"The Obama administration moved ahead Friday with the first major overhaul of the nation’s food-safety system in more than 70 years, proposing tough new standards for fruit and vegetable producers and food manufacturers.
The long-awaited proposals by the Food and Drug Administration are part of a fundamental change aimed at preventing food-borne outbreaks — caused by everything from leafy greens to cantaloupes to peanut butter — rather than simply reacting to them. Every year, contaminated foods sicken an estimated 48 million Americans and kill 3,000."
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"These rules “are the heart and soul of the law,” said Sandra Eskin, director of the Food Safety Campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “These are the priorities. Everything else flows from them."
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"The law gives the FDA broad new powers, including the ability to force companies to recall products and the authority to examine internal records at farms and food-production plants. It calls on the FDA to increase inspections, particularly at "high-risk" facilities prone to contamination, and to hire about 2,000 new inspectors.
Supporters had grown increasingly frustrated by repeated delays in the rule-writing process. Food safety experts, consumer groups, industry representatives, editorial boards and lawmakers on Capitol Hill took turns urging the Office of Management and Budget to release the rules.
Those calls grew louder after a 2011 outbreak of listeria traced to cantaloupe that left 33 people dead and led inspectors to unsanitary equipment at a processing plant in Colorado. In November, a salmonella outbreak that sickened 42 people in numerous states prompted the FDA to assert its new powers to temporarily halt production at the country’s largest organic peanut butter producer after finding numerous safety and sanitation problems."
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"More proposed rules are expected to be issued soon, including ones that would require that imported foods comply with U.S. safety standards. The FDA also plans to propose rules involving the production of animal foods.
It could be years before the proposals become final regulations. The FDA will take comments on the proposals for four months and then probably make changes. And some farms will have two years or more to comply with the rules."
''The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that could significantly delay implementation of sweeping new food safety legislation designed to reduce food-borne illnesses.''
More infoIn January 2011, President Barack Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law, signaling the first major update to our nation’s food safety oversight framework since the Great Depression. Despite widespread support for the legislation and its implementation, the Obama administration still has not issued all of the proposed rules under FSMA.
More infoThe Pew Charitable Trusts applauds Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) for her efforts to strengthen food safety protections under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, and provide grant funding to help school cafeterias across the nation upgrade their equipment to serve healthy, appealing meals to millions of school children. Funding for both programs was included in a larger bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.
More info"Being a Minnesotan, Jeff Almer searched for a polite term to describe how he feels about a congressional push to roll back the new food safety laws his family fought for when his elderly mother died after eating salmonella-laced peanut butter in late 2008."
More infoThe Pew Charitable Trusts commends Representative Tom Latham (R-IA) for his leadership in securing approximately $27 million for food safety in the House appropriations bill funding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA. The new money would help the FDA protect millions of Americans from the dangers of foodborne illnesses and strengthen consumer confidence in the food supply.
More infoAs a pediatrician, my No. 1 concern is to keep children safe and healthy. Inside the walls of my office, I can provide services and counseling to help do just that, whether by giving an infant her first childhood vaccine, providing a mental health screening to an adolescent patient or counseling parents about how to keep their homes as safe as possible. Unfortunately, there are some threats to children's health that are beyond my control, including the food they consume.
More infoCDC Data Show Alarmingly High Rate of Listeria Infections for Expectant MomsFrom 2004 2009, 29 percent of cases during pregnancy ended in miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death Data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Foodborne
More infoDuring a 15-year span beginning in the mid-1990s, infections in the United States from the pathogen vibrio have increased threefold, according to data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.
More info"The Food and Drug Administration will not reduce food inspections because of budget cuts, despite warning earlier that it could be forced to eliminate thousands of inspections by Sept. 30."
More info"Twenty-two weeks. That’s how long it took federal health officials to determine the contaminated food source after the first person was infected in a 2011 outbreak of salmonella that swept across 34 states, sickened 136 people and led to one of the largest national recalls of ground turkey."
More infoAn examination of a Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak linked to ground turkey illustrates that health authorities must be more aggressive in their efforts to detect and respond to foodborne illnesses, according to a new report by The Pew Charitable Trusts, titled “Too Slow: An Analysis of the 2011 Salmonella Ground Turkey Outbreak and Recommendations for Improving Detection and Response.” In all, the contaminated food sickened a reported 136 people in the United States, hospitalized 37 and killed one, according to government data.
More infoA multistate outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg infections linked to ground turkey in 2011 sickened 136 people, causing 37 hospitalizations and one death. The Pew Charitable Trusts' analysis of the outbreak found numerous inadequacies in the foodborne illness surveillance system that, if addressed, could help to prevent illnesses and, in some cases, deaths.
More info"Six years ago, Bend resident Chrissy Christoferson's ten-month-old son suffered a ten-day struggle with what first appeared to be a touch of the flu."
More info"Portlander Joe Day tearfully recalled the year his family spent Thanksgiving in a hospital cafeteria, as his sister, suffering from e coli, fought for her life several floors above."
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