Featured Reports

The Genetic Town Hall

The Genetics and Public Policy Center’s Public Consultation Project on Genes, Environment, and Health consisted of focus groups, interviews with community leaders, a survey, and a series of town halls. This report summarizes the five town hall sessions, which took place from March-May 2008 in Jackson, Mississippi; Kansas City, Missouri; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Phoenix, Arizona; and Portland, Oregon.

Oversight of Next Generation Nanotechnology

Since 1980, the capability of the federal agencies responsible for environmental health and safety has steadily eroded. The agencies cannot perform their basic functions now, and they are completely unable to cope with the new challenges they face in the 21st century. This paper describes some of these challenges, focusing on next-generation nanotechnologies, and suggests changes that could revitalize the health and safety agencies. More info

Produce Safety Summit: Implications of Mandatory Safety Standards

Every year in the United States, foodborne illnesses cause sickness, death, and significant economic and social costs that extend beyond the immediate victims. In January 2007, the Government Accountability Office designated federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area because of the need to reduce risks to public health as well as the economy. In March 2009, President Obama announced the creation of a Food Safety Working Group to address the need to reduce foodborne illness.

A number of actions are being proposed to address these issues, including mandatory safety standards for foods such as fresh produce. However, there are significant inherent challenges in the implementation and enforcement of safety standards, primarily due to multi-stakeholder involvement, increased complexities in the food production and distribution chains, and fragmentation of oversight responsibilities.

Legal Analysis Examines Limits to Agricultural Marketing Service's Role in Produce Safety Standards

This Legal Analysis by the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Examines AMS’s Role in Produce Safety Standards.

Still Waiting

This report presents Pew’s findings about the state of the credit card market on the eve of significant new federal regulations designed to eliminate unfair or deceptive practices and foster safer and more transparent products.

State Surveillance of Foodborne Illness

In an effort to determine states’ capacity to track produce-related cases of foodborne illness and gain a better understanding of how states conduct investigations of outbreaks, the Produce Safety Project, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University, commissioned Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.) to conduct a survey of state health departments. The survey was sent to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and 39 responded. The survey requested 2007 data on the types of questionnaires administered by state health departments to foodborne-illness victims, the time frame in which they were completed, the types of questions asked, and how states collected and stored the resulting data. These elements are key in the effective identification of the source of a foodborne illness.

Issue Brief Series: Analyses of Possible Sources of Produce Contamination

The Produce Safety Project has commissioned a series of papers as a follow-up to its analysis and comparison of existing produce safety standards. These papers will explore in more depth issues relating to the use of compost, the quality of irrigation water, the interaction and interface of food safety standards and conservation standards, and worker hygiene measures.

Taking Charge (Spring 2010 Trust Magazine article)

The Pew Charitable Trusts began work to protect Americans from the credit cards’ most perilous provisions. That effort culminated in May of 2009 with the passage and presidential signature of the first major credit-card reform ever.

PSP Submits Growers' Comments

The Produce Safety Project (PSP) supports the development by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of a mandatory and enforceable produce safety standard for the growing, harvesting and packing of fresh fruits and vegetables. Among other activities, PSP sponsored six stakeholder discussions around the country with the goal of providing a platform for stakeholders, with particular emphasis on growers, to discuss their expertise in promoting produce safety through their current practices and offer input for consideration by FDA as it prepares to propose a produce safety rule.

Unbanked By Choice

This study compares banked and unbanked families across several categories including financial behavior, economic status and perceptions of the financial service industry.  

Legal and Regulatory Frameworks Governing the Growing, Packing and Handling of Fresh Produce in Countries Exporting to the U.S.

A number of major countries exporting fresh vegetables and fruit into the United States have modernized food-safety laws and regulations over the past two decades to emphasize preventive measures. The Produce Safety Project (PSP), supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, advocates for improvements in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) oversight of domestic and imported produce through the adoption of mandatory, enforceable safety standards. To provide policymakers with information on the legal and regulatory frameworks governing the growing, packing and handling of fresh produce in countries exporting to the U.S., PSP commissioned a review of those systems in fi ve of the U.S.’s largest trading partners - Canada, Chile, China, Mexico, and Peru.

Enhancing FDA’s Evaluation of Science to Ensure Chemicals Added to Human Food Are Safe (Pre-Workshop Materials)

The workshop, co sponsored by Nature journal, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), and the Pew Heath Group, brought together more than 80 scientists and and policymakers to develop a shared understanding of the current system FDA uses to assess the hazards of chemicals added to human food and explore opportunities to strengthen that system.

A New Equilibrium

Credit card holders are seeing stabilized interest rates, the elimination of overlimit penalty charges, a reduction in late fees charged by banks and minimal changes in annual fees since the Credit CARD Act of 2009 took effect.