Tag Archives: Testing

About time: FDA halts company’s peanut butter operations

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Once again, audits, inspections and the buyers at some of the biggest retail chains in the U.S. (and globally) have imperiled consumers by allowing shoddy product on the shelves.

According to AP, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has halted operations of the country’s largest organic peanut butter processor, cracking down on salmonella poisoning for the first time with a new enforcement authority the agency gained in a 2011 food safety law.

But I keep getting told the Food Safety Modernization Act is about prevention?

FDA officials found salmonella all over Sunland Inc.’s New Mexico processing plant after 41 people in 20 states, most of them children, were sickened by peanut butter manufactured at the plant and sold at Trader Joe’s. The suspension will prevent the company from distributing any food.

Sunland sold hundreds of products to many of the nation’s largest grocery chains.

Nothing will change until retailers get their collective heads out of ______ and start marketing microbial food safety so consumers have some semblance of choice.

Do Canadians get tired of repetition? Walkerton, Maple Leaf, and now XL; or will they go back to sleep after Thanksgiving turkey

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“I’ve been doing this stuff for 20 years, and I’m getting sort of bored about reading the same thing over and over. They don’t learn. They all say the same thing about how food safety is the No. 1 priority. But, against economics, it doesn’t stand a chance.”

That’s what I told the Globe and Mail yesterday. Amy says I’m grumpy; I say experienced.

There’s nothing boring about people getting sick, and it has now spread to Newfoundland with a lab-confirmed case of E. coli O157:H7 linked to XL Foods in Alberta; what’s boring is the political nonsense, just like in Walkerton and Maple Leaf.

Canadians do like to hold really tight to their myths.

“Doug Powell, however, says it’s XL that should be in the spotlight, not the CFIA. The Canadian-born Kansas State University professor of food safety co-authored a study this year titled “Audits And Inspections Are Never Enough,” and says food safety is up to plants. “It’s not a function whether it’s big or small, whether it’s local or global. It’s that you know about microorganisms and take steps to reduce them, or you don’t.”

Meanwhile, questioning the beef sector is tantamout to treason in Alberta. Premier Alison Redford has unequivocally backed the sector, saying last weekend that beef was “safe” despite some “regulatory challenges.” Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason called it the “most foolish and irresponsible comment on food safety since ‘shoot, shovel and shut up,’” referring to former premier Ralph Klein’s infamous message to farmers during the mad-cow crisis.

“It’s time that the government stopped playing PR for the beef industry,” Mr. Mason says.

 Powell worries the plant will reopen, and production will continue to increase, with the same attitude authorities have taken for a century – trust us, it’s safe – and no data to back it up.

As Sarah Schmidt of Post Media reported, when the opposition asked Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz about the sweeping beef recall last week, the veteran minister stood up in the House of Commons to declare that no illnesses had been linked to the virulent strain of E. coli found in meat from XL Foods Inc.

“We have actually done a tremendous job,” Ritz told the NDP’s deputy agriculture critic Ruth Ellen Brosseau at the time, saying he was in daily communication with officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency about the “status of this recall and on the work forward to get back into that lucrative American market.”

The answer was bad timing. Ritz, who was worried about trade after the Americans shut the border to the company, turned out to be wrong about the growing food-safety issue that soon ballooned into Canada’s largest-ever beef recall, spanning all provinces and 41 states. Government scientists confirmed that very day a genetic match between tainted steak from the XL plant, and four cases of human illness in Alberta. Public health authorities are now testing whether a spike in E. coli cases in Saskatchewan is also linked to tainted XL Foods beef.

Oh, and CFIA admitted Friday its 40 inspectors and six vets failed to notice during routine inspections that the plant at the centre of Canada’s largest-ever beef recall had not properly implemented its own plan to control food safety risks.

This sounds familiar: CFIA admits analysis of beef tests inadequate in E. coli outbreak

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With the Public Health Agency of Canada late to the public scene as usual, Sarah Schmit of Post Media reports the Canadian Food Inspection Agency conceded Monday it was a mistake not to require companies to analyze test results of beef trim to “connect the dots to get the big picture.”

Richard Arsenault, the agency’s director of meat inspection, confirmed changes are coming so companies will need to do more than test for E. coli and start analyzing data as part of a statistical process control.

The testing requirements were “fairly rigorous” but “in terms of connecting the dots to look for these pictures” they didn’t have to do that, Arsenault said in an interview Monday. “We didn’t think that was something that would have been useful. We now know that it is, so that’s why we’re going to change it.”

Hundreds of beef products have been recalled since Sept. 16, and the CFIA has indicated the recall is likely to expand. CFIA has since temporarily suspended the operating licence of XL Foods Inc.’s facility in Brooks, Alta. The plant, the second largest slaughterhouse in Canada, is also no longer allowed to ship product to the United States.

Under the N-60 sampling program, companies are required to test at least 60 pieces of beef trimmings stripped from the carcasses that go into hamburger meat, regardless of the size and weight of the lot.

“If they don’t put the dots together to get the big picture for the day, they may be missing something. And that’s where we have an improvement and we’re going to make something happen,” added Arsenault.

Bob Kingston, the Public Service Alliance of Canada Agriculture Union president, said CFIA’s new commitment seems “to fly in the face of what the CFIA promised to Canadians after the Maple Leaf outbreak that companies are required to test, analyze and report results showing contamination. It would appear that the CFIA forgot this requirement. This is troubling to say the least,” said Kingston, referring to the deadly listeriosis outbreak of August 2008.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair picked up on this theme during question period Monday, when he chastised Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

“This is the same minister who mishandled the listeriosis outbreak in 2008, and joked about ‘death by a thousand …. cold cuts.’ It was not funny then, and it is not funny now. Is this the best they have to offer Canadians who are worried whether the food they are giving their kids is safe?”

Speaking on behalf of the government, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Ritz “is working very hard and is working sincerely to ensure that this issue is dealt with appropriately, including ensuring we have more food inspectors and more meat inspectors. It goes further than that, we have new legislation that has been introduced, safe food for Canadians, to help CFIA respond to food safety situations quickly,” MacKay said in the House of Commons.

In the case of the XL Foods facility in Alberta, 40 CFIA inspectors and six veterinarians are stationed at the plant full-time, split in two groups to cover two production shifts at the massive facility. The plant produces about one-third of Canadian beef.

It’s quintessentially Canadian to complain about the government and frame food safety things using political filters, but why hasn’t the company, XL Foods, which has received hundreds of millions of tax dollars over the years, not  been out on the public communication frontlines?

Should all poop samples be tested for dangerous E. coli?

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There was this one time, Chapman came to Manhattan (Kansas) and lasted one quarter of a Kansas State football game before rushing home with explosive diarrhea.

My whiny kid didn’t help either.

He spent the rest of the visit holed up downstairs, sucking back Gatorade and sitting on the toilet.

When he got back to North Carolina he had the wherewithal to donate a stool sample, and eventually found out he was part of a state-wide antibiotic-resistant campylobacter outbreak.

In light of the German-based E. coli O104 outbreak in raw sprouts last year, researchers in Germany and Sweden are now calling for all stool samples from patients with diarrhea to be tested for enteropathic E. coli.

Writing in Eurosurveillance, the authors state:

Following an outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) in Germany 2011, we observed increases in EHEC and non-EHEC E. coli cases in Bavaria. We compared the demographic, clinical and laboratory features of the cases reported during the outbreak period, but not related to the outbreak, to the cases reported before and after. The number of EHEC and non-EHEC E. coli cases notified per week during the outbreak was fivefold and twofold higher respectively, compared to previous years. EHEC cases notified during the outbreak were more often reported with bloody diarrhoea, and less often with unspecified diarrhoea, compared to the other periods. They were more often hospitalised during the outbreak and the following period compared to the period before. Their median age (26.5 years, range: 0–90) was higher compared to before (14.5 years, range: 0–94) and after (5 years, range: 0–81). The median age of non-EHEC E. coli cases notified during the outbreak period (18 years, range 0–88) was also higher than before and after (2 years, p<0.001). The surveillance system likely underestimates the incidence of both EHEC and non-EHEC E. coli cases, especially among adults, and overestimates the proportion of severe EHEC cases. Testing all stool samples from patients with diarrhoea for enteropathic E. coli should be considered.

So what? Produce-safety testing program given reprieve

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Policy requires tough choices, and rhetorical appeal.

Accuracy also helps.

According to an AP story, “the U.S. Agriculture Department grudgingly extended the life of the nation’s largest produce-safety testing program on Monday, just as the initiative was slated to be shut down.”

The largest produce testing programs are in industry. What’s more important is that the data be made public so taxpayers don’t have to pay what’s already been done.

“The tiny program samples thousands of high-risk fruits and vegetables for pathogens each year, and has found more than two dozen bacteria-laced examples that prompted recalls of lettuce, tomatoes and other foods from grocery stores.”

Seek and ye shall find. Did the program prevent any outbreaks? Probably not. That’s because preventing the bugs setting up shop is far more important, especially with fresh produce, than testing.

As food safety czar Mike Taylor said the other day, there’s so much more that goes into the safety of produce.

So what? Produce-safety testing program on chopping block

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Where some see conspiracy, others see redundancy.

The Washington Post reports Congress is poised to scrap funding for the Microbiological Data Program in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

USDA officials have suggested that the initiative would be a better fit for the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates vegetables and fruits. But that agency lacks the money needed to marshal more inspectors, and there’s no sign that the program will be moved there.

Mike Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods, tells the Washington Post today there’s so much more that goes into the safety of produce.

And that starts on the farm.

Testing is a way to verify that food safety programs are working, but on its own, don’t mean much. There is lots of testing that goes on. Make it public, make the testing data part of the marketing of produce; market food safety.

Is it grumpiness with age or has mediocrity won PR (or both)

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My friend Jim Romahn has been reporting on agriculture in Canada since federal Ag Minister Eugene Whelan started wearing green Stetsons.

Jim used to write speeches for Gene.

And he’s getting snarkier.

I know the feeling.

Jim writes the U.S. Department of Agriculture is adopting a new multi-testing system for meat that will make it much more difficult to sneak illegal residues into the country.

But the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is, once again, lagging behind.

When I asked if the CFIA is aware of the U.S. change and whether it’s doing anything similar, I got a nifty dissembling spin-doctored response.

Yes, the CFIA said, it’s aware of the U.S. move.

Yes, it said, it tests meat, poultry and eggs for more than 300 chemicals.

And yes, it is using a multi-residue test.

However, that multi-residue test is limited to about 30 antibiotics. That’s nowhere close to what the U.S. is now doing.

The single-sample testing the U.S. is implementing is for antibiotics, metals and growth promotants.

In the past, meat could sneak by if the sample was tested for one chemical or for one type of residue, such as antimicrobials. Not now.

When it comes to food safety and integrity, the CFIA just says Canada has the highest standards in the world, and one of the best inspection systems in the world. It’s just hot air, folks.

19 still sick with E. coli in Belgium; slaughterhouse to increase testing

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While the case count remains at 19 in the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in Belgium linked to américain préparé containing raw hamburger, the slaughterhouse that supplied the beef has pledged to increase testing.

Our French friend, Albert Amgar, wrote, it’s out of the ordinary to see a slaughterhouse communicate in such an open manner.

The abattoir in Genk (Limbourg province) is going to undergo even stricter testing following an infection of Escherichia coli from which 19 people were stricken in Limbourg this weekend. According the Federal Agency for the Security of the Food Chain (AFSCA), it is now certain that the infection came from this abattoir. The management of the slaughterhouse confirmed on their part that it is not out of the question that the victims kept the filet américain (that made them sick) in a place that was not sufficiently cold. But it also admits that the infection could have come from within the slaughterhouse, in spite of strict hygiene tests.

A French video can be seen at this link:

http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.francais/mediatheek_fr/2.3816/1.1334561

Thanks to Albert for finding the article and video, and Amy for translating.

Albert also had some sardonic words for the Belgian Minister of Agriculture, Sabine Laruelle, who attempted to reassure the public by reminding everyone that it was the common E. coli O157 strain and not the one that killed all the Germans last year.

Recall: E. coli O157:H7 found in World Berries Organic Cacao Nibs

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Who knows how E. coli O157:H7 got into these berry munchy thingies, but kudos to the company for its internal testing which found the culprit and issued the voluntary recall.

FunFresh Foods, Inc. of San Clemente, California is voluntarily recalling a single lot of its 6 ounce packages of FunFresh Foods™ World Berries™ Organic “Cacao Nibs” because they may be contaminated with Escherichia coli O157:H7

Approximately 500 packages of affected product were distributed from April 12 through April 17, 2012 from this lot and as of the date of this release, 263 of these packages have already been retrieved from retail stores. Product was distributed to health and natural food retail stores located in the following states: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, OH, OK, OR, SC, SC, TN, TX, WA, WI, and WV.

The product comes in a 6 oz pouch with the World Berries™ logo identified as Organic Cacao Nibs with the following UPC code 632474929022, affected lot code 161104 and the use by date for products for the affected lot 04/14, which are laser etched on the vertical edge of the back panel.

No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this product.

The potential for contamination was identified through the company’s own audit testing of finished product which detected the presence of E. coli 0157:H7. Production and distribution of the product has been suspended while FDA and the company continue their investigation. No other lots of this product and no other FunFresh Foods products are affected by this recall.

Consumers should not consume the product. Consumers who have purchased 6 ounce packages of "Cacao Nibs" are urged to return them to the place of purchase for a full refund. Alternatively, consumers can call the company which will arrange for a full refund and for retrieval of affected products. Consumers may contact the company between Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time at 1-800-232-8619.

Seek and find: laboratory practices and incidence of non-O157 Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli infections

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Stigi et al. report in the March, 2012, issue of Emerging Infectious Disease that in a survey of laboratories in Washington State, increased use of Shiga toxin assays correlated with increased reported incidence of non-O157 Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infections during 2005–2010.

Despite increased assay use, only half of processed stool specimens underwent Shiga toxin testing during 2010, suggesting substantial underdetection of non-O157 STEC infections.

Strains of Shiga toxin (Stx)–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are differentiated by the O antigen on their outer membrane and are broadly classified as O157 or non-O157 STEC. The ability to produce Stx is a key virulence trait of STEC. STEC infections in humans often cause a self-limited diarrheal illness but can be complicated by hemorrhagic colitis or hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Unlike other E. coli strains, serogroup O157 isolates do not ferment sorbitol and are readily identified by culture, appearing colorless on sorbitol MacConkey agar. Both O157 and non-O157 STEC can be identified by detecting Stx with nonculture assays that became commercially available in the United States in 1995. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published formal STEC testing recommendations for clinical laboratories in 2009, advocating that all stool specimens submitted for routine bacterial pathogen testing be simultaneously cultured for O157 STEC and tested with a nonculture assay to detect Stx. Use of this testing protocol ensures timely identification of all STEC infections. Exclusive testing for Stx delays specific identification of O157 STEC and may impede prompt detection of common-source outbreaks.

Non-O157 STEC infection has been a nationally notifiable condition since 2000. Although studies have documented the increased incidence of reported non-O157 STEC infections over the past decade, few have determined the proportion of laboratories that routinely test all submitted stool specimens for Stx and, to our knowledge, no study has quantified STEC testing practices by wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/11-1358_article.htmproportion of stool specimens processed for bacterial culture. Our objectives, therefore, were to quantify statewide STEC testing practice by proportion of stool specimens processed for bacterial culture and to determine the contribution of enhanced STEC testing practice to increased reported incidence of non-O157 STEC infections.

The complete report is available at: wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/11-1358_article.htm.