Don and Ben start the episode talking about kimchi fermentation and all the cabbage that needed to be washed and salted. The conversation went towards collaborations with fun people that might seem a bit unnatural to outsiders. The guys talk about a few outbreaks including two pathogenic E. coli ones linked to Romaine lettuce and Hep A in blackberries. They then do some listener feedback on foreign objects, bad cleaning and sanitizing machines and chitterlings. Also, bacteria is everywhere.
Food safety recalls are always either too early or too late. If you’re right, it’s always too late. If you’re wrong, it’s always too early.
– Dr. Paul Mead
Chris Koger of The Packer writes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will be collecting romaine samples in California and Arizona for a year to test for salmonella and E. coli following several foodborne outbreaks linked to the lettuce.
The new program begins this month, according to the FDA, citing two E. coli outbreaks in 2018 linked to romaine, and another one in October that was suspected to be from the leafy green. In its notice on the surveillance program, the FDA also cited a 2012 Salmonella Newport outbreak from romaine.
“Consistent with the FDA’s mission to protect consumers, if one of the target pathogens is detected as a result of this assignment, the agency will perform whole genome sequencing of the microorganism’s DNA to determine its virulence and whether it is genetically related to isolates causing human illness,” according to the notice.
All samples will be tested before processing to allow the FDA to quickly find the point of origin, which has been problematic in recent outbreaks as public and federal health agencies traced lettuce through the supply chain. In part, traceability hurdles have led to the FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety program, which tasks the industry with enhancing traceability methods and technology.
Trimmed and washed lettuce will be tested, but not fresh-cut lettuce, and no lettuce at the farm-level will be involved in the surveillance program.
Samples will be targeted at facilities and farms identified in the outbreaks starting in 2017, including wholesalers, foodservice distribution centers, and commercial cooling and cold storage facilities, according to the FDA notice.
The agribusiness program Goldberg developed in 1955 continues to bring business leaders and policy makers from around the world together each year. Throughout his tenure, Ray has written over 100 articles and 24 books on the business of agriculture, including his very latest, Food Citizenship: Food System Advocates in an Era of Distrust.
He was interviewed by podcast host, Brian Kenny: Did you coin the term agribusiness?
Ray Goldberg: I did, together with John Davis. He was the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture under Eisenhower, and he became the first head of the (HBS) Agribusiness Program.
Brian Kenny: The case cites examples of foodborne illness outbreaks in the US. We’re coming on the heels of the recent romaine lettuce issue in the US, which has now occurred, I think, twice in the last few months.
Ray Goldberg: I can describe the romaine lettuce [event], because I talked to the produce manager this morning, and he tells me the cost to the industry was $100 million dollars.
The problem is that romaine lettuce itself, when cold temperatures occur, begins to blister, which make it more susceptible to listeria. When they tried to find the location of that listeria, it came from a dairy herd about 2,000 feet away from where that lettuce was grown. We have a rule that 1,200 feet is far enough, but they actually found listeria a mile away from where that lettuce was concerned, so he feels very strongly that they have to change the rules.
(They seem to be confusing Listeria with E.coli O157 in Romaine, but that’s Haaaaaaaaarvard.)
Brian Kenny: Which gets to another issue that the case raises, which is has the industry done well enough trying to regulate itself? What are some of the things the industry has tried to do?
Ray Goldberg: Under Danny Wegman’s leadership—he was the person in charge of food safety of the Food Marketing Institute that really looked at the whole industry—he got several members of the industry to sit down and create new rules with the FDA, the EPA, the USDA, and CDC, all of them saying we have to have better rules. Produce, as you know in the case, is the most valuable part of a supermarket but also the most susceptible to problems.
Brian Kenny: This gets a little bit to the topic of your book, Food System Advocates in an Era of Distrust. [What[ are the big ideas coming out of your book?
Ray Goldberg: The big ideas are two-fold, that the kind of men and women in the industry have changed from commodity handlers and bargaining as to how cheap they can buy something, or how expensive they can make something, to finally realizing that they have to be trusted. And because they have to be trusted, they have to start working together to create that trust. In addition to that, they realize that the private, public and not-for-profit sectors really need to work together. That’s why I tried to write a book to give people an inkling of the kind of men and women in this industry who really are the change-makers, who are changing it to a consumer-oriented, health-oriented, environmentally-oriented, economic development-oriented industry.
When the foodbabe is billed as an expert on microbial contamination of leafy greens and ends up delivering a screed about antimicrobial overuse in livestock as the source of superbugs, I sorta wonder.
But some background.
In sentencing me to jail in 1982, the judge said I had a memory of convenience.
I said I had a memory of not much.
Still don’t.
Spinach and lettuce growers seem to have a memory of not much, given the produce industry’s revisions to the 2006 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in spinach that killed four and sickened 200.
In October, 1996, a 16-month-old Denver girl drank Smoothie juice manufactured by Odwalla Inc. of Half Moon Bay, California. She died several weeks later; 64 others became ill in several western U.S. states and British Columbia after drinking the same juices, which contained unpasteurized apple cider — and E. coli O157:H7. Investigators believed that some of the apples used to make the cider might have been insufficiently washed after falling to the ground and coming into contact with deer feces.
In the decade between these two watershed outbreaks, almost 500 outbreaks of foodborne illness involving fresh produce were documented, publicized and led to some changes within the industry, yet what author Malcolm Gladwell would call a tipping point — “a point at which a slow gradual change becomes irreversible and then proceeds with gathering pace” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_Point) — in public awareness about produce-associated risks did not happen until the spinach E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in the fall of 2006. At what point did sufficient evidence exist to compel the fresh produce industry to embrace the kind of change the sector has heralded since 2007? And at what point will future evidence be deemed sufficient to initiate change within an industry?
In 1996, following extensive public and political discussions about microbial food safety in meat, the focus shifted to fresh fruits and vegetables, following an outbreak of Cyclospora cayetanesis ultimately linked to Guatemalan raspberries that sickened 1,465 in 21 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997), and subsequently Odwalla. That same year, Beuchat (1996) published a review on pathogenic microorganisms in fresh fruits and vegetables and identified numerous pathways of contamination.
By 1997, researchers at CDC were stating that pathogens could contaminate at any point along the fresh produce food chain — at the farm, processing plant, transportation vehicle, retail store or foodservice operation and the home — and that by understanding where potential problems existed, it was possible to develop strategies to reduce risks of contamination. Researchers also reported that the use of pathogen-free water for washing would minimize risk of contamination.
What was absent in this decade of outbreaks, letters from regulators, plans from industry associations and media accounts, was verification that farmers and others in the farm-to-fork food safety system were seriously internalizing the messages about risk, the numbers of sick people, and translating such information into front-line food safety behavioural change.
So why was spinach in 2006 the tipping point?
It shouldn’t have been.
But it lets industry apologists say, how the hell could we known?
Beginning Sept. 14 and continuing until Sept. 20, 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued daily news releases that flatly advised consumers “not to eat fresh spinach or fresh spinach-containing products until further notice.”
The agency had never before issued such a broad warning about a commodity, said Robert Brackett, who in 2006 was director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutritions. Brackett is now vice president and director of the Institute for Food Safety and Health at the Illinois Institute of Technology,
“In this particular case all we knew (was) that it was bagged leafy spinach, but we had no idea whose it was or where it was coming from.
“It was a very scary couple of days because we had all of these serious cases of hemolytic-uremic syndrome popping up and people getting sick, and it was so widespread across the country.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported about half of those who were ill were hospitalized during the 2006 spinach E. coli outbreak.
“It was shocking how little confidence that FDA and consumers had in the produce industry at that moment,” said David Gombas, senior vice president of food safety and technology for the Washington, D.C.-based United Fresh Produce Association.
Given the history of outbreaks, the only thing shocking was that the industry continued to expect blind faith.
There were guidelines for growers in 2006, but not a way to make sure growers were following them, said Joe Pezzini, CEO of Ocean Mist Farms, Castroville, Calif.
And now another decade-plus has passed and once again, FDA issued a commodity-wide warning: don’t eat Romaine lettuce (Cos for my Australian friends).
The same huskers and buskers stepped out to make their case, with industry saying OK, maybe we need to be more than a mile away from 100,000 cattle head feedlots that crap into the same water canals used to irrigate leafy greens.
Denny Black, a Manitoba farmer, who grows more than 20,000 heads of Greenleaf and butterhead lettuce at his Neva Farms in Landmark, Man., using hydroponics, a mix of nutrients including calcium and nitrogen combined with water. The plants, which take about eight weeks to mature from tiny seeds into full grown greens, are grown under artificial lights.
“I think people are looking for an alternative to field grown crops,” Black said.
His method, he claims, could mitigate some risk, since produce can be contaminated with E. coli through the soil, water, animals or improperly composted manure.
Fortunately, Claudia Narvaez, an associate professor in the food science department at the University of Manitoba said, “If the seeds for that lettuce are contaminated with a foodborne pathogen, you can’t, you won’t get rid of it even in a hydroponic production system.”
She added that Black’s controlled environment is only moderately safer compared to soil, depending on the source of the water and whether people follow proper safety procedures when handling the produce.
Keith Warriner of the University of Guelph told CBC he was “shocked” by advice the public got this week from Dr. Jennifer Russell, New Brunswick’s chief medical officer of health, after people got sick from E. coli in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.
Russell advised people to throw away their romaine lettuce. But if they decided to consume the lettuce, she said, they should wash it under cool, running water.
Warriner said washing is too risky.
“We’ve known for years now that washing doesn’t cut it.”
Warriner also told CTV News that romaine lettuce is more susceptible to E. coli contamination partly because of how it’s grown, adding “In our own research, what we found is that E. coli likes romaine lettuce out of all the other lettuces we have.”
Warriner conducted a study that showed romaine lettuce extracts prompted E. coli out of a dormant state, which it can remain in for about a year in soil, and allowed it to flourish.
Romaine’s increased susceptibility comes down to several factors, he said.
The crop is mostly grown in Arizona and California, Warriner said, which is also cattle country. Irrigation water used on romaine fields can become tainted with bacteria from the animals. It doesn’t help that both states are quite hot and romaine lettuce already requires an abundance of water, he said.
But top prize goes to the self-proclaimed foodbabe, she who gets chemicals out of food and managed to secure an interview on CNN (she starts at about 40 seconds in; judge for yourselves).
(Update: the video appears to be removed by CNN, probably due to the Twitter backlash, but here’s the transcript)
I don’t want to give her anymore space for fear it will be associated with credibility: it’s not, that stuff is earned.
The agreement, negotiated by romaine grower-shippers, processors and industry associations, will be the new standard for romaine packed in the U.S. The standards follow an E. coli outbreak linked to 43 illnesses in the U.S. and 22 in Canada, as of Nov. 26.
“A number of produce associations also have agreed to support this initiative and are recommending that all industry members throughout the supply chain follow this same labeling program,” according to the United Fresh Produce Association, in an e-mail alert to members Nov. 26 sent several hours before the FDA released a statement lifting the advisory that virtually banned romaine in the U.S.
According to the FDA statement, the new labels are voluntary, but its updated message to consumers suggests it’s against shippers’ interest to forego the label:
“Based on discussions with major producers and distributors, romaine lettuce entering the market will now be labeled with a harvest location and a harvest date,” according to the FDA. “Romaine lettuce entering the market can also be labeled as being hydroponically or greenhouse grown. If it does not have this information, you should not eat or use it.”
I like that. It’s what we used with Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers back in 2000 – yes I’m that old – this is a voluntary food safety program, but we have a list of everyone who doesn’t participate and that list will be available to retailers.
Yet why didn’t growers do this for themselves, decades ago, instead of waiting for sick people?
The FDA is advising retailers to display signs about the origin of romaine products when they’re not individually packaged, such as bulk displays of unwrapped heads of romaine.
And kudos to Hansel ‘n Griddle, a small but popular breakfast/lunch chain in the Rutgers area.
In the interest of public health, they texted the following to their customers:
To Our Valued Customer,
Hansel ‘n Griddle has temporarily stopped serving romaine lettuce due to a CDC Food Safety Alert posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2018 regarding a E. coli outbreak with its source being from romaine lettuce.
From the CDC website: “The CDC is advising that U.S. consumers not eat any romaine lettuce, and retailers and restaurants not serve or sell any, until we learn more about the outbreak… This advice includes all types or uses of romaine lettuce, such as whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad.”
Below are two links, one to the CDC website, and one to the FDA website, giving details on the E. coli outbreak and more information.
The normal folks who I hang out with at the hockey arena have already started asking when they can start eating Romaine again (who knew there were so many Caesar fans).
If you happen to visit a restaurant that tries to claim its romaine is safe, it’s really best to avoid the food. “I would send it back,” Benjamin Chapman, an assistant professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “When the CDC comes out with a message that says ‘Don’t eat romaine lettuce,’ you should heed that advice,” he says. “Right now, we don’t have any indication that it’s romaine from any certain part of the country or a certain company. It’s a standing blanket statement.”
And now we’ve got more information (that’s how quickly this stuff moves).
FDA announced late today that they have narrowed their investigation to field grown Romaine from Central Coast growing regions of northern and central California.
All other lettuce is as safe as it was last week before the announcement.
FDA is taking things a step further, in a really positive way in concept – asking producers to label where it came from.
Based on discussions with producers and distributors, romaine lettuce entering the market will now be labeled with a harvest location and a harvest date or labeled as being hydroponically- or greenhouse-grown. If it does not have this information, you should not eat or use it.
There is no recommendation for consumers or retailers to avoid using romaine lettuce that is certain to have been harvested from areas outside of the Central Coast growing regions of northern and central California. For example, romaine lettuce harvested from areas that include, but are not limited to the desert growing region near Yuma, the California desert growing region near Imperial County and Riverside County, the state of Florida, and Mexico, does not appear to be related to the current outbreak. Additionally, there is no evidence hydroponically- and greenhouse-grown romaine is related to the current outbreak.
During this new stage of the investigation, it is vital that consumers and retailers have an easy way to identify romaine lettuce by both harvest date and harvest location. Labeling with this information on each bag of romaine or signage in stores where labels are not an option would easily differentiate for consumers romaine from unaffected growing regions.
Maybe it’s Californian Romaine, maybe not, but there looks to be some contradiction between messages from FDA’s Scott Gottlieb and CDC’s Director, Robert Redfield.
CDC continues to investigate a multistate outbreak of E. coli O157 infections linked to romaine lettuce. We understand this outbreak is of concern to many Americans – especially with so many gathering for meals this Thanksgiving week. CDC’s disease detectives are working with federal regulatory partners to investigate and determine the source of contamination as quickly as possible. We will continue to provide more information as it becomes available. The good news is we were able to detect and identify the outbreak quickly through our disease surveillance system, which can prevent further illness.
However, until we know more, it’s crucial that Americans continue to follow the guidance that CDC issued. There are no exceptions – all romaine lettuce must be discarded, regardless of brand, type, or if it is in a mixture. We also continue to urge people to follow our tips to help prevent E. coli illness. In addition, we remind clinicians that antibiotics are not recommended for patients in whom E. coli O157 is suspected until diagnostic testing rules out this infection.
Scott Gottlieb, FDA Commissioner took to the Twitter this morning while many were buying TVs and Himalayan salt lamps to talk about the Romaine-linked E. coli O157 outbreak.
I imagine there’s lots of pressure out there to lift the blanket statement from CDC to avoid all Romaine. Especially if the dates of harvest/transition from one location to another make it so it’s not likely that lettuce from certain regions would be linked to the outbreak.
Some sort of identification is great – because how would a consumer know what to ask about or how to figure out the source without it.
UPDATE ON OUTBREAK: The romaine implicated in the current outbreak is likely from California based on growing and harvesting patterns. The goal now is to withdraw the product that’s at risk of being contaminated from the market, and then re-stock the market…..
….New romaine from different growing regions, including Florida and Arizona, will soon be harvested. We’re working with growers and distributors on labeling produce for location and harvest date and possibly other ways of informing consumers that the product is “post-purge”….
….We want to help unaffected growers get back into production and enable stores and consumers to re-stock. One goal we’re seeking is to make this type of labeling the new standard rather than a short-term fix; as a way to improve idenfitifaction and traceability in the system.
Of 227 cases in Iowa (n = 140) and Nebraska (n = 87) residents, 162 (71%) reported dining at chain A/B restaurants – 96% reported house salad consumption. A case-control study identified chain A/B house salad as the most likely vehicle. Traceback was conducted to ascertain production lot codes of bagged salad mix (iceberg and romaine lettuce, red cabbage, and carrots) served as house salad in implicated restaurants. A single production lot code of salad mix supplied by both a common producer and distributor was linked to the majority of confirmed cases in persons reporting regional chain A/B exposure.
The salad mix linked to illnesses contained imported romaine lettuce from two separate single-grower fields-of-origin and ≥1 additional field from another grower.
Regional investigation of a cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to imported romaine lettuce – Nebraska and Iowa, June–August 2013
