Roy writes Michael: something about food safety

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Douglas Powell

On May 20, 2015, Michael Taylor (right, exactly as shown) of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted in a FDA blog that, “we’ve got to build prevention into the food safety system globally.”

Taylor, FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, also wrote the Food Safety Modernization Act is about providing assurances that the food system is doing everything it can to prevent problems and to provide food in grocery stores and restaurants that is as safe as it possibly can be.

Friend of the barfblog.com, Roy Costa responded by writing:

I appreciate Michael Taylor’s comments and also believe that FSMA is a step in the right direction. The fact, however, is that companies around the globe have already adopted food safety systems. This article makes it sound like preventative controls are something new and that such programs will be brought about by new federal law. The fact is in most major operations the preventative controls are in place right now. There are firms that have not adopted such in their operations, and FSMA may help to address this, but by and large, the large foodborne illness outbreaks we have seen are not the result not having a prevention program, but the failure of the program to prevent the hazard from occurring.

Breaking a law, however, comes with a high cost for non-compliance, and that hammer is needed for some. But for most operators, this is not the answer to the microbial contamination control problem in their facilities. Our overarching goal in industry should be to be in compliance with FDA’s new laws, however, we need effective food safety management systems and we do not always have them. This is illustrated by the findings of serious sanitation issues, after the fact, in the investigation of the Blue Bell ice cream plant outbreak and many others.

As a regulator, consultant, auditor and investigator for almost 40 years, I am painfully aware of the difficulties in the implementation of complicated quality assurance and safety programs. In light of this, I feel simply more or different “preventative controls” are not likely to improve the situation much, by themselves.

Still, we look to FDA to help us, and I am still wondering if we will get what we need from the agency. We need consistent application and enforcement of the rules, and FDA has to get agents into the field, but most importantly, firms must organize their companies around food safety. This means establishing active and effective committees, appointing dedicated food safety staff, and a planned approach to assuring the safety of products. Companies must also effectively train and educate everyone in the organization, and maybe most importantly, apply the available science and technology to the food safety problem.

A lack of commitment within companies is a root cause of much of the failures of the existing programs, along with a lack of resources. We waste tons of money on audits, manuals, record keeping etc, etc, when we should be investing in educating our employees, improving our infrastructures and applying technology. These applications should include onsite laboratory capability, remote monitoring of critical processes, and sophisticated traceability and recall programs.

I totally support what FDA is doing with FSMA, but we should recognize that a new system of preventative controls is only a solution if our food safety management systems are working effectively.

But will it mean fewer sick people? Canadian food rules being rewritten

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Douglas Powell

First a single inspection agency, now a move to a single inspection approach across all commodities.

As reported by Sarah Schmidt of Postmedia News, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency released Friday its vision to modernize food inspection, making the case for getting rid of eight separate programs for dairy, eggs, seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables, imported and manufactured food, maple, meat and processed products.

“This challenges the CFIA to manage risks consistently across different types of establishments and different foods. It creates situations in which foods of similar risks may be inspected at different frequencies or in different ways,’” CFIA writes of the current system in its discussion paper.

“The model should raise the bar and set expectations for food control systems that are developed and maintained by industry with risk-based government oversight. It should also standardize requirements and procedures across all food, based on science and risk.”

The release of the proposal, dubbed The Case for Change, kick-starts consultations, with a final plan to be released by next year and phased in over the next five years.

A new food safety act, bringing together multiple laws under one piece of legislation, is also expected to be tabled as early as this month.

Together, these changes will represent the single largest transformation since CFIA was created in 1997, when food inspection programs from different federal departments were brought under the umbrella of the agency.

View the CFIA’s The Case for Change and the direction that the Agency is taking to improve food inspection on the inspection modernization section of the CFIA website.

Forewarned: multiple summaries are easy to find, actual details, not so much. Typical CFIA.

And it wouldn’t be CFIA without heaps of self-referential praise.

"We already have a top-tier food safety system but our goal is to be the best," said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. "Simply put, we want Canadians to have the safest food in the world. That is why we are seeking input from consumers, inspectors, food safety experts, industry and everyone who has a role to play in food safety."

Sounds good. Walk the talk. Provide better information about outbreaks, especially homegrown ones.

Are food safety reforms in New Zealand actually scary?

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Douglas Powell

The kiwis have been trying to get some sort of food safety reform bill through parliament for years so, with the deck chairs shuffled or thrown overboard, why not try again.

The New Zealand Herald reports a bill bringing sweeping reform to food safety standards is being criticized for giving food safety officers excessive power and threatening the viability of small-scale food sellers and backyard community food swaps.

The bill, which is almost certain to become law with the support of most political parties, would replace 30-year-old legislation, which falls short of properly protecting consumers, and create a new framework for food safety.

But small operators fear that new compliance costs could push them under, while others have concerns about the bill’s effects on community food swaps and growers who sell small amounts to retailers.

An online petition, which says the bill impedes the basic right to share food, has gathered almost 24,000 signatures.

There is also concern over the powers of food safety officers, who could search premises without a warrant in some circumstances and use any force necessary to enter and search, while being immune from civil or criminal liability.

While the Government has dismissed some criticism, Food Safety Minister Kate Wilkinson is seeking advice on how to ensure the bill would not affect the current rules on food swaps and selling and exchanging seeds.

The new safety framework is expected to be simpler. At the top end, businesses such as restaurants would need a rigid food plan, while places considered less risky, such as bakeries, would have to comply with a more flexible national program.

Are food safety reforms in New Zealand actually scary?***

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Douglas Powell

The kiwis have been trying to get some sort of food safety reform bill through parliament for years so, with the deck chairs shuffled or thrown overboard, why not try again.

An online petition, which says the bill impedes the basic right to share food, has gathered almost 24,000 signatures.

Thank you for barfing; no money for US food safety changes

Posted on December 25, 2010 by Douglas Powell

The ink hasn’t dried on the new U.S. food safety bill – because it won’t be signed until Jan. 2011 – but many are already saying there’s no money to implement the proposed changes, and Republicans are going to make sure of it.

I still don’t care; it’s all political claptrap.

Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Food and Drug Administration, told the Washington Post today the number of cases of foodborne illnesses in the U.S. does not justify the $1.4 billion the new law is estimated to cost over the first five years, adding,

"I would not identify it as something that will necessarily be zeroed out, but it is quite possible it will be scaled back if it is significant overreach. We still have a food supply that’s 99.99 percent safe. No one wants anybody to get sick, and we should always strive to make sure food is safe. But the case for a $1.4 billion expenditure isn’t there."

Iowa Republican Rep. Tom Latham said the same thing a few days ago.

“We simply don’t have the money to pay for it.”

FDA also released a Food Bill For Dummies guide to the proposed changes a couple of days ago.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) gives FDA a mandate to pursue a system that is based on science and addresses hazards from farm to table, putting greater emphasis on preventing food-borne illness. The reasoning is simple: The better the system handles producing, processing, transporting, and preparing foods, the safer our food supply will be.

I thought FDA was already supposed to do this.

The legislation, which FDA experts say transforms the food safety system, includes the following major provisions:

* Food facilities must have a written preventive controls plan that spells out the possible problems that could affect the safety of their products. This plan would outline steps that a food facility would take to prevent or significantly minimize the likelihood of those problems occurring.

* FDA must establish science-based standards for the safe production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. These standards must consider not only man-made risks to fresh produce safety, but also naturally-occurring hazards—such as those posed by the soil, animals, and water in the growing area.

* FDA is directed to increase the frequency of inspections. High-risk domestic facilities must receive an initial inspection within the next five years and no less than every three years after that. During the next year, FDA must inspect at least 600 foreign food facilities and double the number of those inspections every year for the next five years. With the availability of resources, FDA will build the inspection capacity to meet these important goals.

* FDA is authorized to mandate a recall of unsafe food if the food company fails to do it voluntarily. The law also provides a more flexible standard for administrative detention (the procedure FDA uses to keep suspect food from being moved); allows FDA to suspend the registration of a food facility associated with unsafe food, thereby preventing it from distributing food; and directs the agency to improve its ability to track both domestic and imported foods.

In testimony before Congress in March, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said that user fees collected from food companies and farms would pay for most of the increased inspections and other costs associated with the legislation. But a provision for user fees in the House version was cut from the final language, leaving the government to foot the entire cost.

Mark McClellan, who served as FDA commissioner from 2002 to 2004, said that without additional funding, Congress is unfairly raising expectations, adding,

"It’s relatively easy to pass legislation that the FDA needs to do more things. It’s very hard to back that up with resources. And problems may be compounded by legislation like this, which raises expectations that the FDA should be doing this, that or other things."

Producers, processors, retailers, restaurants, mere mortals, take care of food safety. And if you do, tell the world about it, market it, promote microbiologically-safe food. People care about this stuff. Politicians, not so much.

If only laws were like sausages

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Douglas Powell

It’s a tired analogy, but given the fantastical failings of the feds to pass the most basic food safety rules, sausage makers are fighting back.

Robert Pear writes in Sunday’s New York Times that, in defending their work, members of Congress love to repeat a quotation attributed to Otto von Bismarck: “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.”

In other words, the legislative process, though messy and sometimes unappetizing, can produce healthy, wholesome results.

But a visit to a sausage factory here, about 10 miles from the Capitol, suggests that Bismarck and today’s politicians are mistaken. In many ways, that quotation is offensive to sausage makers; their process is better controlled and more predictable.

“I’m so insulted when people say that lawmaking is like sausage making,” said Stanley A. Feder, president of Simply Sausage, whose plant here turns out 60,000 pounds of links a year.

“With legislation, you can have hundreds of cooks — members of Congress, lobbyists, federal agency officials, state officials,” Mr. Feder said. “In sausage making, you generally have one person, the wurstmeister, who runs the business and makes the decisions.”

Sausages are produced according to a recipe. And while plenty of pork goes into many sausages and laws, the ingredients of the edible product are specified in advance, carefully measured out and accurately identified on a label. An inspector from the United States Department of Agriculture visits the plant every day.

Granted, Simply Sausage is a small, artisanal sausage maker, not an industrial-scale slaughterhouse. But the comparison is still faulty, said Mr. Feder, a political scientist who took up sausage making after retiring from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Shirley you can’t be serious; food safety wonks speak

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen may have died Sunday, but the slapstick continues to flow from Washington.

On the same day the Senate passed its version of a food safety bill, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave ‘Salmonella Jack’ DeCoster permission to once again sell eggs at retail.

As a consumer, am I supposed to have faith that FDA has checked out DeCoster’s operations, and even more faith that FDA may soon have more tools at their food safety disposal?

What if I want to avoid DeCoster’s eggs, because he has a bad track record and will soon be slip-slidin’ away to the lowest common denominator?

Nothing.

Sure, buy organic/natural/local/sustainable, but that’s got nothing to do with the kind of microbiologically safe food I’m looking for. Big egg farms don’t mean dirty egg farms.

Why not unleash the power of food safety marketing and let consumers choose at retail.

Repeated outbreaks have shown that all food is not safe: there are good producers and bad producers, good retailers and bad retailers. As a consumer, I have no way of knowing.

Tell consumers about salmonella-testing programs meant to reduce risks; put a URL on egg cartons so those who are interested can use the Internet or even personal phones to see how the eggs were raised. Boring press releases in the absence of data only magnify consumer mistrust.

Food producers should truthfully market their microbial food safety programs, coupled with behavioral-based food safety systems that foster a positive food safety culture from farm-to-fork. The best producers and processors will go far beyond the lowest common denominator of government and should be rewarded in the marketplace.

Government has a role, but there are too many outbreaks and too many sick people. It’s time for producers, retailers and restaurants to market microbial food safety and compete using safety as a selling point.

Marketing food safety at retail has the additional benefit of enhancing a food safety culture within an organization – if we’re boasting about this stuff I guess we really better wash our hands and keep the poop out of food. Maintaining a food safety culture means that operators and staff know the risks associated with the products or meals they produce, know why managing the risks is important, and effectively manage those risks in a demonstrable way. In an organization with a good food safety culture, individuals are expected to enact practices that represent the shared value system and point out where others may fail. By using a variety of tools, consequences and incentives, businesses can demonstrate to their staff and customers that they are aware of current food safety issues, that they can learn from others’ mistakes, and that food safety is important within the organization.

But, on to the nosestretchers:

“This is authoritarian stuff we are dealing with–agents able to march in and rummage through your business materials without even having to wave a search warrant–so you’ve got to be nimble, and creative. Food producers in places like Rumania, Poland, Russia and Cuba have had lots more practice than we have, so it’s time to do some catch-up.”
The Complete Patient writes in a piece titled, If You’re in the Food Business, Better Begin Preparing Now to Avoid the FDA SWAT Teams.

“This legislation means that parents who tell their kids to eat their spinach can be assured that it won’t make them sick.”
Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa who, as chairman of the Senate health committee, shepherded the legislation through months of negotiations.

“This is history folks, watch live on CSPAN.”
“Tallying the votes… the suspense is killing me.”
“The Senate has surpassed the number of votes needed to pass the most sweeping change to food safety laws in 7 decades.”
A variety of bloggers functioning as stenographers

"Size correlates directly with risk. When we have the kind of E. coli outbreaks we’ve got where it impacts many, many, many states and thousands of families, that’s risk. When we’ve got a producer that’s raising lettuce that’s looking at the guy who’s going to eat it right square in the eye, that’s a different level of risk entirely."
Sen. JonTester

Most apt statements:

“Senate passes S. 510 Food Safety Modernization Act after Dierksen cafeteria offers imported steak tartare and raw spinach lunch special.”
Chris Clayton, blogger

"If this bill was on the books, it wouldn’t have changed anything about the recall. Our own standards are already higher."
ConAgra Foods spokesman Jeff Mochal

Rhetoric rules: food safety law battle accomplishes nothing

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Tomorrow’s USA Today has competing food safety editorials and they both get it wrong.

The editorial board of USA Today says regulators lack enough authority to do what’s needed to protect the public, and they need recall authority.

No, regulators have lots of authority and continually mess up.

Tom Coburn, a medical doctor and a Republican senator from Oklahoma, says in this political nosestretcher that “America has the safest food supply in the world, and it has never been safer” and that “the so-called FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, which the Senate will vote on after Thanksgiving, only expands a disjointed, duplicative and ineffective food safety bureaucracy. “

Coburn says that “for the past 100 years, the free market, not the government, has been the primary driver of innovation and improved safety. Consumer choice is a far more effective accountability mechanism than government bureaucracies.”

Except consumers can’t choose safer food because no one will promote such food at retail. Coburn is having some wet dreams about Reagan trickle-down economics.

Market food safety at retail and consumers could actually choose. Otherwise, it just tastes like urine, trickling down …

Will proposed food safety bill mean fewer sick people? Doubtful

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Apparently I’m alone in thinking the proposed food safety legislation won’t make much of a difference – especially in terms of sick people.

While tomorrow’s USA Today gushes in a headline courtesy of a so-called consumer group that “Proposed food safety bill good for ‘everyone who eats,’” for me, it all just sounds like “The old Potomac two-step, Jack."??

"I’m sorry, Mr. President, I don’t dance."??

That’s what Jack Ryan as played by Harrison Ford said in the movie, Clear and Present Danger. And that’s why I repeatedly ignore what comes out of Washington.

The $1.4 billion food safety bill, which would give the Food and Drug Administration broader powers to inspect processing plants and recall tainted products, cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate, setting it up as a top measure for Congress to address in its year-end session.

What I told ABC News was this:

"Government sets minimal standards, which the best food producers, processors and retailers exceed daily, while talking heads blather. There are bad players in the system, which government is supposed to catch, but given the pervasive food safety outbreaks over the past 20 years, they don’t seem very good at it. Will the new bill mean fewer sick people? Doubtful."

Dr. Douglas Powell, associate professor, Kansas State University

ABC also asked a bunch of other food policy types, and they all agreed, one way or another, that passage of the bill was important.

It’s not that important. Dance?

Be the bug: microbiologically safe food, no exceptions

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Braunwynn, the college freshman daughter, e-mailed last night (although in Canada she’s called a first-year university student).

"Watched this documentary, Food Inc., today. Seemed like one of those things you would get quoted on. Was a particularly emotional part about this mom whose 2-year-old son died from E. coli O157:H7 in a burger. Made me think of you."

I told Braunwynn that I knew the mom, and it was a tragic story. I also told her I wouldn’t get quoted in the movie because while it was compelling entertainment, it was scientific bullshit (or cowshit). “Most documentaries like that are powerful stories, but they are controlled by demagogues — and good demagogues never give up control of the microphone. Then things get messy or confusing, or at least not so simple. love dad”

Braunwynn’s timing was rather fortunate (that’s her on a food-safety mission in 2004 where we watched visitors to this Ontario cheese shop troddle out to the porta-potty with no handwashing facilities and stick their hands in cheese samplers). As the U.S. Senate votes on a food safety bill today – which will not reduce the number of people barfing every day from food — two of the Food Inc. demagogues, Eric Schlosser & Michael Pollan issued a statement supporting the Tester amendment, which would exempt small farmers and producers from the proposed food safety legislation.

"S 510 is the most important food safety legislation in a generation. The Tester amendment will make it even more effective, strengthening food safety rules while protecting small farmers and producers. We both think this is the right thing to do."

The most important thing any proposed food safety bill can do is reduce levels of illness and death.

But local food types worry the legislation’s safety requirements could force small farms out of business.

Some of the arguments can be found on grist.org and include:

“We are really talking about two parallel food production and distribution systems in this country. One is inherently dangerous due to its scale, methodology, and distribution model. The other depends on an intimate relationship between modest, local/regional owner-operators, who take pride in their work and direct connection with consumers. … I for one will gamble with my health, and the health of my family, by continuing to patronize local organic farmers. Weighing the risks, and the benefits of superior quality and nutrition, I think I am making a good investment.”

Mark Kastel, co-founder of The Cornucopia Institute and director its Organic Integrity Project

“Small, sustainable farmers spend their money and time on raising safe, quality food. We don’t have the resources, nor the economies of scale, that the large companies have that enable them to absorb additional regulatory burdens. … I look my customers in the face every time we sell them food. I know their children, and I have watched them grow up on the food we raise. I’ve talked with people who are fighting cancer or diabetes, or whose children have asthma — and for whom high quality food is a matter of survival. Several of the people who buy our food are among my closest friends.”

Judith McGeary, founder and executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance

I hear these assertions all the time, and wonder, why is there no mention of microbiology? Those dangerous bugs really don’t care about size or politics: local or global, conventional or organic, big or small, producers and others in the farm-to-fork food safety system either know about dangerous microorganisms and take steps to control them – or they don’t.

Braunwynn is a student at the University of Western Ontario in London (the Canadian one), the town that also hosts the annual Western Fair. I reminded her that in 1999, 159 people, primarily kids, got sick with E. coli O157:H7 from the sheep and goats at the petting zoo at the Western Fair. Those sheep and goats weren’t part of big ag and weren’t factory farmed. They are ruminants, and like cattle and deer, about 10 per cent carry E. coli O157:H7 at any one time.

But that doesn’t get mentioned in Food, Inc. Or legislation. Or amendments.

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