Food Safety

How the FDA’s Reportable Food Registry Helps Prevent Outbreaks

by James Andrews | Apr 30, 2012

Last May, shipments of Florida grape tomatoes carrying Salmonella were sent to retailers and processors in 10 states and Canada before the distributor finally learned its product was contaminated. If it didn’t act fast enough, the distributor, Six L’s Packing Co., could have a potentially serious outbreak on its hands.

foodsystem-406.jpgDidn’t hear about that one? That’s probably because Six L’s was able to recall all of its shipments before any consumers got sick, thanks largely to the rapid recall fostered by a relatively young program within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration known as the Reportable Food Registry.

Enacted by Congress in 2007 and launched by the FDA in 2009, the Reportable Food Registry (RFR) is an online portal for food industry officials and government regulators to report foods in commerce that could cause probable harm to consumers.  Whether foods contain an unlabeled allergen or test positive for a pathogen, the registry has established an infrastructure in which harmful products are removed from the food system at a faster rate than previously possible.

Food recalls occurred before 2009, of course, but the RFR has streamlined the process, according to Kathy Gombas, Acting Director of the FDA’s Office of Food Defense, Communication and Emergency Response. The registry emphasizes fast coordination and communication between industry personnel and regulators.

Here’s how it works: When any facility that produces or provides food learns of a potentially harmful food in commerce, a party responsible for that facility are required to log in to the RFR’s Safety Reporting Portal and file an accurate report within 24 hours. The FDA calls this a “primary report.”

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New York Times Editorial Highlights FSMA Delay

by News Desk | Apr 30, 2012

The New York Times editorial on Sunday called on the Obama administration to move key Food Safety Modernization Act rules forward so that the rule making process can begin.

In an editorial titled, “Food Safety on Hold” the New York Times argued that while First Lady Michelle Obama champions healthy food as part of her platform, the administration “does not seem to have gotten the message” because there are a couple key food issues on hold.

“There are now three important food issues on hold,” read the editorial. “And health and nutrition advocates worry that they are stalled for the election season, or longer, because of push back from the food industry.”

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More Salmonella Paratyphi B Cases in Buncombe County, North Carolina

April 30, 2012 By

According to Gaylen Erlichman of the Buncombe County Department of Health, as of 1:00 pm April 30, 2012 there are 37 cases of Salmonella Paratyphi B in the current outbreak. The bacteria causes an illness called paratyphoid fever, similar to typhoid fever. All of the patients either live in Buncombe County or have visited there.

The outbreak began on February 28, 2012. Officials have not yet pinpointed a source. This bacterium is very contagious. It’s found in the intestinal tract of humans, and is spread when someone goes to the bathroom, doesn’t wash their hands properly, then touches food or other objects.

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Recalls

Brucella Warning on Three Brands of French Reblochon Cheese

by News Desk | Apr 30, 2012
The United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) is warning people who may have bought any of three particular brands of reblochon cheese in France to discard them, saying that French authorities have issued an alert about potential contamination with the bacteria that causes brucellosis.

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The cheeses, sold under the brand names of Le Campagnard, Gaston, and Pernet Mugnier Christian, are being recalled in France following the detection of the bacteria Brucella in the unpasteurized milk used to make them.

Little B’s Bakery in Canada Recalls Haystacks

April 30, 2012 By

Little B’s Bakery in Canada is recalling two types of Coconut Haystacks, because they contain an undeclared allergen: sulfites. The product is a macaroon.

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Articles of Interest

23 Horses Die from Botulism Outbreak in Maine

by News Desk | Apr 30, 2012

A rare botulism outbreak has killed 23 horses at Whistlin’ Willow Farm in Gorham, Maine, Portland’s Press Herald reports.

No mistreatment has been reported. Some sickened horses recovered, while at least another 40 horses at the farm never became sick.

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Chilean Fish Farms and the Tragedy of the Commons

How learning some essential lessons restored a salmon industry

by Ross Anderson | Apr 30, 2012
Food Safety News writer Ross Anderson recently toured Chilean fish farms and processing plants as a guest of Salmon of the Americas, a Chilean trade organization. This is the first of two reports.

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Puerto Montt, Chile — Five years ago, while much of the world teetered toward an epic economic collapse, this bustling fishing port in southern Chile plunged into a crisis of its own. But, instead of a castrophic failure of banking and real estate, Chileans found themselves dealing with an invisible virus that had travelled literally from the opposite end of the earth.

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In just two short decades, enterprising Chileans had built a thriving, $3 billion-a-year aquaculture industry, growing salmon in floating pens, processing them in and around Puerto Montt, then shipping their prized fillets off to the US, Japan, Europe and beyond. But in 2007, those pens were infested with a lethal microbe that wiped out millions of fish and threatened to kill the industry.
Now those salmon farms are back; Chile expects a new production record this year – a staggering 700,000 metric tons of Atlantic and Pacific salmon. Along the way, enterprising fish farmers learned some essential lessons about the risks surrounding microbiology and the recurring “tragedy of the commons.”
For most of the 20th century, Puerto Montt was a small, ramshackle seaport perched on a verdant ledge between an inland Patagonian fjord and the dramatic volcanoes of the southern Andes. It’s a lush, rain-soaked region resembling the northwest coast, sparsely populated with the descendants of the native Mapuche natives and German immigrants who arrived in the first half of the 19th century.
Then, in the mid ’80s, Chile learned that their plankton-rich, inland waters were ideal habitat for salmon aquaculture – even though there were no native salmon runs in Patagonia or anywhere else in the southern hemisphere. Using eggs and technology imported from the U.S. and Norway, they hatched and grew juvenile fish in local freshwater lakes, then transferred them to floating netpens, many of them along the shores of rural Chilhoe Island, south of the port city.
Fueled initially by Japanese investment, dozens of huge fish farms sprouted along Patagonian shores. The industry grew at a phenomenal rate averaging 25 percent per year. In 1990, Chilean farms exported nearly $100 million worth of salmon to Japan, the US and Europe. By 2000, it was $1 billion. Six years later, it was $2 billion.

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U.S. buyers included Walmart and Costco, both of which sold Chilean salmon by the truckload.
Puerto Montt became a boomtown, employing some 35,000 people at the farms, processing plants, and fish food factories that converted fish waste and other raw materials into pellets. Construction boomed as well, with processing plants, thousands of homes for newly arrived workers, and a modern office building with a two-story underground shopping mall.
“The growth was much faster than the government could keep up with,” says Carlos Odebret of Salmon Chile, a trade group for the industry. “The challenge was to bring people in from other parts of the country.”
As the profits mounted, the companies kept building more and more fish farms – steel grids, comprised of 10 or more pens per complex, adding up to floating farms that cover an area the size of three football fields.
But aquaculture experts and environmentalists worried that they were growing too fast, taking too many shortcuts with the complex science of fish farming. There were too many farms, packed with too many fish, and not enough biological precautions.
“Salmon farming is starting to transform the ecology and environment of southern Chile, with tens of millions of salmon living in vast ocean corrals,” wrote environmental writer Charles Fishman. “Who could have predicted that the mass forced farming of an exotic fish to please the Wal-Mart low-price palate would result in a horrific virus-borne plague?”

Obama Administration Appealing WTO COOL Ruling

April 29, 2012 By

Last year, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the United State’s country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law in the 2008 Farm Bill is a barrier to free trade that violates agreements the U.S. has with several other countries.

Country-of-origin labeling is simply identifying for the consumer where a product originated. WTO said that COOL is a “technical barrier to trade.” The Obama Administration is appealing this ruling, and this week WHO is opening the appeal process to the public in an unprecedented move.

Humane Society Complaint Filed Over Pork Council’s Ads

April 29, 2012 By

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) filed a legal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission last week, alleging that the National Pork Producers Council’s (NPPC) ads are deceptive. The ads in question are titled: “We Care Initiative” and “Pork Quality Assurance Plus” programs.

The issue centers around breeding sows raised in gestation crates. About 70% of these animals are confined in the crates, which are so small the animals cannot move freely. The trade group claims in its ads that the animals “receive humane care and handling.”

The NPPC stated that they will “analyze the complaint” and “vigorously defend against the absolutely false claims made by HSUS.”

An American Farm Bureau poll conducted in 2007 found that 95% of Americans think farm animals should be well cared for, and 89% agree with the statement that “food companies that require farers to treat their animals better are doing the right thing.”

Food Poisoning Bulletin asked the Humane Society about this conflict, and if gestation crates raise the risk of bacterial contamination in the animals.

Dr. Michael Gregor, Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture for HSUS, said, “As reviewed in our white paper, crated sows suffer elevated rates of a variety of health problems, including urinary trace infections (a leading cause of sow mortality), and respiratory disease. Preliminary research out of Iowa State University suggests respiratory diseases may have food safety implications.”

The white paper mentions that the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production concluded that the use of gestation crates should be ended, since they “prevent the animal from a normal range of movement and constitute inhumane treatment.”

Read Full Article Here

Related  Articles: 

Making Sense of Animal Product Labels

Burger King to Use Only Cage-Free Eggs, Crate-Free Pork by 2017

*****Also features  the  face  of  free range farming and  gestation  cages.  The  inhumane  life  these poor animals suffer  through  and the  average  consumer  has  absolutely  no idea.  I  saw this article  and  I  cannot   eat meat  now just thinking  of  the  suffering  they  endure for  our  meal.  There  has to be a better  way. 

The lies  must  stop.  If  they  say  the  animals  are  treated humanely then prove it .  This is  just   wrong.   To make  commercials claiming  that  the  animals are  treated   well.  Just take a  look  at   the  gestation  cages  they  use.  No one in their  right  mind  can  call these things humane. They look  more like the  medieval  instruments  used  for  torture.  Just  take a look for  yourself.


I  for  one  will not  by  another   dollars  worth of  any  kind of  meat  until something is  done.  I  can no longer  look at the   food on my  plate the  same  way.    It  is one thing  to say that the animal died  to  feed us.  But to  know and  to understand the  suffering that  poor  animal  endured.  Knowing that  death was  bliss  compared  to  the life  they endured is too much  for me.  I am no longer unaware and  so  I  use  the only  avenue  left  to me.  I vote with my  dollar , as  should we all. 

All I  ask  is  that  you  make  yourself  aware,  call these companies and  these farms to  task.  They  want  to make  money  , then  they  must do  what is  right.  We are the only ones  who can  make a  difference.  Corporate America  and  Big  Agra  only  care   about  their  bottom line!   Knowledge is  power.  These  animals  need  our  help!  There  are  so many of them and these  laws  must  be  changed no matter how much  push  back  the  government  receives.  Only  we  can make that  happen!


Burger King hypes up ‘cage-free’ pork – but what does it really mean?

By Ethan A. Huff, April 28 2012
(NaturalNews) The latest fast food chain to alter its image in an attempt to appeal to the health-conscious crowd is Burger King, which announced recently that it will begin using only “cage-free” chicken eggs and pork products at its restaurants. One major problem with this, though, is that the term “cage-free” is very loosely defined legally, especially as it pertains to pork products. According to grist.com, the Washington Post, and others, Burger King has already begun working with the Humane…

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