All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

Food Safety Czar Named

The Obama administration last week nominated Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, an physician specializing in infectious diseases, to oversee the USDA’s Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) - one of the most important food safety positions in the federal government. Dr. Hagen is a relative newcomer to food safety, as she joined the USDA in 2006, was quickly promoted through the ranks of FSIS, and became its chief medical officer last year. Her position is responsible for overseeing safe meat, poultry and eggs, which make up 20 percent of the food supply. Not much is known about Dr. Hagen's policy positions at this point, but the meat industry is applauding her selection.

Dr. Hagen was not the Obama administration's first choice to lead FSIS. The administration also courted Caroline Smith Dewaal, director of food safety at Center for Science in the Public Interest, a GAP coalition partner. Smith DeWaal is a food safety expert with 20 years worth of experience working on policy and food safety issues. DeWaal’s nomination was halted after it was discovered that she is a registered lobbyist, which goes against the administration's policy against hiring lobbyists.

GAP’s not taking a side on Hagen with this post, in any way. But GAP, last week as part of a coalition of 13 groups, sent a letter to President Obama asking for a change in the year-old executive order that bans hiring lobbyists. The order lumps together lobbyists for the private sector with those who represent charities and public interest causes – people who don't have any type of financial interest in government policies. This means, that "countless charities that have no actual or perceived financial conflicts of interest are treated as 'collateral damage,' and discouraged from much-needed policy involvement." The coalition believes the order was well-meaning, but ultimately flawed, as it prevents experts such as Smith DeWall, who would have been a fantastic choice, from joining the government and using their expertise to help protect the public.

New Food Safety Czar at FDA Has A Lot of Work To Do

Last week, a former lawyer for both the agribusiness industry and the FDA, Michael Taylor, was named deputy commissioner for foods for the FDA. Taylor will be responsible for putting new laws into action aimed at preventing food-borne illness before it occurs, as the FDA has long been criticized for being solely a reactive agency when it comes to food safety.

 

Taylor's work experience has come under scrutiny. As an agribusiness lawyer, he represented companies that pioneered bovine growth hormone (BGH). After that time, during a stint working at the FDA, he was partially responsible for a controversial policy that allowed milk from BGH-treated cows to go unlabeled as such.

 

Taylor’s plate is quite full – as multiple pressing issues face the food safety. Here are only some of the stories that have come out over the past three months about food safety:

 

• This article explains how after long being criticized about being too slow to disclose drug safety issues, the FDA is launching a new website to explain its operations to the public
• This NYTimes masthead editorial argues that after the NYTimes investigation of the safety of ammoniated beef, officials at the Department of Agriculture and the National School Lunch Program need to communicate more effectively and look for quality over price.
• This article explains that while Chinese authorities announced last week the closing of a dairy company that was producing products tainted with melamine, investigations into the dairy began nearly a year ago.
• This article explains that nearly 800 restaurants at 10 airports have had hundreds of food safety violations over the past year, including “items such as tuna salad and turkey sandwiches stored at dangerously warm temperatures, raw meat contaminating ready-to-eat foods, rat droppings and kitchens lacking soap for workers to wash hands.” 77% of 35 restaurants reviewed at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC had at least one serious violation last year. 
• This article examines the fact that more than 8,500 schools in America failed to have their kitchens inspected at all last year, and another 18,000 fell short of a requirement in the Child Nutrition Act that calls for cafeteria inspections at least biannually. This is despite the fact that many food safety threats have been shown to begin in the kitchen.  
• In this masthead editorial, the Los Angeles Times discusses the overwhelming need for an overhaul of the US food safety system, soon. The Senate’s dedication to health care reform has kept it from considering the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.
• This article examines the two-day meeting the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (the two bodies that share responsibility over the food supply) to discuss how to increase the speed and accuracy of investigations into food-borne illness and recalls. 
• This article examines an investigation that discovered that much of the beef and poultry provided by the national government to schools would not meet the standards for use at fast-food chains. In many cases, the school lunch meat is not tested as often for food-borne pathogens as is fast-food meat and poultry, and the United States Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, has much less stringent limits on the amount of bacteria that is allowed to be present in meat than do many fast-food restaurants. 
• In this op/ed, the author argues that an increasingly centralized food production process has led to an increase in food-borne illness. 
• This article examines a beef company's recall of thousands of pounds of ground beef contaminated with a drug-resistant strain of salmonella. It is the company’s second major ground beef recall this year.  The company is a major contributor to the national school lunch program, although it has not contributed to the program since July. 
• This article examines the introduced the Processed Food Safety Act, introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), which would prohibit the sale of any processed poultry or meat that has not either undergone a food-borne pathogen reduction treatment, or been certified to contain no traces of pathogens. 
• In this article, the Food and Drug Administration cited a Tyson seafood plant for “serious” food safety violations yesterday. The plant produces seafood soup and sauces. Tyson is claiming that the problem was paperwork related, and did not actually involve threats to food safety.  
• This article examines a study in which a consumers group said that two-thirds of the almost 400 broiler chickens they purchased were infected with one or both of the top two bacteria that cause food-borne illness. 
• This article talks about a facility in New York that recalled more than 500,000 pounds of ground beef last month after it was linked to an outbreak of food-borne illness that killed two people and sickened 500 more. However, it has come to light that the company stopped testing its beef for pathogens years ago under pressure from suppliers. 
• This article details a new report that examines the long-term damage, including kidney failure, paralysis, seizures, hearing or visual impairments and mental retardation, that can be done to the body by the five most common food-borne illnesses. 
• This article examines a report by the United Nations that states that climate change will have a widespread effect on food safety. Increases in temperature, for example, will increase the prevalence and virulence of common food borne illnesses like salmonella and E. coli.
• This article examines reports that the FDA plans to ban the sale of oysters harvested from the Gulf Coast during warm water months. The warm-water oysters account for nearly all deaths caused by eating raw oysters. The FDA said that processes such as pasteurizing or freezing the oysters make them safer.  
• This masthead editorial argues for a review of the entire United States school lunch program to ensure that children are being adequately protected from food-borne illness.
• This article examines how victims and relatives of those sickened by salmonella nearly a year ago are upset that the corporation involved, the Peanut Company of America, is not yet facing charges for the outbreak, which sickened hundreds of people and killed nine. Analysts believed that while often food companies and executives do not face criminal liability after an outbreak, the actions of the Peanut Company of America were egregious enough to warrant criminal charges. 
• This article examines how the Centers for Disease Control said that common strain of E. coli bacteria was involved in 2 deaths from E. coli contamination in beef, as well as 28 cases and 16 hospitalizations.  
• This article examines how a consumer advocacy group's analysis of some canned foods found the chemical additive bisphenol A, or BPA, including in some goods that were labeled "BPA free." The group claimed that children eating multiple servings of some of the food could intake levels of BPA close to those that have caused adverse effects in several animal studies. 
• This article examines the effect of secondary infections, which are not uncommon, and occur when children pass a food-borne illness on to another child. In the specific case, a child was sickened from contact with another child who had eaten undercooked taco meet at an elementary school.
• This article examines why school lunch beef was not included in a recall of beef that was tainted with salmonella. 
• This article examines how Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has promised better food safety alerts to schools, following a USA Today investigation of how school lunch beef was not included in a recall.
• This article examines how after a study linking a tortilla company with food-borne illness at more than a dozen schools, the FDA issued a warning about their tortillas being a possible food safety threat, but never shared the warning with any school officials anywhere.

 

In the News Today

A New York Times masthead editorial argues that the while the Obama administration has taken a stance against torture, policy makers are continuing to rationalize it, after the Supreme Court declined to review a case brought by four Guantánamo detainees who were never charged with a crime. The Supreme Court’s decision not to review has deprived victims of a remedy and Americans of government accountability, while further damaging the country’s standing in the world.

The Justice Department is considering asking a federal judge to decrease the sentence of UBS whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld (NYT). Birkenfeld was sentenced to three years and four months in prison after blowing the whistle on illegal offshore banking practices by UBS. Because of his disclosures, the IRS was able to recoup $780 million dollars and thousands of names of tax cheats.

A dairy in China recalled milk products after they were found to contain too much melamine. The recall comes after a 2008 Chinese massive food scare, in which melamine in milk was blamed for killing six children and sickening 300,000. While the new recall is much smaller in scope, it does raise questions about whether or not the Chinese dairy industry has reformed itself.

A Washington Post editorial by science and politics writer Chris Mooney argues that while scientific scandals such as “Climategate” have not proven that science is fraudulent, they have indeed proven that scientists are not well armed with communication skills. Because the media is increasingly cutting back on science-focused journalism, the ability of scientists to communicate their own data efficiently is progressively more vital.

Fast-Food Meat Much, Much Safer than School Lunches?

A USA Today investigation has discovered that much of the beef and poultry provided by the national government to schools would not meet standards for use at fast-food chains. In many cases, the school lunch meat and poultry are not tested as often for food-borne pathogens as is fast-food meat and poultry. From the story:

McDonald's, Burger King and Costco, for example, are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.

Also, the USDA, which oversees the program, has much less stringent limits on the amount of bacteria that is allowed to be present in meat than do many fast-food restaurants. Jack in the Box, for example (as well as other big fast food retailers), has limits “up to 10 times more stringent than what the USDA sets for school beef.”

This is especially worrisome because the meat goes to schools: children are more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses because their immune systems are not completely developed. It is also uncertain whether all school cafeteria workers have adequate safety training, and know to cook the meat well enough to kill any pathogens.

USDA-purchased meat is served to 31 million students a day.

The FDA Seems to be doing its Job Today…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cited a Tyson company seafood plant for serious food safety violations yesterday, Representatives for the plant, which produces seafood soup and sauces, are claiming that the problem was primarily related to paperwork, and did not actually involve threats to food safety. However, the FDA letter to the company states that food product at the plant was "prepared, packed or held under unsanitary conditions whereby they may have been rendered injurious to health.” How did Tyson publicly respond to such an accusation? By saying that the product in question, which FDA just happened to obverse while they were there, was simply thrown away.

Convenient!

In other news, the FDA has requested proof from the producers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages that the drinks are safe. The FDA never approved the addition of caffeine to alcoholic beverages. You might wonder exactly how a product can be on the market without the FDA approving its contents being mixed together. Well, from the LA Times…

In the absence of FDA approval, the burden of proving that a new combination of food or drink is safe falls on the manufacturer, said Joshua Sharfstein, the agency's principal deputy commissioner.

Seems problematic to allow the producer of a for-profit product to determine its safety. An FDA task force is claiming that the caffeine in the drinks mask the effect of alcohol, leading to an increase in drunk driving, sexual assault and other destructive behavior. If the producers cannot prove that the drinks are safe, the FDA may take them off the market.

Lastly, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) yesterday introduced the Processed Food Safety Act, which would prohibit the sale of any processed poultry or meat that has not either undergone a food-borne pathogen reduction treatment, or been certified to contain no traces of pathogens.

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.