All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

A New Threat to Food Safety

In an interesting and alarming piece, a columnist at the Washington Examiner looks at a threat to food safety that we don’t often think of: terrorism.

The Government Accountability Office recently released a report addressing the challenges of overseeing the import of food, especially the possibility of a deliberately introduced food-borne pathogen.

We are quickly learning that as the amount of imported food American consume increases, so does the risk of contamination – for example, the Salmonella outbreak in 2008 was linked to jalapenos grown in Mexico and distributed in the United States.

While legislation granting the Food and Drug Administration new powers to regulate imported foods is currently enjoying bipartisan support in Congress, and will hopefully help prevent food-borne illness, there has been little discussion of improving food safety from outside, intentional threats.

Food Safety a Hot Topic

After several very serious outbreaks of food-borne illness in the last few years, including contaminated spinach and hot peppers, as well as increasing cases of E. coli contamination in ground beef, food safety is moving to the forefront of news across the country.

In a move that is grossly overdue - a new government study has found that better guidelines are needed for healthier school lunches across the United States. The study is calling on the National School Lunch Program to create new policies to include less salt, more vegetables, fruits and whole grains, skim and low-fat milk, and other dairy products. The study claims the current guidelines, which only contain a minimum caloric content, were created to make sure no children went undernourished. However, obese children currently outnumber undernourished children, and the study calls for a ceiling on caloric content for school lunches as well.

Also, the FDA will be investigating nutrition claims on certain food packaging after receiving complaints that they may not be true. One of the claims the FDA is investigating is the "Smart Choices" checkmark which has been displayed by some products including Froot Loops cereal that have almost 50 percent sugar.

Lastly, in California, the organic baby food company Plum Organics issued a recall on baby food that was contaminated with clostridium botulinum, which can cause botulism. Botulism is an illness that can lead to muscle paralysis and respiratory failure.

While all of this news can be taken as somewhat disheartening, the fact is that food safety is becoming more and more cognizant in Americans’ minds. It is becoming obvious that stronger food safety protection regulations are needed, and greater investment must be made in this area.

Whistleblower protections for food workers must be included in such regulations and bills – something GAP is pushing for and could be a very real achievement when the Food Safety Modernization Act (which has passed the House and is currently in Senate committee) is signed into law.

Risk of E. Coli High, Oversight Low

This excellent NYT article demonstrates the failure of the beef industry and its governmental regulators to protect consumers from E. coli. Contamination is possible every step of the way, and the industry is not only not doing enough to prevent it, but is actively contributing to its spread by ignoring its own regulations and requiring retailers not to test beef before it is grinded and sold. The reason? Increased profit margin, of course.

Terribly, lobbying pressure from producers has caused the USDA to allow suppliers to run their own E. coli checks, despite suggestions that processors also test for the bacteria. An administrator with the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said that the department could well compel the industry to test its meat, but they have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health. The actual quote (from page 3 of the article, online):

In August 2008, the U.S.D.A. issued a draft guideline again urging, but not ordering, processors to test ingredients before grinding. “Optimally, every production lot should be sampled and tested before leaving the supplier and again before use at the receiver,” the draft guideline said.

But the department received critical comments on the guideline, which has not been made official. Industry officials said that the cost of testing could unfairly burden small processors and that slaughterhouses already test. In an October 2008 letter to the department, the American Association of Meat Processors said the proposed guideline departed from U.S.D.A.’s strategy of allowing companies to devise their own safety programs, “thus returning to more of the agency’s ‘command and control’ mind-set.”

Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an assistant administrator with the department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said that the department could mandate testing, but that it needed to consider the impact on companies as well as consumers. “I have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health,” Dr. Petersen said.

The article puts a face on one of the many victims of a lack of solid oversight. Stephanie Smith, formerly a children’s dance instructor, will never dance again. She’ll probably never walk again either, thanks to a virulent strain of E. coli that polluted a hamburger she consumed in 2007. The E. coli ravaged her system, leaving her in a coma for nine weeks, then paralyzed her from the waist down with kidneys that barely function.

“Dirty Tricks” by the Healthcare Industry

A former vice-president-turned-whistleblower from the healthcare giant Cigna says that the healthcare industry is using “dirty tricks” to form public opinion over the healthcare debate, according to CNN. Skilled with its use of language, Wendell Potter says the industry is ratcheting up its efforts to criticize many of the reform plans, including the government-run plan originally proposed by President Obama.

These dirty tricks include currying favor with members of Congress at the same time as they wage huge campaigns to undermine the efforts at reform, according to an article in Politico.

Many citizens have been riled up over the healthcare debate, taking their voices to town hall meetings with their members of Congress across the country. One Congresswoman says that the extreme dialogue on healthcare is not new; in fact it is an elevated form of the loud town halls of the 1990s when healthcare reform was originally proposed.

But Potter has now stated that the ‘buzzwords’ being used to counter and criticize health care legislation originate from industry spinmeisters, who are doing so, according to the CNN article, “in an effort to manipulate public opinion.”

Starting to Do Something about Food Safety

The White House yesterday announced some initial findings of its relatively new working group on food safety – which ended up setting target dates for new rules for food safety, according to an article in the New York Times. In attendance at the White House ceremony that introduced the new group was Jonathan Cantu from GAP.

The working group expects to release new targets for standards on turkeys and chickens by the end of the year and on some produce items tomatoes, lettuce, melons and spinach by the end of July.

All of which is well and good. But the NY Times article notes that:

“most of the measures announced Tuesday are more aspirational than actual”

and that

“many rules that even industry representatives call essential are years away.”

It’s going to be a long process to right this ship. And by no means is there a uniform belief regarding how to solve this problem in the longterm. This Washington Post article shows there are three separate bills in the works to improve the authority of the FDA to prevent outbreaks.

-- Dylan Blaylock 

Food Safety is a Critical Concern

With President Obama set to sign a bill authorizing greater oversight powers for the FDA today, one should remember it is only the first step in protecting Americans from contaminated food.

The issue of food safety is of paramount importance to Americans, whow are being deluged with recall after recall. Just late last week, Nestlé recalled its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough after 66 people have become sick from E. coli. This particular strain has been linked with contaminated meat (as of now) – food that should not be anywhere close to the cookie dough process. This, along with numerous other contaminations and outbreaks or salmonella and other health hazards across the country, show the urgent need for reform.

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times is calling for Congress to enact legislation that gives the FDA the power to follow the origins of the ingredients in the foods manufacturers make. This would allow the FDA to trace back the ingredients to the source in the case of a contamination and would help stop these problems more quickly. The NYT also recommends putting all food surveillance under one government agency – combining the oversight powers of the FDA and the USDA so that a greater focus on health and safety can be developed.

Food Safety & Tobacco

In this piece, Gardiner Harris of the NYT details specific cases of several Americans almost dying due to contaminated food products. The article compares today’s food illness statistics to those of prior years.

Also in the public health world, the Senate is expected to approve legislation this week granting the FDA the power to regulate tobacco. The measure has already passed the House by a wide margin.

-- Dylan Blaylock