All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

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

McCaskill vs. KBR

We really like Sen. Claire McCaskill. In addition to her tremendous work on whistleblower rights support, she also recently co-authored a letter to the Secretary of Defense, complaining that $100 million owed to the federal government (for overcharging made by defense contracting goliath Kellogg, Brown and Root) has not been paid back, and the Department is doing “little to collect.” From the NYT:

The letter also said that the Army had almost completely failed to move away from the monopolistic nature of the logistics contract that has paid the contractor, now called KBR, $31.3 billion for logistics operations in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

--snip--

Their letter is likely to revive allegations that the Pentagon has become so close to KBR, and relies so heavily on it, that there is little inclination or incentive to discipline the company, in response to either Congress or critics outside the government.

You can watch the keynote address Sen. McCaskill gave at the 2009 National Whistleblower Assembly in March by clicking here (her video screen is halfway down the page).

Also today, there’s a solid masthead editorial in the Washington Post about how the FDA needs greater authority to ensure public health in regards to food safety, calling for current legislative fixes to be passed into law. A recent episode of GAP’s television program Whistle Where You Work focused on the problems of the federal food safety system. You can view that episode by clicking here.

-- Dylan Blaylock 

GAP Client on Quest to Find Root of Overeating

This is a fascinating Washington Post article about former FDA commissioner David Kessler who, in a new book, is claiming that certain types of high-fat, sugar, or salty foods can effectively alter brain chemistry, resulting in an obsessive desire to overeat. 

The piece also mentions how Kessler was fired from his position as Dean of the Medical School at the University of California at San Francisco, for blowing the whistle on financial wrongdoing. GAP is acting as co-counsel for Kessler regarding this claim. From the WP:

“My weight was yo-yoing all the time,” said Kessler, who estimates that 70 million Americans struggle with conditioned hyper-eating. “And I never understood why.”

He embarked on a mission to figure it out while serving as dean of the medical school at Yale University and later the University of California at San Francisco. UCSF fired Kessler from his position as dean in December after he alleged financial malfeasance at the institution. The university maintains there were no financial misdeeds; Kessler says he was forced out because he blew the whistle. He remains on the faculty at the medical school and lives in San Francisco with his wife, Paulette, a lawyer. They have two grown children, both of whom live in Washington.

-- Dylan Blaylock