The most visceral audience reaction came from another case out of China: undercover video of fake rice being produced in China out of plastic resin and sweet potato. “Three cups of this rice is equivalent to eating a plastic shopping bag,” Weinberg said. FDA has approximately 200 agents worldwide in its criminal investigations office, most of who came from the Secret Service or the FBI. They investigate cases of food fraud, product tampering, and the manufacture of counterfeit or unapproved drugs, according to Hughes. Often, Hughes said, food fraud can indicate that a company’s executives are committing other illegal or dubious acts. In the case of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) and its fraudulent sale of contaminated peanuts, for example, the company was also found to be selling cheap peanuts substituted in with a pricier variety, he said. In big fraud cases, FDA prosecutors may charge companies with everything from conspiracy (if more than one person worked together to deceive) to mail fraud (if fraudulent items were shipped). “Our objective is to hit these guys so hard with as many violations as possible that [the industry will be compelled to] do the right thing,” Hughes said. The recent criminal case involving PCA and its former CEO, Stewart Parnell, will likely see the biggest penalty in FDA’s criminal prosecution history, Hughes added. Worldwide, INTERPOL tracks food fraud activities in 47 countries, according to Clarke. Those included counterfeit alcohol, bottled water from unclean sources, and fish treated with hydrogen peroxide to fake freshness. Despite the dire statistics, the panelists discussed efforts to curb food fraud, including increased prosecution and the need for food companies to enhance their interaction with suppliers. In many cases, U.S. companies should be physically inspecting their food suppliers or finding some other method to monitor their activities to make sure that no fraud is taking place, Weinberg said. No other efforts can deter misbehavior like the threat of losing business, he added.

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IAFP 2015: Interview with Mitchell Weinberg, CEO of Food Fraud Firm INSCATECH

James Andrews — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 05:01:56 +0000

Food Safety News recently sat down with Mitchell Weinberg at IAFP 2015 in Portland, OR, to discuss the extent of global food fraud and how we can combat it. Weinberg is the founder, president and CEO of INSCATECH, a food fraud investigation firm.

Watch the video interview here or find highlights below:

On the scope of global food fraud:

It’s probably a lot bigger than what we could conceivably imagine. In approximately 50 to 60 percent of the investigations we do, we’re finding food fraud. That’s across the spectrum of all food, period, in virtually every country in the world.

The impression is that it’s happening in certain regions of the world, but it’s frankly a lot more pervasive than most people would expect.

On the level of food fraud to which Americans are exposed:

We’re not immune at all. The [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] inspects about 1 percent of all the food that comes into the country, so we are all potentially the victims of food fraud and not aware of it.

I’d say it’s probably more pervasive in other parts of the world, but it’s definitely happening in the United States. I would say with things like seafood, honey, there’s no question that the people selling these products are aware they’re committing fraud. It really varies depending on the commodity being sold.

On common examples of food fraud:

Start thinking of products you wouldn’t normally think about. When you see a processed food — let’s say a cookie — which has 40 ingredients in it, ask yourself about those individual ingredients. Where does each one come from? How is that ingredient prepared or manufactured?

Think of things like flavorings, juice concentrates, spices and seasonings, oils. Just about everything that comes from outside of the United States is likely to have been compromised in some way, shape, or form, unless it’s in its original form.

So, if you’re getting an orange from Chile or South Africa, that’s probably an orange. Did they use banned pesticides on it? That’s certainly a possibility.

There’s a tremendous amount of fraud with respect to seafood. There’s species fraud, where a fish is represented as one species, but it’s in fact another species.

The conditions under which the seafood is being farmed or grown are frankly deplorable. If you go to a fish farm in Vietnam or Thailand, the conditions are absolutely appalling. Think of fish being raised in a sewer. And then they’re throwing in a bunch of antibiotics and antihistamines and other drugs so that the fish don’t get sick.

Now, when you eat that fish, they’ve ingested that water. They’ve ingested those drugs and antibiotics, and now you’ve ingested those things. So, you have to think that Americans are probably major victims of food fraud without ever knowing it.

Now, if the person committing fraud puts in something that someone is allergic to, like peanut shells in turmeric coming out of India. There are people with peanut allergies, so what’s the impact on someone who eats turmeric and has this severe allergy without knowing there are peanut shells in it?

On the societal health impacts of food fraud:

Seventy to 80 percent of the food consumed in Bangladesh is believed to be adulterated or compromised in some way. What we’ve seen is that there’s a much higher rate of disease in Bangladesh, like cancers and other rare diseases, for which we believe there’s a correlation to the food that’s being consumed.

When you think about it practically, if you’re eating three meals a day and snacking twice a day, and you’re consuming day after day food that’s been compromised or adulterated with a small amount of a toxic substance, what are the cumulative effects on human health? No one really knows, but Bangladesh is the closest guess.

If we had more accurate statistics coming out of India or China, which we don’t, [we’d probably see that] a lot of the diseases coming out of those countries are related to what they’re eating. Similarly, here, we don’t really know what’s going into the food we eat. So, a number of the health problems that are increasing in this country could be attributable to what’s being put in the food, and we just don’t know it.

It’s much more significant than I think anybody realizes.

On how INSCATECH works to prevent food fraud:

We are fundamentally spies. I have a network of intelligence-gathering operatives around the world in food-producing countries who are nationals of the countries where they work, and they work undercover to spy on anybody who handles food ingredients anywhere along the supply chain in those countries. We’ll go right back to the source and follow the food all the way up the supply chain.

We will also, where possible, go undercover into food ingredient production facilities to observe what’s going on. We’re doing our work legally, but extremely discreetly, because what we’re doing is highly dangerous. It puts our operatives at risk, and puts our clients at risk, if anyone were to find out who our clients are.

So, the work that we do is very sensitive, but the way to stop [food fraud] is to observe with your eyes, ears and nose exactly what’s going on. When we report that back to the customers who are buying these ingredients, then they can take steps to avoid the problem. They can stop dealing with specific suppliers, slap their suppliers on the wrist, or they can work with law enforcement to get those suppliers prosecuted because this is a crime.

That’s what you can do to stop it.

What’s not working, frankly, are what are called “food fraud vulnerability assessments.” Those are ways to assess risk in the food supply chain. Frankly speaking, there is really one way to assess risk, and that’s by observing it. Food fraud vulnerability assessments are, frankly, a little bit of a waste of time. What you’re doing is basically trying to figure out what you already know. You know that if you’re sourcing ingredients from China, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, wherever it happens to be, there’s a much higher risk of food fraud occurring. You know, based on history, that if it’s a higher-value item, there’s a greater likelihood for food fraud. So, why would you have to go conduct this whole vulnerability assessment to determine where it is? Just use common sense, figuring out where the problem is, and trust but verify.

On how to minimize an individual’s personal exposure to food fraud:

You cannot avoid being a victim of food fraud entirely if you want seasoning on your food. or if you want to cook with oils, unless you make those oils yourself. It’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to prevent it.

However, buy local and buy domestic. For example, I’ve stopped buying olive oil that comes from Italy, Greece or Spain. I’ve started buying olive oil that comes from California, and let me tell you, the olive oil that’s coming out of California tastes wonderful.

If you’re buying honey, buy from a local beekeeper. Keep it simple.

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IAFP 2015: Interview with Lawrence Goodridge, Professor and Salmonella Researcher

James Andrews — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 05:01:17 +0000

Food Safety News sat down with McGill University Associate Professor Lawrence Goodridge, Ph.D., at IAFP 2015 in Portland, OR, in late July to discuss Salmonella and his team’s new $10-million research project aimed at significantly enhancing our understanding of the bacterium.

Watch the interview here, or skip below for highlights from the conversation:

Highlights from the conversation are slightly edited or condensed.

On the initial inspiration for his team’s $10-million research project to map the genomes of all known Salmonella varieties:

We had previously conducted environmental sampling in agriculture environments where fresh produce was being prepared, and we saw that we routinely isolated Salmonella serotypes, and when we sampled those serotypes, they seemed to be different than those types that cause human disease. So, we were wondering about that. We typically see 20-25 serotypes of Salmonella that cause human disease, and yet there are more than 2,500 different types identified.

We were wondering why is it only 25 types that cause the majority of human disease, and what are the nature of these other 2,500 types that are in the environment, but don’t seem to make people sick?

On the importance of studying Salmonella:

Salmonella causes approximately 93 million cases of foodborne illness worldwide each year. In North America, it’s one of the leading causes of illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths. And we still have so many questions to ask and answer about Salmonella.

For example, Salmonella can cause outbreaks in a plethora of foods, including dry foods. That raises questions about its ability to survive in places where we don’t normally see other foodborne pathogens surviving.

With respect to fresh produce, fresh fruits and vegetables, Salmonella now accounts for almost half of the outbreaks caused by those commodities. There are many questions regarding why that is.

On how the Salmonella study will operate:

Like I said, there are 2,500-plus types of Salmonella. Our goal will be to sequence 4,500 isolates from those [2,500] different types, to obtain information regarding the DNA sequence of the whole genome of each bacterium. Those bacteria will come from the types of Salmonella that we commonly see causing illness in humans, as well as Salmonella that are rare or have perhaps never caused illness in humans.

We hope to compare the genomes of those different types and, when combined with other methods, obtain information that will tell us more precisely why there are certain types of Salmonella that seem to commonly cause illness and other types that do not.

Some of that work has already been accomplished in other studies, but certainly not in as comprehensive a manner as what we hope to do with this work.

We’ll be sequencing the entire genomes of the bacteria we’re testing, which has been done previously but on a small scale. In our case, we’ll be sequencing 4,500 isolates of Salmonella obtained from around the world. And while most studies seem to focus on the few isolates that cause human illness, we will expand that and focus not only on those types, but types that are rare, in order to really understand why there’s such a small number of Salmonella that seem to cause the majority of human illness.

On how the study will help prevent Salmonella contamination:

The objective of the study is to ultimately reduce the number of Salmonella cases that occur through consumption of contaminated food. The information from this study will help us to do that in three ways:

First, we’ll make use of the information to develop novel strategies to control Salmonella on fresh produce as it’s growing on the field — pre-harvest.

Second, the information will be used to develop better and more accurate diagnostic tests. For example, if we can show that there are some Salmonella that are more virulent than other types of Salmonella, and we can identify the markers in the bacteria that cause one serotype of Salmonella to be more virulent than another, then we can actually build that into the new test so that when we actually detect Salmonella, we’ll not only know that the Salmonella is present, but we’ll know about its ability to cause human disease.

Finally, we hope to develop new methods that could be used to track the sources of contaminated food during an outbreak so that those foods can be removed from retail circulation faster.

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McGill Food Safety Team Gets $10 Million for Salmonella Research

James Andrews — Sat, 08 Aug 2015 05:01:17 +0000

A food safety team at Montreal’s McGill University has been awarded $10 million for a study intended to answer remaining questions about Salmonella and how food growers can better prevent its contamination. The research team, led by McGill Food Safety Associate Professor Lawrence Goodridge, Ph.D., will first sequence the genomes of 4,500 isolates from the 2,500 known Salmonella serotypes — a process that will take more than a year. Of the 2,500 known serotypes of Salmonella, only about two dozen cause the vast majority of illnesses around the world. The goal of the study’s first phase will be to identify what makes those 25 or so virulent serotypes different from a genetic perspective. Comparing the genetic information from so many serotypes, Goodridge told Food Safety News that he hopes the study will answer questions concerning some of the bacterium’s traits, such as its ability to sicken people via dry foods that don’t seem to foster the growth of other types of bacteria. The information should also help food growers and food safety researchers develop new ways to tackle Salmonella on produce in the field. It will also allow for the development of more comprehensive diagnostic tests for Salmonella, as well as better methods for tracking the food source in the case of a Salmonella outbreak. The project officially kicks off in October, although the team’s preliminary work has already begun. The full study is expected to take four years to complete. “Certainly, in the next four years, there’s going to be a lot of work in the laboratory,” Goodridge said. The $10-million grant was awarded through Genome Canada, a non-profit organization that supports the use of genomic technologies to solve economic and social problems. An estimated 93 million people worldwide are sickened by Salmonella each year. Next week, Food Safety News will feature a video interview with Goodridge discussing the project in more detail. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

IAFP 2015: Interview with Frank Yiannas, Vice President of Food Safety for Walmart

James Andrews — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 07:05:21 +0000

Frank Yiannas, food safety expert and Vice President of Food Safety for Walmart, sat down with Food Safety News at IAFP 2015 in Portland, OR, to discuss how he manages his responsibilities, how technology influences food safety, and the role of litigation in cases of foodborne illness. Watch the interview here, or read the highlights below: Highlights from the conversation are slightly edited or condensed: On tackling food safety at the world’s largest retailer:

“Working at Walmart, it’s a pretty fast place. You mentioned we’re the world’s largest retailer — we buy and sell more food than anyone else in the world. We think about that a lot. We operate in over 30 countries and have over 200 million customers around the world, 2.2 million employees, and tens of thousands of food suppliers. “I share that to say that I realize we have a very important responsibility to make sure the foods we buy and sell are safe.”

On his day-to-day responsibilities:

“My day is fast-paced and an interesting combination of what I call ‘working out of your inbox and your outbox.’ What I mean by ‘inbox’ is those issues that come up that you don’t anticipate: Food recalls that we may see on any given day, a food issue in an emerging market that we didn’t anticipate. “Any issue that might be related to food and in the news, we’re going to pay attention to it because, whether it impacts our brands or not, we’re going to ask ourselves the question, ‘What does it mean to Walmart?’ “I also try to discipline myself to do what I call ‘working out of my outbox.’ What are the proactive and preventative type things we should be working on? “Examples I would give from the past few years: You’ve seen us roll out the global food safety to all our suppliers in 2008. You saw our action on the beef safety initiative in 2010. In December 2014, we announced a poultry food safety initiative and at the top of this year we rolled out our position on antibiotics in agriculture.”

On solving problems at a large scale: “How do you do this at the scale of an organization like Walmart? You kind of learn to solve challenges a little differently when you have to do it at this size. There are three concepts that come to mind: “Number one is simplicity. Everything we have to do has to be simple in an organization that’s really large and complex. It’s hard to get things done, so we strive for simplicity. I’ll give you an example. We looked at rotisserie chicken and how we prepare rotisserie chicken in our shops. We have over 11,000 retail units around the world. So we took something we coined a ‘food safety task analysis,’ looking at steps in the process, and we distilled a 17-step process down to six steps, making sure we simplified how that rotisserie chicken was cooked, improving quality and reducing food safety risk at the same time. “Another thing you have to do when you’re operating at this scale is to look for game-changing or paradigm-shifting ideas. You can’t necessarily solve problems like some of the smaller [retail] entities. I’ll give you an example of what that looks like. We all know that Listeria contamination is an issue. Most organizations will focus in on appropriate principles, like sanitation of the deli environment — and we know there’s a focus on that right now in retail. Training our employees — we’re obviously involved in training our employees and orienting them with the equipment. But because of our scale, again, we want something that’s a little bit more bulletproof. So we’re going to do all the things that a typical-sized organization would do, but we came up with what we call a game-changing idea by requiring all of our deli meat suppliers to reformulate their deli meats to include a natural inhibitor to prevent the growth of Listeria to more than one log for its shelf life. Being a big operator, we need to leverage those game-changing ideas. “Thirdly, I think we have to really be informed. We use data and analytics to be working on the right problems at the right time. An example that I use there, we have a handheld technology system that we use in all of our U.S. stores — and moving nationally. We do all of our food safety checks on handheld devices as opposed to on paper. What that does is it gives us big data. I’ll give you an analogy: We took a look at rotisserie cooking temperatures for a single month. We saw some outbreaks involving other retailers in the U.S., so we said, ‘How are we doing?’ Over a given month, what we saw was that regulatory inspectors across the land that come into our stores, but they don’t necessarily come when the rotisserie ovens are on, so over that period of time they only check the temperatures in our rotisseries about 10 times. We try to be responsible and hire a third party to audit all of our stores, and we look at how many times they check the rotisserie temperatures over the period of a few weeks, and they check about 100 times. But because we’re trying to leverage information technology and big data, we looked at how many times we’d checked our temperatures with our [handheld] system, and guess how many temperatures we recorded? 1.4 million. “I share that with you because it’s a paradigm shift. I no longer need to rely on an inspector coming in to different places. When a handheld goes off, I know exactly how we’re performing, what changes need to be made, and the pieces of equipment that are more challenging. So we think we solve problems a little differently because of scale.” On technology’s role in food safety: “I think food safety has to go the way of Netflix and not Blockbuster. I think we’ll see a transformation of equipment being automated, food safety processes being automated, and all of this big data leading to real information to help us get better at prevention.” On Walmart’s strategic food safety plan:

“We have a strategic plan that’s no secret. We benchmark it and share it openly, and it’s based on five strategic initiatives. “Number one, reduce food safety risk early in the supply chain. We have a host of strategies and objectives about what we’re supposed to do early in the supply chain with at-risk suppliers, large suppliers, small and local suppliers. “Number two, try to reduce the retail risk factors. Those things we try to do right at retail: Cold-holding, hot-holding, cross-contamination. That begins with designing our facilities right, making sure we have simplified procedures, educating our associates, leveraging information technology — a whole host of strategies that reduce those risk factors. “Number three is to enhance regulatory compliance. In a perfect world, regulatory compliance and risk would be identical, but there are some things we do for regulatory compliance reasons that may not really reduce food safety risk. Country-of-origin labeling, for example. “Number four is to manage emerging issues. I find that after 25 years in the profession, we spend a lot more time in emerging food safety issues — ranging from antibiotic resistance and antibiotic stewardship to our position on genetically modified foods, and a whole host of issues. “Our fifth strategic initiative is to try to drive domestic and global consistency — to try to operate in the best way that we can around the world.”

On the rise of retail food recalls since 2000:

“We’re in this race — and when I say ‘we,’ I mean everyone in the food industry — and the race is between public health’s ability to detect and industry’s ability to prevent. The detection has gotten so good — and we’re happy that it’s gotten so good — but detection is outpacing prevention. As an industry, we need to accelerate prevention. “I’m not convinced that the food supply is less safe than it’s ever been. I actually think it’s safer than it’s ever been. But we’re getting really good at detection, which is a good thing. It will allow us to further influence prevention and further reduce the risk of foodborne disease.”

On the role of litigation in food safety:

“At the risk of alienating some of my colleagues and brethren, I think that litigation has an appropriate role in the food safety system. There’s no question that it’s helped advance food safety and prevented foodborne illness as well as bring a new focus to criminal prosecutions for people who do things that are pretty egregious. “No question, negative consequences have a role in society and in food safety. Being a student of the behavioral sciences, I prefer to gravitate — and all the behavioral sciences say this pretty clearly — positive reinforcement and positive consequences outweigh negative reinforcement and consequences. “We as a society need to look at the positive consequences and positive reinforcement when it comes to food safety, not just the negative.”

On the future of food safety in the next 10-20 years:

“Based on recent FoodNet data, looking at the incidences of foodborne illnesses per 100,00 population, the message is that maybe we’ve stalled. Things have gotten better and we’ve made dramatic progress, but in some respects, at least for some pathogens, we’ve stalled. The concept is that what got us here isn’t necessarily what’s going to get us to achieve our Healthy People 2020 goals. We have to do things differently. “I genuinely believe that our profession is at a crossroads. We can choose to take the fork to the left and continue to do what we’re doing today, or we can do things that are significantly different by changing the paradigm of how we solve problems. If we take the fork to the left, I think we’ll see a little bit of progress, but things will mainly stay stalled. I think we have to take some quantum leaps in our approaches and how we manage food safety.”

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IAFP 2015: Experts May Have Determined How Caramel Apples Caused That Listeria Outbreak

James Andrews — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 05:44:40 +0000

In November 2014, health officials began investigating two concerning clusters of Listeria infections that seemed to be related. The two strains of bacteria had already killed at least five people and hospitalized a few dozen others by the time they got on the case, and they wanted to find the source and stop it as quickly as possible. Ultimately, the investigation led back to a very unexpected source. It was caramel apples, sold under various brand names but which all used apples traced to one distributor, Bidart Bros. of Shafter, CA. Perhaps even more unexpected was the next observation: The Bidart Bros. apples that were coated in caramel sickened people, and yet others had eaten the non-caramel apples from Bidart Bros. and did not become ill. For most people, the first assumption would be that the caramel, or the coating process, was somehow causing the contamination. But that didn’t make sense to investigators, since so many different companies were responsible for the caramel coating. Testing at the Bidart Bros. facility showed that the contamination was clearly occurring there. That’s when experts began hypothesizing that the caramel coating process was somehow exacerbating the contamination. To get to the bottom of the matter, Dr. Kathleen Glass from the University of Wisconsin-Madison led a study that replicated the procedures and conditions that the caramel apples had likely undergone. Glass, associate director of the Food Research Institute at the university, presented her preliminary findings on Tuesday at the 2015 International Association for Food Protection annual meeting in Portland, OR. On their own, neither apples nor caramel struck Glass as foods that would typically foster Listeria growth. Something about the caramel coating process had allowed for bacterial growth. Her hypothesis: When the sticks (used for holding the caramel apple) punctured the contaminated apples, they spread small amounts of apple juice over surface of the otherwise dry outer skin. Then, once the caramel coating was applied, it locked in the juice and created a micro-environment in which the Listeria on the surface of the apple could grow undisturbed. To test the hypothesis, Glass’ team inoculated a number of apples with Listeria. They then punctured the apples with a stick and applied caramel coating to half of them, while coating the other half in caramel but leaving out the sticks, so that there was no puncture to allow for juice to escape from the inside of the apples. Then, half of stick-punctured caramel apples went into a refrigerator, and the other half were left at room temperature. The same was done with the stick-free apples: half in the fridge, half at room temperature. Both sets of stick-punctured caramel apples — the room-temperature and the refrigerated — grew Listeria at a significantly faster rate than the stick-free caramel apples. Within days, the amount of Listeria present on the stick-punctured, room-temperature apples more than doubled, while the stick-free room-temperature caramel apples saw mild, steady growth of the bacteria over a much longer period of time. The stick-punctured apples in the fridge still grew a significant amount of bacteria, while the growth of bacteria on the stick-free refrigerated apples was relatively minimal. Glass said the data were still under peer review, but she believes this is a plausible explanation for how the first-known caramel apple Listeria outbreak could have happened. Earlier in the same presentation, Robert Tauxe from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shared statistics with the audience on the historic numbers of Listeria outbreaks detected in the U.S. each year, dating back to 1983. For the 14-year period from 1983-1997, the U.S. detected only five Listeria outbreaks, said Tauxe, who is CDC’s deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases. In 1998, CDC introduced PulseNet, a network and pathogen database shared by health departments around the country. With increased outbreak surveillance, the agency began detecting 2.3 Listeria outbreaks each year between 1998-2003. In 2004, the agency introduced its “Listeria initiative,” an enhanced surveillance system for Listeria infections, and the average number of outbreaks detected each year rose to 2.9. Finally, in 2014, many health departments around the country had begun to adopt whole-genome sequencing, a method of identifying pathogens much more accurately than previous methods. That year, the agency counted nine Listeria outbreaks — by far the most it has ever detected in a year. It’s not that we’re experiencing more Listeria outbreaks today than in the 1980s, Tauxe explained. We’re simply getting much better at finding them. Correction: This article has been updated to correct an error. The caramel apple study was erroneously said to split the apples into two separate groups: Apples that were punctured with a stick and then coated with caramel, and apples that were punctured with a stick, but left caramel-free. That was incorrect. The two groups were divided between apples that were punctured with a stick and then coated with caramel, and apples that were coated with caramel, but not punctured with a stick.

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Chicken Flock Study on Salmonella Transmission Makes Novel Discovery

James Andrews — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 05:01:36 +0000

Despite Salmonella being the most common illness-causing foodborne bacteria in the U.S. food system, still very little is known about the precise processes through which the bacterium contaminates and transmits among its most pervasive carriers: chickens. New research from the University of Arkansas, however, is aiming to bridge the gap in knowledge about how Salmonella infects such a large percentage of poultry. If the researchers can map out the process, food safety scientists stand a better chance of developing a method to stop it in its tracks and keep it from spreading, said Yichao Yang, lead researcher of the study and a doctoral candidate at the university’s Department of Poultry Science. To reach the goal of clearly mapping out the Salmonella transmission process within flocks, Yang has designed a novel testing scheme. The tests are still in their preliminary stage, she told Food Safety News, but they are already seeing some interesting results. Using six unique strains of Salmonella with a specific DNA identification code, and a group of initial carrier chicken for each of the unique strains, the researchers worked to map out how the bacteria moved through a Salmonella-free flock. So, the groups of carrier chickens were infected with the bacteria via one of three methods: orally (direct, with half given high doses and half low doses), through feed (half the strains added at high doses, the other half at low doses), or through the water supply (also at half high, half low doses). The infection groups were separated by these methods, with six chickens in each group. In other words, six chickens were infected orally, another six were infected in their feed, and yet another six were infected through their water supply. And each specialized strain of Salmonella had DNA “barcode” that the researchers could follow as it interacted with the the flock. Each group of six infected chickens were then placed with additional 10 Salmonella-free peers, making flocks of 16, ready to share their barcoded bacteria with one another. In the oral transmission group, the non-infected birds appeared to only become infected with one strain of Salmonella that was given in a high dose. But if the chicken was infected by a low dose of Salmonella, it then became infected with additional strains. The other two groups had a notably different result. The Salmonella strains given in high doses initially infected the chickens first in equal proportions. As time went on, however more of the low dose Salmonella entered into the flock, and the strains began to share an equal foothold among the flock. The research team is still working to map out exactly how each infection spread and plans to conduct further trials with larger flocks. In the meantime, they’ve made at least one novel discovery: Chickens can be infected with more than one strain of Salmonella. Previously, research into Salmonella in flocks suggested that once a chicken was colonized by one strain of Salmonella, that strain would prevent others from further colonizing the bird. This is known as the colonization inhibition theory, Yang said. But, according to this research, chickens can indeed be infected with more than one unique strain. Knowing that their preliminary study is already leading to new discoveries related to Salmonella transmission in flocks has made Yang and her team even more optimistic about making further discoveries. The eventual goal is helping to reduce the spread of Salmonella to chickens and, further down the line, humans. “If we know exactly how Salmonella transmits in chickens, we’ll be able to know how it’s coming into the flock,” Yang said. “We believe we can stop the transmission if we know how it occurs and therefore stop transfer into the human food chain.”

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Bill Banning State GMO-Labeling Laws Moves to House Floor

James Andrews — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 05:03:26 +0000

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee has approved a bill that would put an end to state-level laws regulating the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food. The bill, H.R. 1599, or the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, would require a national standard for labeling laws related to GMOs — one that did not require food companies to disclose their use of genetically modified ingredients. Companies that wished to tout the fact that their products do not contain GMOs, such as with a “GMO-Free” label, would still be able to do so if the bill passed. That process would operate similarly to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s organic certification. Maine, Connecticut and Vermont have already passed laws that would require foods containing GMOs to be labeled, while GMO-labeling campaigns are underway in a number of other states. The bill, initially introduced by Reps. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) and G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), is expected to pass the House. Whether or not it will pass the Senate is less certain. The bill’s supporters in Congress say that GMOs are inherently safe and that no well-regarded scientific experts have proven a safety concern over GMOs. “Consumers increasingly want to know more about where their food comes from and how it is produced,” said Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee. “I think H.R. 1599 satisfies that demand while also recognizing what we know about the safety of the foods that our farmers produce. The bill is a workable solution that will alleviate the potential mess of 50 states with 50 different labeling schemes,” he said. Other lawmakers and consumer groups, such as the Center for Food Safety and the Environmental Working Group (EWG), disagree. They oppose the bill, saying that it denies consumers the right to know what is in their food. “Americans have the right to know what’s in food and how it was grown — the same as citizens of 64 other nations that require GMO labeling,” said Scott Faber, EWG’s vice president of government affairs. “It’s time for lawmakers to recognize that right and stand for GMO labeling.” As much as 80 percent of packaged foods in grocery stores contains GMO ingredients, according to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which opposes GMO labeling. The House is expected to vote on H.R. 1599 later this month.

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FSIS: Beef Safety Measures Seem To Be Working

James Andrews — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 05:03:01 +0000

After testing for Salmonella and E. coli on a variety of beef carcasses at slaughter plants, federal food safety authorities are saying that slaughter plant beef safety measures seem to be working well. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has released its data from the first six months of surveys meant to determine a baseline load of Salmonella and E. coli on beef and veal carcasses. For all varieties of pathogens tested, the rate of contamination dramatically fell after the animal and been slaughtered and bacterial kill-step interventions had taken place. For Salmonella, FSIS found 25.49 percent of beef carcasses contaminated with the bacteria before interventions. Afterward, contamination rates dropped to 3.92 percent. E. coli O157:H7 has long been the target of beef producers eager to limit its rates, which likely explains why it was found on only 1.6 percent of carcasses before interventions. After interventions, that number dropped to 1.07 percent. Non-O157 E. coli strains have more recently become a target for beef producers, following the USDA’s decision in 2012 to add six more E. coli strains to its list of adulterants in ground beef. Those six strains were found on 8.39 percent of pre-intervention carcasses and 1.78 percent after interventions. Popular intervention strategies include hot water washes, lactic acid washes, or chlorine-based washes — all of which occur after the carcass hide has been removed. Some processing plants may use one method, or a combination, or a completely different method, such as steam pasteurization or steam vacuuming. FSIS plans to release an official report in another six months after it has completed its year of surveying. “These results suggest that the interventions are reducing the pathogens on the beef and veal carcasses,” the agency stated. These surveys are preliminary work for FSIS leading up to the USDA’s 2017-21 Strategic Plan to prevent foodborne illness and modernize systems, policies, and science.

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Study: Salmonella Infections Rise With Extreme Weather Events

James Andrews — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 06:03:34 +0000

New research has shown that climate change may be causing more than just an increase in extreme weather events such as heat waves and storms. Those events also seem to be bringing a heightened risk of Salmonella outbreaks with them. The rates of people sickened by Salmonella rises each time their area experiences an extreme weather event, according to a new study published in Environment International and conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland. To be precise, the researchers observed the risk of Salmonella infection increase 4.1 percent each time Maryland experienced an extreme heat or precipitation event. Those extreme weather events were defined as any time the state experienced temperatures or precipitation greater than the top 10 percent of hottest and wettest days from a 30-year baseline of 1960-1989. Given that numerous climate studies anticipate extreme weather events increasing in frequency and intensity in the coming decades, health officials and communities will need to account for the additional foodborne illness burden resulting from these events, said Amir Sapkota, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Applied Environmental Health and senior author of the study. The increased risk of infection was also more pronounced in coastal areas compared to areas further inland. While extreme precipitation events resulted in a 3.6-percent increase of Salmonella infection risk to inland areas, they caused a 7.1-percent increase of risk in coastal regions. The explanation for this is fairly simple: Extreme weather events give bacteria more of what they like. “A lot of evidence shows that rising temperate and precipitation is conducive to bacterial growth and transmission,” Sapkota said. “Bacteria tend to multiply and grow better in warmer and wetter environments.” But that’s just part of the story. Extreme weather events also cause flooding and water runoff that spreads and amplifies bacterial loads. Take chicken farming as an example. Maryland produces more than 300 million broilers chickens each year on its Eastern Shore. First, rising temperatures perpetuate the colonization and growth of Salmonella among flocks, likely leading to higher rates of contamination on poultry products. Second, chicken manure is commonly used as fertilizer in Maryland. Once an extreme precipitation event rains down on a field fertilized with contaminated chicken manure, the manure runs off into streams, bodies of water, and even drinking wells, Sapkota said. There have been numerous cases of children and others falling ill with bacterial infections after swimming or recreating in public bodies of water, and the runoff from food-producing fields is a likely explanation in many of those cases, he added. One study cited by the team showed that Salmonella could persist in soil for as long as 405 days, providing ample opportunity for a precipitation event to spread it somewhere else. Weather events likely affect coastal areas to a greater degree because not only do they have a higher concentration of people, but residents spend more time around water, where they increase their chances of exposure to harmful bacteria during water runoff events. There could be exceptions to how well these observations translate for other foodborne pathogens such as E. coli and Listeria, but Sapkota said that the situation was most likely similar for any other bacteria. Next, the team plans to continue studying the relationship between extreme weather and bacterial illness by expanding their study region to include states outside Maryland. In the meantime, Sapkota said he hopes the study helps raise awareness about the connection. “People should become aware of the issue to help themselves,” he said. “If you’re living in a coastal area and you have reason to believe the water may be contaminated during extreme precipitation events, then you should certainly reduce your family’s recreational activities.” “Of course, the other big thing,” he added, “is to properly cook your food.”

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Updated: Cyclospora Outbreak in Texas Sickens 113 People

James Andrews — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:40:16 +0000

Update (July 6): The number of illnesses in this outbreak has risen to 113. The article below has been updated to reflect this new case count. For the third summer in a row, Texas is dealing with an outbreak of Cyclospora. At least 113 Texans have been hit with Cyclospora infections this year, as health authorities work to determine the cause, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. At least 101 of the illnesses have been confirmed in the last two weeks. No hospitalizations or deaths have been reported. The outbreak seems to be centered on Travis County, where Austin is located. Cyclospora is a single-celled parasite that causes symptoms such as watery diarrhea, abdominal cramping, and nausea. It is most commonly spread through food and water contaminated by feces containing the parasite. Symptoms of a Cyclospora infection can take several days to a week to appear, making investigations into the cause of the outbreak especially difficult. If untreated, infections can last weeks or even months. In the summer of 2013 and again in 2014, Texans were sickened in large Cyclospora outbreaks, both times linked to fresh produce from Mexico. The 2013 outbreak sickened at least 469 people across 16 states, with Texas reporting 171 cases — the most of any state. That outbreak was at least partially linked to produce grown by Taylor Farms in Mexico and served at restaurant chains owned by Darden Restaurants, which operates Olive Garden and Red Lobster. In 2014, another Cyclospora outbreak sickened at least 126 people in Texas. Those illnesses were eventually traced back to fresh cilantro grown in Mexico. Officials at the Texas Department of Health Services say they’re investigating the cause of this summer’s outbreak. Food Safety News will continue to provide updates on the investigation as it progresses. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Proposed Trade Deal Prompts Concern Over Imported Shrimp

James Andrews — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 05:01:49 +0000

Members of the U.S. shrimp industry are voicing concerns that elements of a major trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, could weaken the ability of regulators to reject unsafe seafood imports. The concern arises as more shrimp imports from Southeast Asia are testing positive for banned antibiotics and foodborne pathogens. More than 90 percent of the shrimp consumed in the U.S. is imported from overseas, and yet in 2014 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only inspected 3.7 percent of shrimp imports and tested 0.7 percent. Moreover, U.S. shrimpers say they’re worried that new trade deals will open the borders to more shrimp farmed with trade-illegal subsidies, giving those growers an unfair market advantage, said David Veal, executive director of Wild American Shrimp. “We recognize that international trade is essential for this country,” Veal said. “What we’re concerned about is that exporting countries to the U.S. follow the same set of production rules, processing rules, and export rules that American producers follow.” The rules on the books are good, Veal said, but he’s not convinced that FDA has the power to enforce those rules, given the agency’s limited capacity for inspections at the border. Shrimp producers outside of the U.S. are currently not subject to some of the same regulations as domestic growers. Most notably, some shrimp products from places such as Vietnam and Malaysia have tested positive for antibiotics, which are not allowed in U.S. shrimping operations. In a recent study from Consumer Reports, 11 out of 342 imported shrimp samples tested positive for antibiotics, while 16 percent of cooked, ready-to-eat samples tested positive for at least one foodborne pathogen, such as Salmonella, E. coli, or Vibrio. “These trade rules could significantly weaken food safety standards,” Veal said. But not everyone in the seafood industry agrees. “The suggestion by anti-trade voices that imported shrimp poses a food safety risk is part of a protectionist-driven, fake food safety scare,” said Gavin Gibbons, vice president of communications for the National Fisheries Institute. According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, imported seafood accounts for 0.12 percent of yearly illnesses in the U.S., Gibbons said. Additionally, all seafood imports are subject to FDA’s Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) program, he said. When it comes to the new trade deals, however, Veal said members of the shrimp industry aren’t the only one biting their nails. “I think you’ll find a lot of American industry shares our sentiments, especially other areas of the food industry,” Veal said. “We recognize the need for trade, but we don’t want to give the rest of the world carte blanche permission to do whatever they want to do to the food they send here.”

The Prevalence of Foodborne Illness

James Andrews — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 05:01:21 +0000

Days ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its most recent yearly summary of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States. The summary covered the year 2013, and it found that 818 foodborne outbreaks were reported in the country during that year — a number consistent with the 800 to 850 outbreaks reported for each of the previous four years. But the number of reported foodborne outbreaks has significantly declined over the past 10 to 15 years. In 2000, CDC received reports of 1,417 outbreaks, as well as another 1,243 in 2001 and 1,330 in 2002. At first glance, the drop in outbreak reports might suggest a decline in the prevalence of foodborne illness over the years. But while the data show that the prevalence of some foodborne pathogens is declining, the drop in reported outbreaks has less to do with improved food safety and more to do with the actual logistics of reporting. New information on the reporting of foodborne illness outbreaks indicates that the decline in reports is in part due to changes with how some outbreaks are reported, and — more alarmingly — a decline in funding for outbreak investigations at the state level. CDC estimates that foodborne illness sickens about 48 million people in the U.S. each year, resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Some 30 percent of the population — young children, the elderly, and pregnant women and their expected children — are especially susceptible to foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria. The vast majority of those illnesses go unreported simply because so many factors must come together for the reporting to occur. The ill person needs to consult with a healthcare provider, who then needs to test a stool sample for the right pathogen, and then the infection needs to be reported to the local health department. But you need at least two illnesses to make an outbreak. That’s why health investigators monitor for illnesses that connect and form outbreaks. From there, they can work to warn the public, assure recalls occur, and monitor for additional illnesses. But before they can report on these outbreaks and work to stop them, they need resources such as staffing, infrastructure and funding. A new report from the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) suggests that the decline in reported outbreaks may be partially due to state-level funding cuts for public health. Not only are fewer outbreaks being reported, fewer are being solved. CSPI found that 41 percent of reported outbreaks were solved in 2003, compared to only 29 percent by 2012. The ability of states and county health departments to detect and investigate outbreaks appears to be at least partly tied to budgets, according to CSPI. (A sudden drop in outbreak reports after 2009 was also attributed to a change in reporting that allowed for norovirus outbreaks to be attributed to more than just food.) Since 2005, the National Association of County & City Health Officials has seen up to an 18-percent decline in the number of environmental health specialists whose primary responsibilities include preventing foodborne illness. In 2011 alone, 10 percent of local health departments reduced or eliminated their food safety programs. These cuts have come despite health departments already lacking sufficient funds to meet recommended resources and staffing levels, according to the association. As a result, neighboring states are reporting hugely different rates of foodborne illness, seemingly as a result of their budgets for public health investigations into foodborne illness. When adjusted for population, Florida reported fives times as many outbreaks as neighboring Alabama, and Maryland reported four times as many outbreaks as West Virginia. The resources and priorities of state and local health departments really do have an impact on how many outbreaks get reported, said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director for the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases at CDC. “One of the most outbreak-ridden states seems to be Minnesota, but that’s not because Minnesota is having more dangerous outbreaks than other states,” Tauxe told Food Safety News. “It means they make food outbreaks a priority and they’re investigating more of them.” It might be even more difficult for states to investigate outbreaks if not for support from federal CDC programs such as FoodNet and PulseNet, said Caroline Smith Dewaal, the former director of food safety at CSPI who just joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the agency’s international food policy manager. “The state officials I talked to said that it’s essential for the CDC to continue to fund these programs,” Dewaal said. “If they didn’t have CDC money, their results would be even worse that what we’ve documented,” she added, referring to the CSPI’s report on the decline in outbreak reporting. CDC’s FoodNet and PulseNet programs, among others, aid state and local health departments in outbreak investigations. CDC wants those health departments detecting more outbreaks and detecting them faster, Tauxe said. The support from CDC helps identify gaps in the nation’s food safety system, said Nils Fischer, a food safety research associate at CSPI. The prevalence of foodborne illness has led to an estimated $15 billion in annual healthcare costs for Americans, and our best defense is outbreak surveillance, Fischer said. In the meantime, outbreaks are occurring through food vehicles never before associated with foodborne pathogens, Tauxe added. Food contaminated with Listeria, such as caramel apples and ice cream, have been connected to illnesses and deaths in Americans for the first time this year. A key part of the strategy to detect and report these outbreaks will be new technologies. Already, some public health laboratories are field-testing a technology known as whole-genome sequencing to more accurately identify pathogens that sicken people — and therefore more easily identify outbreaks. Some food companies are even adopting whole-genome sequencing for testing their own products or internally investigating contaminations that appear in their facilities. At the same time, other companies are adopting newer technologies to prevent illnesses, including devices with sensors that continually transmit data to the Internet to monitor for temperature abuse and other food safety red flags. Tauxe said that in the next five years, new technologies should be significantly improving the detection and reporting of outbreaks, along with allowing food companies to more easily prevent problems at their facilities. Everyone in the food safety system — from the food companies to the government regulators and public health investigators — wants a landscape with a lower prevalence of foodborne illness, Tauxe said. New technologies are going to help bridge that gap. “The goal is to find food safety problems we would not otherwise have a way of knowing about,” Tauxe said.

How the ‘Internet of Things’ Will Impact Food Safety

James Andrews — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 05:01:16 +0000

This is the year that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) begins rolling out key components of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the sweeping law meant to modernize the U.S. food safety system. And, as part of that legislation, FDA is requiring significantly more detailed monitoring and record-keeping on the part of food producers. One way food producers are choosing to monitor more of their production and handling operations is by utilizing sensors connected to the “Internet of Things” (IoT), the vast network of devices communicating over the Internet without the involvement of humans. With the IoT, food companies are beginning to use various types of sensors to monitor key production conditions, shipping time, numerous other metrics, and, most important, temperature. “Temperature has the biggest impact on food safety, and it’s what many food companies are most interested in monitoring,” said Brad Walters, CEO of Monnit, a sensor technology company. “By far the most prominent use is in commercial refrigeration,” he added. Over the Internet, these sensors are able to keep constant tabs on the condition and quality of food as it’s produced, transported and stored. The resulting paper trail gives companies more assurance that they’re maintaining adequate food safety standards. According to some estimates, by 2020 there will be four times as many non-traditional devices connected to the Internet as there are computers, tablets and smartphones. The main purpose for many of them? Collecting data — lots of it. For food companies, that means collecting food safety data to ensure both that the product stays safe and that they know where they went wrong if anything compromises the product. Take, for example, a fresh produce company monitoring how its shipments are doing in terms of temperature, location, the amount of light exposure, and how much jostling the products experience. If their fruits or vegetables reach the grocery store bruised or rotten, they’ll be able to look back through the data to see what went wrong — or who’s to blame. FSMA will require food facilities to comply with Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) regulations and report on all steps associated with HACCP compliance. While those records have traditionally been tracked with paper-based logs, more companies will be turning to devices pre-loaded with HACCP checklists that instantly transmit data over the Internet, according to PAR Technology, a restaurant and hospitality software company. Those devices might also prompt workers to perform required inspections, verify those inspections, and transmit any other data to the cloud to be easily reported for compliance. Walters said that he envisions a near-future in which every player in the food supply chain has systems in place to continually monitor their products, as well as be aware of how the supply is looking at any other point in the supply chain. For example, everyone in a beef supply chain will know the temperature and condition of the next shipment before and after it reaches its end-point. Though Walters’ company supplies Internet-ready sensors to companies in a number of industries, he said that the food industry is leading the way with a huge share of the early adoption into the IoT. Of those, restaurants and food manufacturing facilities seem to be the most keen to transition into cloud-based record-keeping and monitoring. But farmers and shipping companies are coming on board as well. Another company has developed an ear tag for cattle that monitors bovine respiratory disease, which can quickly spread if the infected animal isn’t immediately removed from the herd. With the sensor, managers can be instantly alerted to a sign of respiratory disease and treat the animal before it causes an outbreak. With all the applications related to food safety within the IoT, analysts predict that most all devices in the food industry will be connected before very long. “I give it a five-year timeframe before the tsunami hits,” Walters said.

Managing for Salmonella in 2015 Continues to Present Challenges

James Andrews — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 05:01:03 +0000

Despite decades of efforts to control contamination rates, Salmonella has long been the most common illness-causing bacteria in food, and it remains the leading cause of death and hospitalization from foodborne illness in the U.S. Today, Salmonella is still one of the top food safety concerns for the food industry, government regulators, and consumer advocates, and it’s regularly the leading topic at food safety conferences, including the National Food Policy Conference, which recently hosted a panel discussion on the latest attempts to manage the threat of Salmonella. One thing that makes Salmonella so challenging is that we’re still discovering new serotypes all the time, said Dr. David Goldman, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Salmonella is represented by about 2,500 serotypes, 60 percent of which cause illness in humans. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is still discovering new Salmonella serotypes on almost a weekly basis, Goldman said. At the same time, Salmonella outbreaks are continually linked to food products previously not associated with the bug. Just in 2014, Salmonella outbreaks were traced back to cucumbers, sprouted chia seeds, and pet bearded dragons, to name a few. Health officials have been working for decades to get Salmonella infection rates under control, but with little to show for it. In 2000, the federal government set a goal of reducing Salmonella infection rates from the 18 in 100,000 people it affected in 1987. They were successful, taking measures that lowered that rate to 13.6 per 100,000 by 2000. But they might have been too quick to celebrate. For 2010, the feds set a very optimistic goal of 6.8 Salmonella cases per 100,000. Instead, the rate went back up to 15 per 100,000. Now, the health objective for 2020 is 11.4 cases per 100,000 — a 20-percent reduction from the 15.2 per 100,000 seen in 2013. By comparison, rates of E. coli O157:H7 have steadily declined through years of intervention measures, dropping in 2013 to around 30 percent of the rates seen in 1996. USDA-regulated foods — namely poultry, beef and pork — account for roughly 34 percent of all recorded Salmonella cases. As a result, in 2011, USDA set stricter performance standards for Salmonella in poultry. Eighty percent of chicken purchased by consumers is in cut-up parts, which previously did not have performance standards. USDA found that about 24 percent of chicken parts carried Salmonella and proposed measures to reduce that to 15.4 percent in chicken parts and 13.5 percent in ground turkey. Now the agency is considering Salmonella performance standards for ground beef and pork cuts as well. Comparing the struggle to control Salmonella to efforts that successfully led to E. coli reductions, it’s important to understand that Salmonella simply behaves in ways that make it more difficult to control, said Scott Eilert, vice president of food safety, quality and regulatory for Cargill Inc. With E. coli, the main food safety lesson is simple: Keep the meat clean, Eilert said, meaning that the most important measure is ensuring that fecal material from the intestines doesn’t contaminate the carcass. With Salmonella, it isn’t that simple. The bug can transfer to the lymph nodes of cattle, or into the inner tissues of a broiler bird. Learning from previous ground turkey recalls, Cargill now tests all of its ground turkey for Salmonella before sending it out to stores. If the levels pass a threshold the company considers too dangerous, the turkey is diverted to a product line that gets cooked before reaching the marketplace. The company is continually looking for similar strategies with other products to drive down the chances of encountering a Salmonella problem, Eilert said. But because Salmonella in poultry is considered a natural hazard — unlike E. coli in ground beef, which is considered an adulterant — no companies are currently required to take the measures that Cargill does to help prevent their customers from being sickened. USDA can’t do anything to stop companies in the event of a severe Salmonella contamination, either. That’s why Foster Farms chicken was able to sicken hundreds of customers with Salmonella over a 17-month period in 2013 and 2014 — no one could order them to stop over Salmonella, and the company didn’t volunteer to do so. Of course, consumer groups are pushing for USDA and Congress to do more. For one, many are urging the agency to give adulterant status to the most virulent strains of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella. They’re also pushing for Congress to grant USDA the authority to issue recalls over Salmonella outbreaks. “That would go a long way toward giving the USDA the ability to deal with situations like what we saw during the Foster Farms outbreak,” said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, the nonprofit arm of Consumer Reports. Failing that, the U.S. poultry industry could always try following Denmark’s lead. After accepting its serious Salmonella problem some 25 years ago, the country developed a Salmonella action plan to tackle it head-on. The original goal was to reduce rates of the bug in flocks to 5 percent, but that was soon revised to a zero-tolerance level for Salmonella. And it actually worked. “In 2002, the plan was handed over to the industry, who continue to finance and administer the plan,” said Anna de Klauman, minister councilor for food and agriculture at the Danish Embassy in Washington, D.C. “We’ve had no record of Salmonella in Danish broilers in the past three years.”

Tests of Canned Food Brands Reveal Most Have Controversial Chemical in Can Lining

James Andrews — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:41:04 +0000

Bisphenol-A, or BPA, a chemical component found in plastic bottles and canned food liners, has long courted controversy over its alleged health risks. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has maintained that it is safe at current levels, environmental groups and others contend that the synthetic compound may cause health complications in humans. On Wednesday, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released its list of 78 canned food brands that use BPA in their can lining, along with 31 brands that do not use BPA. The organization said this is the first time that such information has been released. The list of brands containing BPA includes household names such as Progresso, Hormel and Del Monte, as well as more specialized or regional brands. Products that do not use BPA in can lining included those from brands such as Amy’s, Tyson and Earth’s Best Organic. EWG tested 252 canned food items between January and August 2014 to come up with the list and is now encouraging supporters to take action by demanding that the companies using BPA cease doing so. BPA can leach out of container linings and into food, and studies have shown trace amounts to be found in most people. Some studies have shown that large doses of BPA exposure may be linked to a range of health maladies, from reproductive issues to cancer. But FDA and other regulatory bodies around the world have repeatedly dismissed those claims, stating that the levels found in food are far too low to cause any health problems. The American Chemistry Council, for one, agrees. “Scientists and regulatory agencies who have reviewed BPA have concluded that BPA is safe for use in food packaging,” said a representative from the Grocery Manufacturers Association in a statement to Food Safety News. Aside from FDA, that list of regulatory agencies includes the European Food Safety Authority, the World Health Organization, the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Health Canada. Last year, scientists from FDA and the National Institutes of Health published a collaborative study looking into the effect of BPA on rats at doses ranging from 70 times the amount Americans typically consume to several million times that amount. Even at 70,000 times the typical American exposure levels, the rats in the study exhibited no significant changes, the researchers found. In May, California’s scientific advisory panel added BPA to its list of toxic chemicals. In 2011, EWG successfully campaigned to have BPA banned from baby bottles and sippy cups in California, and today, bottles and cups designed for babies and young children and sold in the U.S. do not legally contain BPA. The organization’s director of research, Renee Sharp, called for a national standardized limit on BPA in canned foods. “Many people on tight budgets or with little access to fresh food rely on canned food as a source of nutrients,” Sharp said in a statement. “That’s why we need to get this right. We need a clear national standard that limits the use of BPA in canned food and improves transparency so that people can know when and if they are ingesting this harmful chemical.”

Data Software Company Aims to Revolutionize Access to Restaurant Inspection Scores

James Andrews — Thu, 28 May 2015 05:01:21 +0000

Imagine being able to travel to any city in the country — or even the world — and pull up Yelp, Urbanspoon, or a similar smartphone app and instantly access a universal health inspection scoring system for the restaurants you might want to patronize. You could immediately see which restaurants failed recent health inspections, had major violations, or even caused a foodborne illness outbreak — all in a clear, easy-to-understand scoring system rating a restaurant’s health record from zero to 100. That’s the vision of open data software company Socrata, which is launching an initiative in June to begin familiarizing local and state health departments with a standardized restaurant inspection scoring system called LIVES, or Local Inspector Value Entry Specification. Right now, health authorities around the world operate with a patchwork of disconnected scoring systems. Some use a scale of zero to five stars, while others use an ABC grading system, or red-yellow-green warnings. Many use a scale of zero to 100, with 100 being the best possible score, while some flip it around and use zero as the top score. For consumers concerned about food safety, trying to keep track of all the different scoring systems can be a daunting task. For example, how does a yellow rating in the color system compare to a C in the letter system or three out of five in the star system? Enter LIVES, which normalizes restaurant inspection scores across jurisdictions by translating various scoring systems into a universally standardized zero to 100 scale. The standardized system isn’t intended to replace the health departments’ system of choice, but instead serve as a translation to make the score more universally understood. That zero to 100 score can then be used on consumer review websites and apps such as Yelp and Urbanspoon. As an example, take a look at this stellar health inspection score chart for a coffee shop in Louisville, KY. Because the municipal health department in Louisville has already adapted their scoring system into LIVES, Yelp is able to take that data and include it in the restaurant’s listing. Not only can potential customers clearly see that the coffee shop scored 96 out of 100 on its latest inspection, they can look back at all the restaurant’s inspection scores over the past five years. LIVES was first developed by Yelp in 2012 in partnership with the cities of San Francisco and New York. It’s already being used there, as well as in a handful of other jurisdictions around the U.S., including Los Angeles and Austin, TX. Over the next six months, Socrata hopes to significantly expand the number of participating jurisdictions by hosting a series of cohorts in which they will guide up to 10 jurisdictions through the process of adapting their scoring systems to LIVES over a two-month period. By the end of those two months, the jurisdictions will have set up a system for LIVES translation, as well as created a system to openly publish their health inspection data for consumers to more easily access the information. “So much work goes into collecting restaurant inspection scores. It’s an enormous undertaking to make sure consumers are protected and restaurants are complying,” said Sarah Schacht, Socrata’s public health data advisor. “The information can do so much to improve public health, but it has to be where the consumers are.” Consumers aren’t flocking to government websites to look up health inspection scores, Schacht said, but they do go to review-style apps. The LIVES system leverages the tools that consumers are already using to inform themselves about where to eat. In the process, it could protect consumers from bad actors — or publicly pressure the bad actors into cleaning up their act. Some evidence already exists to show that restaurants perform better in health inspections when the information is widely shared with the public. Cases of foodborne illness in Toronto dropped by 30 percent after the city introduced a health score placarding system in restaurant window fronts in 2002, suggesting that restaurants were more keen to avoid health violations when the score would be pinned up for all to see. Earlier this year, Yelp released its own study showing that restaurants with scores displayed on the website took more steps to improve their future inspection scores compared with restaurants with no visible score. But there’s still room for additional information. Schacht said she’s hoping to find more researchers interested in studying the correlation between the availability of health inspection scores and rates of foodborne illness. Socrata’s first cohort for government jurisdictions starts June 13 and wraps up in mid-August. Representatives and IT personnel from city, county and state agencies will work side by side under the direction of Socrata to get on board with the LIVES system and arrange an automated way to openly share their data. Schacht estimates that a government entity can get everything up to speed and automated with one person spending 20-25 hours on the project over the course of two months. “It’s a low-cost, high-impact way to fulfill the mission of public health,” she said.

Lytton Interview: The Role of Litigation in Food Safety

James Andrews — Mon, 25 May 2015 05:01:03 +0000

Albany Law School professor and author Tim Lytton sat down with Food Safety News at the 2015 Food Safety Summit last month in Baltimore, MD, to discuss the influence of litigation on food safety. Lytton describes litigation as one of the three key pillars of the U.S. food safety system, along with government regulation and private industry standards.

Lytton is working on an upcoming book about the U.S. food safety system and has written several books on tort litigation and industry regulation.

Watch the interview below:

CDC: Salmonella Outbreak Has Sickened 50 People in 9 States

James Andrews — Mon, 18 May 2015 20:51:22 +0000

At least 50 people in the southwestern U.S. have been sickened with a rare strain of Salmonella that has been associated with consumption of raw tuna sushi in several states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC said Monday that the agency is working with public health officials in nine states to investigate what it is now calling a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Paratyphi B variant L(+) tartrate(+). The three main states known to be involved in the outbreak are California (29 cases from 6 counties as of May 15), Arizona (9 cases), and New Mexico (6 cases). A CDC spokesperson told Food Safety News that patients from the other six states traveled to the southwest, where they were most likely exposed to the outbreak strain. Health officials in California, Arizona and New Mexico have said that many of the cases were connected to consumption of raw minced or ground tuna used in sushi. The CDC spokesperson said that while many of the patients reported eating sushi, “the investigation has not conclusively identified a food source.” Local and state health officials are continuing to interview patients to gather more information on the foods they ate in the week prior to their illnesses. Ten of 43 patients interviewed (23 percent) have been hospitalized. Dr. Bob England, director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health in Phoenix, said in a statement released on Friday that there were multiple restaurants involved in the outbreak. “That is strong evidence that the contamination is occurring before it gets to the restaurant,” England said. The outbreak strain of Salmonella does not cause typhoid fever or paratyphoid fever, CDC noted. Food Safety News will continue covering this outbreak as more information comes to light.

FSMA Readiness: The Challenge of Implementation

James Andrews — Mon, 18 May 2015 05:01:50 +0000

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hosted a “Kickoff Meeting” in Washington, D.C., for a new law promised to revolutionize the nation’s food system into one focused on preventing foodborne illness. That law, the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), was enacted more than four years ago, but FDA is finally ready to implement its key rules over the coming year — whether food companies are ready or not. The first of those wide-sweeping rules is coming up Aug. 30, with three more going into effect on Oct. 31. That’s fairly soon, and while many companies are prepared, or preparing, for them, the most common mistake the rest are making is waiting to implement compliance until the rules are finally here, said Melanie Neumann, executive vice president and chief financial officer of food safety consulting firm The Acheson Group. FDA has already released draft proposals for its key rules, and the language of the final versions is likely to be 95-percent identical to the draft proposals, Neumann told Food Safety News. Because of that, there’s no reason to not start preparing right now, she said. “The sooner you start, I believe the less expensive it will be,” Neumann said. “The longer you wait and shortchange yourself on time, the more costly it will be to implement.” Implementing FSMA compliance doesn’t have to be complicated, she added, but it can be time-consuming and intimidating to begin. So, how does a company get up to speed? Before a company can understand how to comply with FSMA, they need to know their current strengths and weaknesses. And they can do that through a readiness assessment, Neumann said. First, companies should assess which of the seven upcoming FSMA rules apply to them, walk through the expectations of each one, and determine where the company currently stands. From there, they should map out a timeline trajectory for implementation steps wherever they have gaps. One of the most common gaps for companies is in their lack of knowledge about their suppliers. “Companies certainly need to start with who’s in their supply chain and who supply them,” Neumann said. “You’d be surprised to know how many managers don’t know their suppliers.” In their defense, however, most companies source ingredients through brokers and distributors who want to keep their supplier list private. Regardless, Neumann said, companies need to learn as much as possible about their suppliers and the goods they source. To simplify things, Neumann uses the example of black pepper on potato chips. If a potato chip manufacturer sources pepper from a supplier and adds it to the chips after the frying kill step, they need to know whether or not the pepper already underwent a kill step at the supplier. Since pepper has been shown to potentially carry harmful bacteria, the potato chip company’s manufacturing process hinges on their knowledge of how the pepper was processed. That knowledge of product risk is critical to creating an efficient, risk-based management program, Neumann said. If a product has a historically low food-safety risk and comes from a supplier with a strong track record, that product likely needs less verification oversight compared to suppliers with riskier product or shakier performance. Companies should categorize their suppliers according to risk, Neumann said, and require more from higher-risk suppliers to prove they have their product and facilities under control. Once a company understands the risks in its supply chain, leadership needs to act on that knowledge and potentially decide to cease doing business with risky suppliers, says Randy Fields, CEO of supply chain software firm Park City Group. Utilizing traceability technology is the key for a company to understand its supply chain, said Tejas Bhatt, food safety programs manager at the Institute of Food Technologists. “You can’t solve a problem you’re not aware of,” Bhatt said, “and without traceability technology, you don’t have a way to know what could go wrong with your supply.” As a traceability consultant, Bhatt encourages food companies to assess their goals and resources before deciding on a specific technology to use. While he said there is no one-size-fits-all technological solution, all companies can use traceability technology as a foundation on which to develop all their FSMA compliance strategy. And while conventional wisdom might suggest that large companies are in the best position to adopt new technologies because of larger budgets and greater access to resources, Bhatt said he feels the opposite is true. His observations leave him optimistic that mid-size and smaller companies are in a very advantageous position to take on new technologies and adapt to stringent supply chain management as FSMA rules come into effect. For one thing, smaller companies are less complex, meaning they can adopt new technology more quickly. FDA has also given them a longer grace period to comply with rules — often one to two years longer than companies classified as large. “If the right technology is selected, it doesn’t have to be cost-ineffective,” he said. “I have seen fishermen off the Solomon Islands using electronic traceability systems.” Neumann shared a similar sentiment, reiterating that FSMA compliance doesn’t necessarily have to come at a huge cost. Waiting until the last minute to comply with the rules will likely result in plenty of headaches, though — if not haphazard spending. “I think there are a lot of middle-ground solutions for many in the industry,” Neumann said. “Many think that this is going to be a very heavy lift and, with careful planning, it doesn’t have to be.”

Schacht Interview: Using Restaurant Inspection Data to Improve Public Health

James Andrews — Thu, 14 May 2015 05:01:19 +0000

Open government consultant and food safety advocate Sarah Schacht sat down with Food Safety News at the 2015 Food Safety Summit in Baltimore, MD, last month to talk about how data from restaurant inspections can help improve public health. Schacht is a two-time E. coli survivor who has been spearheading efforts in Seattle’s King County to improve access to restaurant inspection information.

She discusses her trials with E. coli, her work to bring a new type of restaurant placarding system to King County, and the benefits of providing more easily accessible restaurant data to the public through services such as Yelp.

For more information on Schacht and King County’s move toward more accessible health inspection information, Food Safety News has been covering the topic:

Watch the interview with Schacht below:

FSMA Readiness: Litigation, Insurance, and Safeguards

James Andrews — Mon, 11 May 2015 08:59:01 +0000

When Albany Law School Professor Tim Lytton attended the 2015 Food Safety Summit in Baltimore nearly two weeks ago, he could sense something, however faintly, among the crowd of food industry professionals: nervousness. For decades, he said, the public has been anxious about the safety of our food system. From the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak in 1993 to the spinach E. coli outbreak of 2006, and massive outbreaks and recalls from peanut butter, cookie dough, and myriad other products in the years following, consumers have spent decades wondering about the safety of their food. Of course, the food industry is also concerned about food safety, but recent developments are making food safety an even larger concern for food companies. Accountability has extended to the top executives, and companies are more concerned than ever about the risk of litigation and the need to properly manage and document every part of their operation. Much of that paradigm shift relates to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a federal law enacted in 2011 that promised the most sweeping reform to the U.S. food system in more than 70 years. Key parts of the law are scheduled to finally go into effect over the coming year, and they’re intended to transition the nation’s food safety strategy from reactive — responding to recalls and outbreaks — to one that’s much more proactive and preventive. “Part of what FSMA’s doing is spreading some of that anxiety about food safety from the public onto the producers,” said Lytton, an author specializing in tort litigation and industry regulation who is currently writing a book on the U.S. food safety system. “You’re starting to hear from the industry not just a discussion about risk management, but a general responsibility about food safety — creating a culture of food safety that’s partly an anxiety about food safety.” Food producers have long felt the pain of outbreaks and recalls, not just from a financial and brand-damaging perspective, but from the risk of litigation. Since at least the Jack in the Box outbreak in 1993, food companies linked to outbreaks have often come to face lawsuits from those who fall seriously ill or who lose loved ones to foodborne illness. For decades, however, many food companies have escaped litigation because they’re simply never caught. Recent advancements in technology are beginning to change the landscape, but currently, less than 10 percent of foodborne illnesses are ever traced back to a specific food product. In the coming years, new technologies such as whole-genome sequencing will result in a greater number of illnesses being traced back to products. Combine that with more stringent record-keeping and supply chain verification requirements coming down the pipe with FSMA, and you’ll be seeing a higher percentage outbreaks and illnesses connected to food products over time, said Dave Gombas, senior vice president of food safety and technology at the United Fresh Produce Association. When it comes to fresh produce, Gombas said, the stakes can feel especially high. For one, fruits and vegetables don’t have the benefit of a cooking “kill step” for bacteria that’s afforded to so many other types of foods. “People are becoming more conscious of their vulnerability,” he said. “Fortune favors the prepared. Those folks who are more conscientious are going to be exposed to less risk.” One of the most important things to prepare for is the risk of recall, Gombas said. Even if they feel they’re doing everything right, recalls can be impossible to predict. “Recalls happen and you don’t have to do anything wrong,” Gombas said. “Being prepared is the difference between a painful recall and a very painful recall.” Lytton agreed, saying that the most prepared companies have figured out an insurance plan. “I think that adequate liability insurance and recall insurance is essential to the survival of a company,” Lytton added. That said, plenty of food producers are feeling well-prepared for FSMA implementation. Members of California’s Leafy Green Marketing Association (LGMA), for example, already abide by standards that are generally stricter than FSMA, given what’s known so far about the upcoming final rules, said CEO Scott Horsfall. “Based on our experience, I’m confident that farmers will find it easier to comply than they may think,” Horsfall said. But elsewhere in the industry, some companies are still not feeling confident about their preparedness for FSMA, assuming they’ve taken the first step of pulling their head out of the sand and accepting that it’s coming, said Dave Theno, CEO of food safety consultancy firm Gray Dog Partners and former vice president of food safety at Jack in the Box. While Theno said that most of his clients are prepared for FSMA, some companies are feeling intimidated particularly by the prospect of validating and documenting their processes. Under FSMA’s preventive controls rules, for example, companies will be required to verify the effectiveness of their safety protocols. “There are a ton of people out there that aren’t doing bad things, but haven’t validated what they do,” Theno said. “They have no idea if their processes are exact or not.” Assuming that FDA can fully fund enforcement of FSMA — the agency is asking Congress for an additional $109.5 million — Theno and others hope that the agency uses the first few years after enactment as a sort of learning period for both the industry and the agency. Both the industry and FDA need time to ease into the age of FSMA regulations, Theno said. One way companies can better prepare for all of FSMA’s regulations is by embracing traceability technology, said Tejas Bhatt, program director for the Global Food Traceability Center at the Institute of Food Technologists. Traceability and record-keeping are the foundations on which all other aspects of FSMA compliance are built, Bhatt said. By tracking each end of the supply chain, companies can easily stay accountable in the eyes of FDA. “You cannot solve a problem that you’re unaware of,” Bhatt said. “Without traceability, you don’t have a way to know what could go wrong with your supply.” Thankfully, Bhatt said, FDA has given companies a large amount of leeway in how they choose to trace their supply chains and validate their processes, allowing companies to choose the best options and tools for their needs. Given that, he sees smaller companies having unique opportunities to quickly adapt to the new landscape of food safety regulation. But the bottom line is that companies need to adapt if they’re not already ahead of the curve. Under FSMA, record-keeping is king. “To the agency or any other stakeholder, if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen,” said Melanie Neumann, executive vice president and chief financial officer for The Acheson Group, a food safety consultancy firm. “The biggest step-up for industry needs to happen with record-keeping.” In some ways, FSMA is simply memorializing into law what the best food safety practitioners have been doing for years, Neumann added. For the most part, companies have slowly been accepting that coming into compliance with FSMA will not only help consumers, but it will help protect their brands as well. Yes, the law is costly, Neumann said. Yes, it’s burdensome. But compared to the promised benefits of reduced recalls and outbreaks, the changes are worth it, she said. “When you really look at all of its component parts and all of its net results,” Neumann said, “consumers win, brand reputation wins, and it really becomes the ultimate risk-management tool where all the stakeholders win.”

Detwiler Interview: Food Safety from a Consumer Perspective

James Andrews — Fri, 08 May 2015 05:01:58 +0000

Darin Detwiler, adjunct faculty at Northeastern University and Senior Policy Coordinator at STOP Foodborne Illness, sat down with Food Safety News at the 2015 Food Safety Summit in Baltimore, MD, last month to discuss food safety from a consumer perspective.

Detwiler’s son, Riley, was one of four children who died in the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak. Since that outbreak, Detwiler has pushed for a safer food system through various roles.

Watch the interview below:

Senators, Food Industry Groups Call for More FSMA Funding

James Andrews — Fri, 01 May 2015 05:01:38 +0000

On the heels of a high-profile Listeria outbreak and the recall of all Blue Bell ice cream products, seven Democratic U.S. senators on Thursday called on the Senate Appropriations Committee to fully fund the federal Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) by approving President Obama’s request for an additional $109.5 million to implement the law. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s FSMA law is necessary to bring America’s food system into the 21st century by shifting from a strategy of reaction to one of prevention, the senators wrote. They include Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Brian Schatz (D-HI). “Providing the President’s requested increase of $109.5 million would enable FDA to retrain inspectors in the new prevention-based oversight system; hire technical experts to assist growers and food manufacturers to understand and comply with the new requirements; and build the new comprehensive food import oversight system provided for in the law,” the senators wrote in their letter to the appropriations committee. Durbin’s office said that the letter was spurred by the ongoing Listeria outbreak linked to Blue Bell ice cream. That outbreak has so far been associated with three deaths and sickened 10 people in four states. The senators said they feel that preventive control rules laid out in FSMA would require further testing that potentially could catch contamination before food products are released to the public, including the Blue Bell contamination. “Having measures like this in place, and the funding to ensure their understanding and compliance, are absolutely necessary to prevent future life-threatening outbreaks and costly recalls,” the letter stated. Also on Thursday, Michael Taylor, FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods, took questions during a town hall meeting at the Food Safety Summit in Baltimore, including a question about how FDA was going to fund implementation of FSMA. That additional $109.5 million requested by the president would go a long way toward sustaining the momentum of FSMA implementation, Taylor responded. Most critically, he said, the agency could use that money to implement the import provisions of the law, considering that consumer confidence in the safety of imported foods is especially shaky. “We’re crystal clear in our communications on the hill that the absence of this funding will have serious consequences for our ability to implement this law in a timely, effective, and non-disruptive way,” Taylor told the audience at the conference. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that FDA would need an additional $580 million in funding over a five-year period to effectively implement FSMA. Even if it receives that $109.5 million in the president’s budget, the agency’s funding for FSMA would still only reach about half of that estimate. “We can sustain momentum because we’re being targeted and efficient, but without these additional resources, progress will be disrupted,” Taylor said. FDA sees widespread support for FSMA throughout Congress, he noted, but getting the funding is another story. Thursday’s letter from the senators also follows a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee from 22 major food and beverage companies and food industry associations which also urged approval of the president’s 2016 FDA budget request for FSMA implementation. The letter was signed by representatives of industry groups such as the Produce Marketing Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, as well as major manufacturers such as Nestle and PepsiCo and some retailers, including Costco and Walmart. “Our commitment to food safety is steadfast and we need a strong FDA as our partner to fully implement FSMA and to play its proper role in ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply,” the letter stated. “With the additional $109.5 million in new budget authority requested by FDA, we also welcome congressional oversight; not only to ensure these investments are implemented effectively, but also to make certain that the agency’s regulatory implementation of FSMA is consistent with what the law requires, and what Congress intended in adopting the law.”

Lessons Learned: Food Safety Summit Revisits 2014 Outbreak

James Andrews — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 05:01:12 +0000

The state of Maryland has only experienced four foodborne illness outbreaks in the past 10 years that sickened 100 people or more. Unfortunately for food safety experts, one of those outbreaks occurred at last year’s Food Safety Summit, an annual conference dedicated to food safety solutions. Last year’s conference in Baltimore ended with 216 of the 1,300 attendees sickened, predominantly with diarrhea, and some with nausea and vomiting. An investigation by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene eventually found the smoking gun to be a chicken marsala dish, most likely contaminated with Clostridium perfringens, which was served at lunch on the second-to-last day of the conference. The 17th-annual Food Safety Summit returned to Baltimore this year, and it made for a fitting forum to discuss lessons learned from last year’s ironic outbreak. At a session on Wednesday, attendees listened to a detailed outline of last year’s outbreak investigation as described by Alvina Chu, chief of the state health department’s Division of Outbreak Investigations. The outbreak was first reported by four attendees who fell ill in the wee hours of April 10 — the final day of the summit — after attending conference sessions the day before. As more reports came in, investigators quickly understood that the agent was not Norovirus, the most common cause of outbreaks at conferences. Most attendees were experiencing diarrhea, but not vomiting, a common symptom in Norovirus outbreaks. State health officials launched their investigation on April 16. Analyzing more than 200 reports, it was soon apparent that the illness onset times created a very tight epidemic curve, suggesting that almost all the cases were exposed at the exact same time and in the same location. The most likely timing for exposure was determined to be lunchtime on April 9. After submitting questionnaires to case patients and other attendees, the health department concluded that sickened attendees were five times more likely to have eaten a chicken marsala dish compared to those who didn’t get sick. However, approximately 30 percent of the sickened attendees did not eat the chicken marsala dish. Some attendees reported feeling sick before arriving at the conference, Chu said, so it was possible that they exposed others to illness regardless of the lunch served on April 9. “Please, if you know you’re sick and you’re planning to attend a conference, don’t go to the conference,” Chu joked to the audience. A few challenges plagued the investigation, she said, namely the late start to the investigation, which didn’t occur until a week after the time of exposure. Investigators were unable to test any of the food served that day, for example. Another problem was that not enough attendees reported their illness symptoms fast enough before they were tracked down. People who are feeling sick should always consider notifying the health department, even if it doesn’t feel urgent, Chu said. “Even if you don’t think it’s a problem, let us help figure out if it’s a problem,” she added. Finally, another challenge was getting enough attendees to volunteer stool samples. By the time the investigation was rolling, many attendees were feeling better and perhaps didn’t see the benefit of providing a stool sample. To that, Chu had one final, simple plea: “If you’re involved in a foodborne outbreak and someone asks you for a stool sample, please help us out and send us some stool,” she said. “You’re not really using it anyway.”

Tyson ‘Striving to Eliminate’ Human Antibiotics in Chickens

James Andrews — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 05:01:17 +0000

Tyson Foods, the largest poultry producer in the U.S., announced Tuesday that it would strive to quit using human antibiotics in its chicken flocks by the end of September 2017. The company, based in Springdale, AR, stated that it has already stopped using all antibiotics in its 35 broiler hatcheries, requires a veterinarian’s prescription for antibiotics used on broiler farms, and, since 2011, has reduced by more than 80 percent the human antibiotics it uses to treat broiler chickens (those raised for meat). “Given the progress we’ve already made reducing antibiotics in our broilers, we believe it’s realistic to shoot for zero by the end of our 2017 fiscal year. But we won’t jeopardize animal well-being just to get there. We’ll use the best available treatments to keep our chickens healthy, under veterinary supervision,” said Donnie Smith, president and CEO of Tyson Foods. Public health advocates are commending the company for the move, which they say will make a significant impact in efforts to slow the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The move follows an announcement by McDonald’s in March that the company aims to stop serving chicken raised with medically important antibiotics — drugs useful in human medicine — by March 2017. Tyson is a major supplier of chicken to McDonald’s. Tyson’s leadership, however, said their decision was not directly related to the McDonald’s announcement. Also, Tyson said it does not anticipate increasing the costs of its chicken products as a result of the change. Soon after the announcement, health experts and consumer organizations began expressing their approval of the decision. “Everyone in public health and consumer health is pretty excited right now,” said Dr. Gail Hansen, veterinarian and senior officer with the Antibiotic Resistance Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts, speaking to Food Safety News. Nine billion chickens are slaughtered in the U.S. each year. Each human or animal given antibiotics becomes a vehicle for the creation and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Hansen said. “That’s nine billion fewer chances for the bacteria to become resistant and spread,” she added. Keep Antibiotics Working, an organization dedicated to the elimination of medically important antibiotics from animal agriculture, praised Tyson’s move while urging the company and other meat and poultry producers to extend the policy to beef, pork and turkey. Tyson said it will also be forming working groups to tackle the challenge of removing antibiotics from those animals. In February, Perdue Farms, the third-largest chicken producer in the country, announced that it would no longer use antibiotics in its hatcheries and that it does not use medically important antibiotics on 95 percent of its chickens. With Tyson, the industry leader, taking this new stance against human antibiotics, it puts more pressure on the rest of the industry to follow suit, Hansen said. “The other companies using antibiotics in chickens will probably follow,” she said. “We’d certainly love to have them follow.”

Food Safety Summit Kicks Off in Baltimore Without Incident

James Andrews — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 03:40:38 +0000

The 2015 Food Safety Summit kicked off early Tuesday morning in Baltimore, MD, despite riots damaging part of the city and the state’s governor declaring a state of emergency Monday night. Violence broke out in Baltimore on Monday afternoon following the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore man arrested by police April 12 for possessing a switchblade knife. Gray died a week later after surgery for injuries to his spinal cord and larynx sustained while he was in police custody. The first day of the summit, held at the Baltimore Convention Center and just blocks from Camden Yards, began with several day-long sessions that were well-attended in the morning. As planned, Tuesday’s main forum started off with a speech on the vision for an integrated food safety system by Michael Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While some scheduled speakers canceled their appearances at the last minute, the summit proceeded without interruption for the remainder of the day. At one point, conference organizers joked that the few speaker cancellations just allowed for the afternoon’s networking mixer to begin an hour early. Organizers said that security had been bolstered at the convention center, along with nearby hotels, and that they were in close communication with the mayor’s office and city officials who were monitoring the situation. “Safety is of course a major priority for all of our guests, staff and visitors,” conference organizers wrote in a statement to attendees. “We have been assured that our guests should feel comfortable coming to the event and that travel should not be affected.” No events have been canceled for the remainder of the conference, which continues through Thursday afternoon. The Food Safety Summit is an annual conference and exposition focused on solutions to food safety issues. This year’s conference is being held from April 28-30.

Listeria Victims Address FDA, Food Industry Officials in D.C.

James Andrews — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 05:01:20 +0000

A year ago, Brad Frey never would have imagined he’d be standing in front of officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and urging them to do more to prevent outbreaks of Listeria monocytogenes. Despite living in the middle of “crop country” outside Santa Cruz, CA, he had never heard of Listeria monocytogenes, a foodborne bacteria less well-known than Salmonella or E. coli, but one that can more often be fatal. But Frey was painfully aware of Listeria by December 2014, when his mother, Shirlee Jean Frey, passed away from a Listeria infection after eating a contaminated caramel apple purchased at Safeway. This past week, he and other foodborne illness victims from around the U.S. traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with congressional aides and have the opportunity to directly address FDA and food industry officials at the agency’s kickoff meeting for implementing the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

Brad Frey holds his phone while a video plays of his parents dancing in their driveway two years ago. His mother, Shirlee Jean Frey, died from a Listeria infection in December after eating a contaminated caramel apple. Frey and other victims shared their stories with federal lawmakers last week in Washington, D.C.

“In December, my mother passed away from Listeria,” Frey said, speaking to FDA officials in the audience and a panel of food industry representatives taking questions. “Since the caramel apple outbreak, we’ve seen three more outbreaks in the news. It’s pretty heartbreaking to know that testing could have saved lives, but not enough testing is being done.” Frey went on to ask the industry panel and FDA what specifically they were going to do to reduce the risk of Listeria illnesses going forward. None of the industry panelists opted to answer, but Frey did get a quick response from Roberta Wagner, director of regulatory affairs at FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. That’s what FSMA is all about, Wagner said — making sure that food companies and FDA work to eliminate preventable foodborne illnesses because so many of them are preventable. Frey was soon followed at the microphone by John McKissick, a retired teacher and consultant from Pennsylvania who fell ill with Listeria three years ago after eating contaminated cheese imported from Italy and France. McKissick spent two months hospitalized, six weeks of that time unconscious. The infection caused significant nerve damage and, as a result, he had little choice but to retire from work. “In many cases, Listeria infection is a life sentence,” he told FDA officials. “It cannot be taken lightly.” McKissick asked how FDA was going to reduce Listeria illnesses and improve the safety of imports through its foreign supplier verification program, a core component of the new regulations included in FSMA. Agency officials are working to ensure that not only will they be setting strong standards for the companies that audit foreign food suppliers, but they’re setting up “rigorous protections” to make sure there are not financial ties between the suppliers and the auditors, said Charlotte Christin, special assistant to the director of the Office of Compliance within FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. The foreign inspection program will require importers to take a “proactive responsibility” for food safety in a way they were not held accountable before, added Deb DeVlieger, national food expert for FDA’s Office of Food and Feed. The panelists moved on to other questions, but Frey and McKissick were soon surrounded by supporters sharing stories and thanking them for coming to speak at the meeting. “One lady from the FDA came up to me after I spoke and said, ‘Every day when I go to work, I think of people like you,'” Frey told Food Safety News after the panel discussion. “That felt good. You want them to be thinking about the victims.” Frey’s mother was 81 when she contracted Listeria, but she was still very active prior to her illness. She and her husband, Jim, still liked to dance, and she had many more years of life in her, her son said.

Jim and Shirlee Jean Frey. Shirlee Jean passed away in December 2014 after eating a caramel apple contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

Now, Frey worries that his father, 88, won’t be able to move on. “I’m afraid he’ll be an additional casualty in a way,” Frey said. “There’s collateral damage in these outbreaks. It’s not just the victim who suffers.” Both Frey and McKissick said they came to meet face-to-face with FDA and food industry representatives to be a reminder of why food safety is so important. The victims can’t get lost in the shuffle of discussions over regulations and costs, McKissick said. “Listeria is a miserable illness, and I want to make sure no one else gets it,” he told Food Safety News after addressing the panel. A day earlier, McKissick and Frey met with aides to their respective U.S. senators to encourage Congress to come up with the additional $109.5 million FDA says it needs to fully achieve protections sought by FSMA. Frey said that his mother’s passing has led to an educational experience into the workings of laws and regulations related to food safety. From a distance, it’s frustrating to feel that food companies have so little oversight that her mother could get Listeria from eating something as seemingly harmless as a caramel apple, he said. But after meeting with congressional staff and speaking with FDA officials, he has more appreciation for the daunting task of making the nation’s food system safer. Following his mother’s death, Frey’s family retained food safety law firm Marler Clark (which underwrites Food Safety News) to represent them in a wrongful death complaint. Frey, McKissick, and other foodborne illness victims were invited to Washington, D.C., by the Pew Charitable Trusts, whose Food Safety Project aims to be a voice for consumers in dialogues about food safety regulations. McKissick said he hopes both FDA and industry officials will remember the victims as they adjust to the new FSMA regulations rolling out over the next year. “Food is so important, and yet it leaves us vulnerable to all sorts of illnesses,” he said. “Our health shouldn’t just be the luck of the draw.”

FDA Kicks Off the ‘Year of the Food Safety Modernization Act’

James Andrews — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 05:01:08 +0000

In front of hundreds of food industry and trade association representatives in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) presented its unified plan to roll out and implement the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Signed by President Obama in January 2011, FSMA will bring about the most sweeping changes to the U.S. food system in more than 70 years. On the first day of its “FSMA Kickoff Meeting,” FDA officials gave stakeholders an update on key components of the new law, declaring 2015 “the year of FSMA.” In the afternoon, the agency dedicated a series of listening sessions to gather perspective from everyone in attendance who had something to say — and many did. Concerns came in covering a range of topics. Importers still need more concrete details about how they’ll be evaluated. Domestic food manufacturers want to know how FDA’s new inspection system will affect them and how the agency will keep the system consistent for all growers and manufacturers. But one fact from the meeting was certain — FSMA is on its way, with all of the rules being finalized within the coming year, and nearly all food makers are required to comply in less than five years. The following is a summary of when the major components of FSMA will be finalized and when food companies will be required to comply with them. Preventive Controls for Human Food The rules on preventive controls are intended to set safety requirements for facilities that process, package and store food. Final rule deadline: Aug. 30, 2015 Compliance deadline for firms with 500+ employees: One year after publication of the final rule Compliance deadline for small businesses (fewer than 500 employees): Two years after publication Compliance deadline for very small businesses (less than $1 million in annual sales): Three years after publication Preventive Controls for Animal Food These rules are intended to better protect animal food and feed from contaminants. Final rule deadline: Aug. 30, 2015 Compliance deadline for businesses with $2.5+ million in annual sales: One year after publication Compliance deadline for small businesses (fewer than 500 employees): Two years after publication Compliance deadline for very small businesses (less than $2.5 million in annual sales): Three years after publication Produce Safety Rule The produce safety rule is intended to set new standards for growing, harvesting, packing and holding produce on domestic and foreign farms. Farms with less than $25,000 in annual produce sales are exempt from this rule. Final rule deadline: Oct. 31, 2015 Compliance deadline for farms with $500,000+ in annual produce sales: Two years after publication Compliance deadline for small businesses (farms with $250,000-500,000 in annual produce sales): Three years after publication Compliance deadline for very small businesses (farms with $25,000-250,000 in annual produce sales): Four years after publication Compliance deadline for water quality standards and related testing: Two additional years past produce rule compliance date Foreign Supplier Verification Program The FSVP is intended to hold importers responsible for ensuring that foreign food suppliers meet the same public health standards required of U.S. food producers. Final rule deadline: Oct. 31, 2015 Compliance deadline for most firms: 18 months after publication Third Party Certification of Auditors for Foreign Suppliers The third party certification program will establish a program for the accreditation of third-party auditors to inspect and evaluate foreign facilities and the foods they produce. Final rule deadline: Oct. 31, 2015 FDA said it “intends to implement this program as soon as possible after publication of the final rule.” Sanitary Transportation Rule This rule will require the use of sanitary practices for transporting food. Final rule deadline: March 31, 2016 Compliance deadline for motor carriers with $25.5+ million in annual receipts or businesses with 500+ employees: One year after publication Compliance deadline for small motor carriers with less than $25.5 million in annual receipts or small businesses with fewer than 500 employees: Two years after publication Intentional Adulteration Rule The intentional adulteration rule will require facilities to implement a food defense plan to prevent actions intended to cause public harm. Final rule deadline: May 31, 2016 Compliance deadline for business with 500+ employees: One year after publication Compliance deadline for small businesses (fewer than 500 employees): Two years after publication Compliance deadline for very small businesses (less than $10 million in annual sales): Three years after publication Expect more coverage of FSMA in the days and weeks to come. Food Safety News will be posting a series of stories on FSMA and many of the challenges that remain before it can be fully realized across the food system.

A Look Back at Food Safety During Obama’s First Six Years

James Andrews — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 05:01:11 +0000

Since the Obama administration took over the executive branch more than six years ago, foodborne illnesses from meat, poultry and eggs — products regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — has been falling. In fact, just from fiscal year 2013 to 2014, illnesses from meat and poultry has fallen by 10 percent, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who was appointed to head USDA when the president took office in 2009. That’s not a coincidence, he said — it’s the result of six years of progress at USDA. Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, made a case for his six-year tenure as the head of USDA during a keynote address in Washington, D.C., this week at the 2015 National Food Policy Conference. Later in the conference, a panel of food safety and food policy experts took to the stage to discuss the administration’s record on food safety six years into Obama’s presidency. The Agriculture Secretary attributed that 10-percent decline in foodborne illnesses to a few key measures. First, reductions in E. coli cases can be linked to increased testing of ground beef and bench trim, including the classification of adulterant being extended to six more strains of shiga toxin producing E. coli besides O157:H7. Other important measures during the past six years include the first-ever performance standards established for chicken. And now, the agency is focused on finalizing performance standards for Salmonella and Campylobacter on chicken parts and ground chicken and turkey. Ultimately, Vilsack said that he and his government colleagues couldn’t take full credit since the administration was first urged to act on these measures by the public — in particular, the public advocates in attendance at this week’s National Food Policy Conference. “It’s all the result of the advocacy of folks like you to ensure we continue looking for ways to improve the quality and safety of the foods Americans consume,” he said. Other issues have not been as easy to push through. Take country-of-origin labeling (COOL) laws on meat, for example.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack

If USDA loses its latest appeal to the World Trade Organization over COOL, there’s nothing it can do from a regulatory perspective, “so something will need to happen on the statutory side,” Vilsack said. For now, agency officials are waiting for the appeal to conclude, and then they’ll wait on directions from Congress. It’s impossible to talk about the administration’s record on food safety without bringing up the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the single largest piece of food safety legislation to be passed in more than 70 years. While it was signed into law by President Obama in 2011, the need for such a law was being felt many years earlier. Obama likely felt the urgency for such a law during his inauguration, said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), speaking during a subsequent panel at the food policy conference. Right as Obama came into office in January 2009, the nation was in the midst of a massive Salmonella outbreak from peanut butter, an episode that also launched the largest food recall in U.S. history. The president was famously quoted as saying that his daughter, Sasha, ate peanut butter sandwiches “probably three times a week.” “No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch,” Obama said at the time. The situation closely mirrors the experience of President Clinton, who came into office in January 1993 at the height of the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, a watershed moment in the history of food safety regulation. That outbreak soon paved the way for Clinton’s USDA to declare E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant in ground beef, a move that sparked huge changes throughout the beef industry. “Clinton saw food safety as a real legacy issue,” DeWaal said. She was quick to point out that FSMA only covers non-meat food items regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Despite what Vilsack’s USDA has accomplished, there’s still much more progress to be made, she said. “For meat and poultry, we’re still dealing with a regulatory system that was designed in 1906,” DeWaal said. The most important thing accomplished during this administration, she said, was the updated pathogen standards on meat and poultry, as well as the adulteration classification of additional E. coli strains, both mentioned earlier by Vilsack. Much of the remaining conversation centered on the administration’s food policy accomplishments outside of the food safety realm, including dietary guidelines and First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to reduce obesity and improve nutrition through her Let’s Move! campaign. Finally, panel moderator Helena Bottemiller Evich, food reporter for POLITICO (and formerly of Food Safety News) asked what food-related issues panelists felt the administration would not be able to accomplish in its final 638 days in office. One clear answer was that revisions to regulations for Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) ingredients are inevitably on their way, but they aren’t likely to be worked out before the end of the president’s current four-year term on Jan. 20, 2017. The clearest answer, though, was the eventual creation of a single federal food safety agency. “Despite the fact that the president’s budget this year actually talked about restructuring the food safety agencies, and we actually have legislation for a single food safety agency in Congress, I do not believe the consensus exists yet to do real restructuring of our food agencies,” DeWaal said. Overall, however, the panelists generally seemed to agree that the first 75 percent of the administration’s time in office has been great for food. As Tracy Fox, president of Food, Nutrition & Policy Consultants put it: “I think we’re going to look back years from now and say, ‘Wow, that was a pretty productive administration in terms of food policy.'”