Food Safety
Stop the giveaway to Big Ag. Support local foods in the Farm Bill!
Every five years, the federal farm bill sets our nation’s food policies — it’s the single biggest factor in determining what ends up on your plate.
But right now Congress is only providing minimal support for healthy, local and organic foods while expanding wasteful subsidies and giveaways that support the wealthiest agribusinesses — at the expense of family farmers.
Next week, the Senate Agriculture Committee will start writing its version of the 2012 Farm Bill. It’s incredibly important that Congress get this right — so CREDO Action is teaming up with Environmental Working Group to stop the giveaway to Big Ag and support food and farm policies that protect our environment and expand access to healthy food.
Tell the Senate: Stop the giveaway to Big Ag. Pass a Farm Bill that supports local, healthy and organic food.
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Oregon Teen in Critical Condition from E. Coli Linked to Raw Milk
A 13-year-old, one of four children hospitalized in an outbreak E. coli infection linked to raw milk, is in critical condition, according to a spokesman from Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, OR.
As of Thursday, the potentially fatal foodborne pathogen had sickened as many as 18 people in Oregon. Five of the cases patients have lab-confirmed cases of E. coli infection and the others have symptoms, with test results pending. All of those ill in the outbreak reported drinking unpasteurized milk form Foundation Farm near Wilsonville.
The hospitalized children, who range in age from 1 to 13, developed
hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a type of kidney failure; information about the conditions of the other three children was not immediately available.
Salmonella Again Tops Reportable Food Registry Hazards
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday released its second annual review of the Reportable Food Registry, the program that requires domestic and foreign food makers to report potentially hazardous foods that have entered U.S. commerce.
The program’s second year of operation, from Sept. 8, 2010 to Sept. 7 2011, included 882 reports of hazardous human and animal foods, including 225 “primary reports” on particular food items. That compares with the 2,240 reports entered in the first year, of which 229 were primary reports. (The FDA attributed the difference to
three food items that received a huge number of secondary reports the first year.)
Despite the drop in secondary reports, the FDA saw the number of “amended reports” — reports that correct or add to primary reports – increase from 139 to 174 (25 percent) this year. The increase suggests more facilities are investigating problems and following up on their causes with the FDA.
Salmonella contamination prompted 38.2 percent of this year’s reports, while undeclared allergens accounted for 33.3 percent and Listeria accounted for 17.8 percent. That compares similarly with the first year, when Salmonella made 37.6 percent, undeclared allergens 30.1 percent and Listeria 14.4 percent.
E. coli O157:H7 accounted for 0.4 percent of contaminants reported this year and 2.6 percent the year before.
30 Lawmakers Ask USDA to ‘Correct the Public Record’ on LFTB
Thirty lawmakers wrote to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday asking what the U.S. Department of Agriculture has done and can do in the future to help stop “the campaign of the misinformation” about Lean Finely Textured Beef, now widely known to American consumers as “pink slime.”
Calling the media coverage and subsequent consumer revolt against LFTB “a campaign of misinformation,” members of Congress, many of them from beef states, asked USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to outline what steps it had taken to “correct the public record and educate consumers about the safety of LFTB.”
“Although we believe the USDA is in a unique position to help bring to light the facts about LFTB, we understand that Congress, too, can play a role,” reads the letter. “We will continue to do our part to educate the public about this important issue and the significant role that BPI has played in advancing food safety in America, but we also believe that we must work in concert with the USDA.”
Felony Indictment Charges Four in Tainted Cheese Conspiracy
A federal grand jury in Chicago has returned a six-count indictment against four individuals, alleging they were involved in a 2007 scheme to ship more than 110,000 pounds of contaminated Mexican-style cheese.
The indictment does not claim that the cheese caused human illnesses or other public health consequences, according to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. But lab analysis of the cheese showed it was adulterated with Salmonella, E. coli and other illness-causing bacteria, Fitzgerald said.
The conspiracy was complex. One defendant owned an Illinois company that imported the dried Mexican cheese to the U.S., and another defendant owned a Wisconsin company with a facility in suburban Elmhurst, IL that distributed cheese to customers nationwide.
Oh Rats! They Carry Salmonella, Too
Along with reports of Salmonella infection outbreaks involving contact with
chicks and ducks,
tiny turtles and
pet frogs, add 46 cases of Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:- infection linked to handling rodents sold as food for pet reptiles and amphibians.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in its April 20 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
“Notes from the Field,” says 22 states are reporting the illnesses, and that the median age of those stricken is 11 years old. More than one third of those ill are younger than 5. At least 6 case patients have been hospitalized.
Many of the children and others infected reported handling live or frozen rats or mice, which the CDC refers to as “feeder rodents.”
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Allergen Alert
Allergen Alert: Preserved Apricots With Sulfites
Hong Lee Trading of Brooklyn, NY is recalling Peacock Brand Preserved Apricots imported from Vietnam because they may contain sulfites that were not declared on the label.
Routine sampling and analysis by New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets Food Inspectors revealed the presence of sulfites in packages of the preserved apricots.
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Articles of Interest
Italy’s Experience Liberalizing Raw Milk Sales: Can’t Put the Genie Back in the Bottle
Magnitude of health burden appears underestimated, or underreported
Opinion
On Jan. 25, 2007, Italy formally authorized the sale of raw milk to consumers through automatic vending devices. The decision had its legal basis in the generous interpretation of a 2004 provision in European Union hygiene law, and followed intense lobbying from farmers and local authorities.
In fact, since 2004, local authorities had permitted sales of raw milk in their territories.
The 2007 decision requires registration of vending devices with the authorities, and authorized the placing of devices not only within farms, but also elsewhere in the same province. Pooling of milk from different farms is not permitted; each device corresponds to an individual farm.
The decision also mandates two analytical controls per month, on farm (and not in the end product), on Plate count (at 30 °C , per ml, with a limit of ≤ 100 000) and somatic cell count (per ml, with a limit of 400,000), and requires compliance with the limits, set by EU law, for the average of the two measurements. An unfortunate consequence of this requirement has been that compliance with the limits has been interpreted as proof of safety of the final product.
In the technical annex to the decision, a number of mandatory procedures are named, and the legal requirement for raw milk to be safe is repeated multiple times. In language which lends itself to multiple interpretations, analytical monitoring is required for pathogens (S. aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp, E. coli O157, Campylobacter) and contaminants (aflatoxins) on animals and milk, though no minimum frequency is mandated.
Moreover, fresh raw milk has to be supplied daily, and unsold milk from the previous day has to be collected and cannot be sold as such.
The vending devices can provide raw milk from tap, or automatically fill bottles, which need to carry the label “unpasteurized raw milk.” Moreover, raw milk has to be kept between 0 and 4 C (32 to 39 F) at all times, with an automatic mechanism to stop distribution if temperature exceeds the limits. A temperature data logger needs to be installed.
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Bayer Advanced Insect Killer Plays on Consumer’s Fear of Germs
Bayer’s GERM KILLER Insect spray preys on consumer’s fanatical fear of germs! Absolutely IDIOTIC!
I love to show the public how ridiculously stupid they are.
I was in Lowe’s yesterday. I happened to notice a display of Bayer insect spray that made me (involuntarily!) shout…, “WHAT?” It wasn’t the Bayer name that got me; it was the fact that I saw GERM KILLER on the same label with the words “insect”. Incredibly, the label says…
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Is Vermont’s Governor Surrendering to Monsanto?
Vermont’s governor has 2 weeks to stand with 90 percent of his constituents who favor labeling genetically engineered foods, or cave to Monsanto.
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has less than two weeks to either stand with the 90 percent of his constituents who support a mandatory labeling bill for genetically engineered foods — or cave in to Monsanto’s threat to sue the state if legislators pass H.722.
If the Governor’s words this past week are any indication, he’s already surrendered to Monsanto. But Vermonters, not known for backing down from a fight, are challenging legislators to take on the biotech industry. They’re even offering to raise money for the state’s defense.
Last week thousands of Vermonters flooded the Governor’s office with petitions, phone calls and emails, to make the case for GMO labeling of all food sold in Vermont and to demand a vote on the bill. Under Vermont’s constitution, the Governor can extend the state’s legislative session indefinitely, ultimately forcing a vote on the bill. If he doesn’t extend the session, or urge legislators to vote on the bill, it will die in committee.
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