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Labels: FDA, food safety, grocery stores, tweets, twitter

Labels: FDA, Food, food safety

Labels: FDA, food safety, Recalls

Federal agencies that supply food for 31 million schoolchildren fail to ensure that tainted products are pulled quickly from cafeterias, a federal audit obtained by USA TODAY finds.

The delays raise the risk of children being sickened by contaminated food, according to the audit by Congress' Government Accountability Office.

In recent recalls, including one this year in which salmonella-infected peanut butter sickened almost 700 people, the government failed to disseminate "timely and complete notification about suspect food products provided to schools through the federal commodities program," the audit says. - USAToday

Labels: audit, FDA, Food, food safety, GAO, salmonella

The Web site was launched by the Heath & Human Services and Agriculture department’s Food Safety Working Group and is part the administration’s emphasis on prevention in public health, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in announcing the service.

People can go to the Web site and sign up to receive email and RSS alerts on recalled or potentially unsafe food, ask questions of scientific experts across government and listen to podcasts or view videos on food safety. - Government Health IT

Labels: Agriculture, FDA, food safety, HHS, Recalls

• Increases the frequency of inspections of food facilities, and calls for more frequent inspections to at least annually for high-risk facilities and at least once every three years for facilities deemed a low risk.. (Currently a facility is "generally" inspected every 10 years.)
• Requires those importing food to the United States to meet the same safety standards as domestic food producers.
• Gives the FDA the authority to order a mandatory recall of contaminated food (currently, recalls are VOLUNTARY and the FDA has to ask the facility to initiate).
• Requires that food processors-with certain exemptions, such as farms-annually register with the FDA and pay a $500 registration fee to help offset the inspection costs.
• Requires that facilities report testing results to FDA whenever they test food for contamination or adulteration. (This addresses the fiasco of the Peanut Corporation of America recall. They were ignoring positive salmonella tests until it received a negative result from a different lab.

Labels: Congress, FDA, food safety, inspection

In a swift move to remove possibly tainted products from store shelves, Nestle’s USA Baking Division has issued an immediate recall of all raw Toll House cookie dough due to consumer complaints of E.coli illness brought about by eating raw dough. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control have launched an investigation into this popular product, however no mandatory government recall has been put into effect. - Health News

Labels: CDC, e.coli, FDA, Nestle, Recalls, Toll House

Representative Lois Capps, sits on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. That committee will consider crucial food safety legislation on Wednesday. Let Representative Lois Capps know today that you expect her to stand with us.... her constituents — not big industrial food companies — when it comes to food safety.

Earlier this year, salmonella-tainted peanut butter from a single Georgia factory caused nine deaths, sickened over 600 people, led to the recall of thousands of products, and cost the food industry $1 billion in losses. Meanwhile, deadly E. coli outbreaks are on the rise. The USDA recalled a total of 300,000 pounds of contaminated ground beef during the month of May alone.

Thankfully, Congress is now paying attention. The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 represents a good basis for reform and would be first major update of food safety legislation in decades. But big food industry players are fighting tooth and nail to weaken the bill — it's up to us to tell Congress to strengthen and pass a bill that really protects our food supply.

Tell Rep. Capps to strengthen and pass the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.

The bill, while it does not go nearly far enough, is a good start. As currently written, it will increase funding for and frequency of food inspections by the FDA and the USDA. The bill will expand the powers of the FDA, giving it — for the first time — the ability to order mandatory recalls. The bill will also assess on producers a $500 fee per "food facility," increase criminal and civil monetary penalties for food safety violations and enforce new product traceability guidelines.

The current bill remains dangerously weak in the area of prevention, which is fundamental to being able to stop outbreaks before they start. It allows up to three years between food facility inspections and does not force companies to actually test for pathogens.

At the same time, big food companies and the livestock industry are already insisting that the FDA's proposed new powers be weakened. They must not succeed. Now is the time to make sure Congress improves the legislation and resists the food industry's push to gut the law.

I hope you sign the petition, too.

Labels: Congress, FDA, food safety

Labels: FDA, food safety, pistachios, Recalls

Dead mice and rodent droppings were found throughout a Texas plant run by a company whose peanut products caused one of the biggest food recalls in U.S. history, food inspectors reported on tuesday. - Reuters

Labels: FDA, Food, food safety, inspection, Peanut Butter, Peanuts, Recalls

Labels: FDA, food safety, Recalls

Labels: FDA, food safety, Recalls

Labels: FDA, Food, food safety, Peanut Butter, Recalls

Labels: FDA, Jalapenos, Peppers, salmonella, Tomatoes

And this salmonella scare isn't California's fault.

Labels: FDA, Recalls, Tomatoes

China quietly muscles in on the organic food market. Consumers turning to organic food in the wake of warnings about antifreeze-laden toothpaste, poisoned pet food, and antibiotic-laced fish may be in for a surprise. The same country blamed for those scares, China, is quietly muscling in on the organic market.

...Upscale grocery chains like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods now import popular organic snacks such as edamame and canned staples such as kidney beans from China. That has made some buyers looking for pristine, all-natural food a bit skittish.

"A couple of months ago I was just eating some edamame from Trader Joe's because my nutritionist said they were a great source of protein," a science textbook writer from Los Angeles, Stephanie Anagnoson, said. "My husband noticed they were made in China and packed in China, and we both thought that was kind of bizarre. … It was at the same time that everyone began noticing that things coming from China are not necessarily what they seem - New York Sun

F.D.A. inspections lax, Congress is told. According to testimony before a House subcommittee, exporters and importers have been able to bring tainted products into this country because the F.D.A. has neither enough resources nor inspectors to stop them. New York Times.

Labels: China, FDA, food safety, Organic

The supermarket market chain, Safeway Inc., has agreed to reformulate soft drinks made with ingredients that can potentially form benzene, according to a recent settlement. The company is one of several soft drink manufacturers that have recently been sued in class action lawsuits over benzene, a known carcinogen. Coca-Cola, a former defendant, agreed to settle last month.

Benzene can form in beverages containing benzoate salts (sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate) and either vitamin C (ascorbic acid) or erythorbic acid, a related substance, if certain minerals are present. Heat or light during shipping or storage can increase the amount of benzene formed.

Although benzene doesn't always form, scientific studies carried out last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Consumer Reports found that benzene was present in more than a dozen different soft drink products—and in some cases at levels far higher than the 5 parts per billion (ppb) that federal regulations allow in bottled or tap water. (There is currently no standard for benzene in soft drinks.)

Could soft drinks be causing cancer? It's a question that deserves attention following the disclosure that some soft drinks contain the cancer-causing chemical benzene.

It's news that hasn't gotten much attention.

But a science administrator at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed for me that recent government tests found benzene in soft drinks purchased off grocery store shelves. Long-term exposure to benzene is associated with higher rates of leukemia.

What makes this situation scandalous is the fact that FDA knew about the issue 14 years ago. The agency left it to industry to address the problem. - the New Observer

• Read ingredient labels. Beverages that combine benzoate salts (listed as sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate) with vitamin C (ascorbic acid) can set the stage for benzene formation. You may want to leave those on the shelf.
• If you do buy beverages with that combination of ingredients, store them in a cool place and out of direct light.

Labels: benzene, benzoate, FDA, soda

The FDA is responsible for inspecting over 200,000 food processing facilities in the United States, but because their staffing is so inadequate, they can get to most only once every 10 to 15 years.

Labels: FDA, food safety

Through the salvaging practice, melamine-tainted pet food has likely contaminated America’s livestock for as long as it has been killing and sickening America’s pets — as far back as August of 2006, or even earlier. And while it may seem alarmist to suggest without absolute proof that Americans have been eating melamine-tainted pork, chicken and farm-raised fish for the better part of a year, the FDA and USDA seem to be preparing to brace Americans for the worst. In an unusual, Saturday afternoon joint press release, the regulators tasked with protecting the safety of our nation’s food supply go to convoluted lengths to reassure the public that eating melamine-tainted pork is perfectly safe.

And it gets worse. Tomorrow the New York Times will report from China, detailing how nitrogen-rich melamine scrap, produced from coal, is routinely ground into powder and mixed into low-grade wheat, corn, soybean or other proteins to inflate the protein analysis of animal feed:

The melamine powder has been dubbed “fake protein” and is used to deceive those who raise animals into thinking they are buying feed that provides higher nutrition value.

“It just saves money,” says a manager at an animal feed factory here. “Melamine scrap is added to animal feed to boost the protein level.”

The practice is widespread in China. For years animal feed sellers have been able to cheat buyers by blending the powder into feed with little regulatory supervision, according to interviews with melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.

Labels: FDA, food safety, food supply, Government

Labels: Chocolate, FDA, Hershey