Lydia Zuraw | Food Safety News

Lydia’s 10 Favorite Food Safety News Articles

Lydia Zuraw — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 06:05:02 +0000

Editor’s Note: Food Safety News Washington D.C. correspondent Lydia Zuraw for the past two and one half years will after today be found reporting for nonprofit Kaiser Health News. She was kind enough to leave us some departing thoughts on the work she did for our readers.

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During my time with Food Safety News, I wrote more than 300 bylined articles and probably twice that number of News Desks. Most of my work was about Congressional budgets or the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), but I also covered consumer education, new research, outbreak investigations and animal antibiotics. While looking back through the work I’ve produced for FSN since 2013, I decided to compile a list of some of my favorites. Because it’s too hard to rank them, I’ve listed them in chronological order. Study: E. Coli Cattle Vaccination Could Prevent 83 Percent of Human Cases, published on Sept. 23, 2013, was one of my firsts, but is still one of my favorites. E. coli vaccines could have a huge impact on public health, but they don’t really benefit the cattle producer who has to pay for them and that conflict fascinated me. Warren Questions FDA Commissioner About Antibiotics Guidance, published on March 14, 2014, may not have been the most exciting article ever – it explains why some people aren’t thrilled with FDA’s animal antibiotic guidance – working on it was what caused both my understanding of the issues surrounding antibiotic resistance and my interest in the subject to click into place. I love Shellfish Causing Confusion in FSMA Sanitary Transportation Rule which was published on March 21, 2014 simply because it came out of nowhere. I wasn’t sure I was going to get a story out of this FDA public meeting and then the executive director of the Shellfish Growers of Virginia asked a question which really stumped the agency officials. How Culture-Independent Diagnostics Threaten Public Health Surveillance, published on Nov. 12, 2014, was about how pathogen testing is changing and the pros and cons of culture-independent tests. I worked on this one for several months and I was very pleased with the result. 2014 in Review: Animal Antibiotics, published on Dec. 22, 2014, was a 1500-word undertaking, but even if no one else read it, this summary article was a great resource for me any time I covered animal antibiotics in 2015. Most Consumers Don’t Use Food Thermometers Despite Importance to Food Safety was published on Feb. 9, 2015 and since then, “use a thermometer” has been my main piece of advice to anyone who asks me about food safety. Oregon Outbreak Museum Memorializes What We’ve Learned About Foodborne Illness was published on Aug. 17, 2015. We know that E. coli O157 is often linked to hamburgers or produce and that Norovirus infections are often linked to food handlers working when they’re sick because of the collective information from thousands of outbreak investigations. This little museum and its website celebrate that collective knowledge. Don’t Forget the Epidemiology: Unraveling a Five-Year Listeria Outbreak, published on Sept. 8, 2015, tapped into my love for epidemiology. While whole-genome sequencing was essential to get the ball rolling on this outbreak investigation, it still took the traditional legwork of epidemiologist to solve the mystery. Open Data on Restaurant Inspections a Useful Tool for Consumers and Government, published on Oct. 28, 2015, was not only about the power of Yelp and other social media when it comes to tracking foodborne illness, but also how big data can predict which food establishments would be most likely to have critical violations. CDC Report: Multi-State Outbreaks Few But Deadly, published on Nov. 3, 2015, was a pretty standard article, but it’s the infographic that makes it a highlight. There were so many numbers to make sense of in the CDC report that I figured visuals would be a big help.

Bacteriophages: An Old Antibiotic Alternative Becomes New Again

Lydia Zuraw — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 06:03:21 +0000

The increasing global attention to the threat of antibiotic resistance has spurred research and development of antimicrobial alternatives. Once such alternative is bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. There are thousands of different types and they are so abundant in the environment – an estimated 10³⁰ live on the planet – that “we eat thousands of phages a day,” says Manan Sharma, a research microbiologist with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. After they were discovered in 1915, scientists tried to use them to treat diseases like cholera. But the discovery of powerful antibiotics caused phage therapy to be essentially abandoned. That interest has returned in the 21st century as antibiotic resistance increases. But it’s important to remember that bacteriophages are not infallible either. Similar to bacteria developing antibiotic resistance, “the target [of a phage] can change and most likely will change because it’s a contestant evolutionary battle,” Sharma says. Each bacteriophage is antagonistic toward specific bacteria or serotypes. Biotech companies have been working to isolate individual phages and define their hosts. “You have phages that are specific for E. coli or Listeria or Salmonella,” Sharma says. “For example, you’ll have a phage that’s specific for E. coli O157:H7 that may not be specific for E. coli O26.” So companies that commercially produce bacteriophages try to find phages that attack a broad set of hosts or create cocktails of phages with narrow targets. Sharma’s lab has studied the effectiveness of some of these commercially-produced bacteriophages on cucumbers and lettuce inculcated with E. coli or Salmonella and found as much as a 2-log reduction. A 5-log reduction, or a 100,000-fold reduction, in bacterial counts is the goal for food safety interventions, but Sharma says even though bacteriophages may not be able to eliminate the target pathogen population, hopefully you’re able to reduce it before subsequent treatments or so that storage conditions will not allow the bacteria to grow. Isolating the right bacteriophages takes a lot of work, but so does figuring out the best application of them. Is the best chance of reducing the bacterial population in the field, during packaging, in the wash water, or during another step in the production chain? “We found in our work that a direct spray application has given us the best results,” Sharma says. “Incorporating them into wash water with lettuce hasn’t really yielded the results that we would have liked to have seen.” Each commodity’s individual risks and production cycle could call for a different application. The consensus among microbiologists is that bacteriophages don’t harm humans, but Sharma wonders how the general public would react to them if they become a widely used food safety intervention. Phages are essentially “natural” since they come straight from the environment, but plenty of people could view them as “injecting viruses into food.” “I don’t know if consumers would want that,” Sharma says. “I’m not scared of consuming bacteriophages because I probably just did with the turkey sandwich I had for lunch.” Bacteriophages are not the ultimate solution to solving the antibiotic resistance crisis, but they could be an important piece of the puzzle. After decades at the wayside, phages are “something old that has become new again,” Sharma says, and they could probably benefit from more research and development.

Food Safety Regulatory Forecast for 2016

Lydia Zuraw — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 07:37:36 +0000

It’s impossible to say what will be the big food safety story of 2016. The ultimate unpredictable is what foodborne outbreaks will dominate the headlines and how they may impact policy decisions. But we’ve done our best to list the regulatory activities to keep on your radar for the coming year. FSMA: The Food Safety Modernization Act will continue to be prominent work from the Food and Drug Administration. The last two major rules regarding sanitary transportation and intentional adulteration, will be finalized by March 31, 2106, and May 31, 2016, respectively. The agency is likely to release a bunch of new guidance documents for industry and food safety advocates will be watching to see how implementation of the major rules goes. FSMA was fully funded in Congress’ spending package for 2016. FDA will have to report the details of how that money is spent in the hopes that Congress continues the full funding in fiscal year 2017. Mechanically Tenderized Beef: Labeling requirements for mechanically tenderized beef go into effect in May. Catfish Inspections: The switch from FDA inspections of catfish to USDA inspections should happen in March. Hog Slaughter Rule: It’s not on the White House’s regulatory plan, but USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is poised to issue a proposed rule expanding the HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP) beyond the five hog plants currently participating. Performance Standards: Also excluded from the regulatory plan is the rule for new pathogen performance standards for Salmonella and Campylobacter in ground poultry and chicken parts. The proposed rule was issued in Jan. 2015 and food safety advocates are hoping it gets finalized in 2016. COOL Changes: Mandatory country-of-origin labeling for meat was repealed in the most recent funding bill, but it’s possible USDA could change to a voluntary program. Antibiotics: FDA Guidance #213, which asks animal pharmaceutical companies to remove growth-promotion claims from medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals, goes into effect at the end of 2016 so there will likely be a flurry of activity from industry and those watching to see if industry complies this time next year. And FDA and USDA will likely do some preliminary work on collecting additional on-farm antimicrobial drug use and resistance data. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

The 10 Biggest U.S. Foodborne Illness Outbreaks of 2015

Lydia Zuraw — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 06:04:15 +0000

This year saw dozens of well-publicized foodborne illness outbreaks. While many of them were found to have sickened a handful of individuals, a few stood out as especially wide in scope. Food Safety News has compiled a list of the 10 most harmful U.S. outbreaks of 2015, in terms of both the number of people who died and the number sickened.* This list excludes norovirus outbreaks and only includes pathogenic outbreaks associated with grocery products or restaurants. Please also note that the actual number of outbreak cases is typically much higher than the quoted number due to many victims never reporting their illnesses. 10. E. coli O26 from Chipotle, specific source unidentified, 52 sickened. The fast casual chain was hit with six reported outbreaks, but it was the multistate E. coli outbreak which began in October that captured national attention. [CDC outbreak information] [Timeline] 9. Salmonella Paratyphi B variant L(+) tartrate(+) and Salmonella Weltevreden Infections Linked to Frozen Raw Tuna, 65 sickened. This outbreak – most prevalent on the West Coast – occurred between March and July and was believed to be caused by contaminated frozen tuna imported from Indonesia and used to make sushi. [CDC outbreak information] 8. Salmonella from pork carnitas sold at Supermercado Los Corrales, 70 sickened. The illnesses, reported to Kenosha County, WI health officials in May, were linked to pork carnitas sold at Supermercado Los Corrales during Mother’s Day weekend. The meat and food preparation area of the store was temporarily closed during the investigation and reopened June 4. [News report] 7. Staphylococcus aureus from the Sunnyside Child Care Center, 86 sickened. After dozens of children were hospitalized in Alabama, state health officials found Staphylococcus aureus toxin in several food products served at both locations of the Sunnyside Child Care Center in Montgomery which matched with patient samples. The kitchen was closed for investigation and reopened after staff complied with all necessary training and operational requirements. [News report] 6. SalmonellaI 4,[5],12:i:- and Salmonella Infantis from Pork, 192 sickened. There were 188 Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:- illnesses and 4 Salmonella Infantis illnesses in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California and Alaska linked to pork produced by Kapowsin Meats. Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:- isolates collected from patients were found to be multidrug resistant. Thirty people were hospitalized and no deaths were reported. [CDC outbreak information] 5. Shigella from Mariscos San Juan, 194 sickened. The Santa Clara County Public Health Department reported on Nov. 9 that 194 people were sickened with Shigella. Nearly all of the cases reported that they ate at Mariscos San Juan restaurant on Oct. 16 or 17. [News Report] 4. Salmonella Typhimurium from Tarheel Q, 1 death and 280 sickened. Those who fell ill after eating at the Lexington, NC barbeque restaurant came from 16 North Carolina counties and five states. Laboratory testing indicated that the BBQ sample and a sample from a patient who became ill during the beginning of the outbreak were both positive for Salmonella. [News report] 3. Salmonella from the Boise Co-op, 290 sickened. Approximately 290 people were sickened with Salmonella linked to food purchased from the Boise Co-op deli after June 1, 2015. Preliminary test results showed Salmonella growth in raw turkey, tomatoes and onion. [News report] 2. Cyclospora from Mexcan-grown cilantro, 546 sickened.For the third year in a row, Cyclospora-contaminated cilantro grown in Mexico caused a massive outbreak. This year, there were 31 states affected but Texans bore the most with 179 illnesses. The bulk of the illnesses hit at the end of May and throughout June.[CDC outbreak information] 1. Salmonella Poona from Cucumbers, 4 deaths and 838 sickened. This enormous outbreak hospitalized 165 people and four deaths were reported in Arizona, California, Oklahoma and Texas. The outbreak hit California the hardest where 232 people were sickened, but 38 states were affected in total. Investigators identified cucumbers imported from Mexico and distributed by Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce as a likely source of the infections and there were two recalls of potentially contaminated cucumbers. The number of reported illnesses has declined substantially since the peak of illnesses in August and September, but it hasn’t returned to the number of reported illnesses expected each month (about five). [CDC outbreak information] *We’d also like to mention the Listeria outbreak connected with Blue Bell Creameries. There were three deaths and 10 illnesses connected to the ice cream and reported as early as 2010. On April 20, 2015, Blue Bell recalled all of its products and began distributing its ice cream again at the end of August. Although the outbreak was fairly small and only one connected illness was reported in 2015, we thought it important to note on this list because of the unusual food product and the national coverage it sparked this year. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

2015 in Review: Animal Antibiotics

Lydia Zuraw — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 06:02:40 +0000

It’s difficult to summarize what happened on the animal antibiotics front this year. There were lots of pledges, lots of discussions and lots of reports, but not very many actions. Still, we still wanted to recap what happened in the 2015 regarding animal antibiotics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that antibiotic-resistant infections sicken at least 2 million people every year and that more than 23,000 die as a result. Although the majority of these infections occur in healthcare settings, concern is growing over antibiotic-resistant infections from food and the contribution that subtherapeutic antibiotic use on farms (meaning below the dosage levels used to treat diseases) makes to resistance. Each year, antibiotic-resistant infections from foodborne germs cause an estimated 430,000 illnesses in the United States. Multi-drug-resistant Salmonella, from food and other sources, causes about 100,000 illnesses in the U.S. each year. Antibiotics are commonly used to promote the growth of food-producing animals and to prevent, control and treat disease. Overuse on farms can lead to resistant bacteria that cause infections in both animals and humans and could spread resistance genes from animal bacteria to human pathogens. By some estimates, about 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used in animals, though FDA cautions that it’s difficult to draw conclusions from direct comparisons between human and animal data because of differences such as population size (number of people compared to the number of animals in each of the many veterinary populations). An international issue In November the World Health Organization hosted the first World Antibiotic Awareness Week to help people learn more about antibiotics on both the human and animal side and try to prompt governments to take action. An analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that livestock across the globe consumed about 63,151 tons of antimicrobials in 2010. They expect the number to increase by 67 percent by 2030. “More than 110 of the countries evaluated — mainly developing and emerging countries — do not yet have relevant legislation concerning appropriate conditions for the importation, manufacture, distribution and use of veterinary products, including antimicrobials,” wrote World Organisation for Animal Health Director General Bernard Vallat. “In some cases, legislation is totally non-existent. Where it does exist, it is very often not properly applied because of lack of public funds for the implementation of controls.” A couple weeks after the World Antibiotic Awareness Week, U.K.’s Review of Antimicrobial Resistance released a comprehensive report on antibacterial use in agriculture that recommends setting a global target for reduction. Disconcerting research Some interesting antibiotics research that came to our attention this year found that: antibiotic-resistant bacteria may travel via feedlot dust, a greater proportion of Shigella infections are now resistant to a very important antibiotic, and antibiotic resistance in some types of Salmonella infections is increasing. Most notably, scientists in China discovered a gene in E. coli that makes it resistant to a class of “last-resort” antibiotics and transfer resistance to other epidemic pathogens. The federal National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) 2012 Retail Meat Report and an interim report for 2013 solely focused on Salmonella did have some encouraging findings which included a decrease in cephalosporin resistance among poultry and a decline in resistant Salmonella in retail chicken and ground turkey. The struggle for on-farm data Each year, FDA publishes a summary of the information animal drug sponsors are required to report every year by the Animal Drug User Fee Act (ADUFA), but the data are only broken down by drug class. An ongoing issue for the public health community is that sales and distribution information is not directly correlated with how the drugs are actually used and such information is needed to inform antimicrobial stewardship. According the ADUFA sales data from 2013, sales of medically important antimicrobials used in food-producing animals in the U.S. increased by 3 percent in 2013 and by 20 percent between 2009 and 2013. FDA also released the data for 2014 which showed another 3-percent increase in 2014 and 23 percent increase between 2009 and 2014. In May, FDA issued a proposed rule to expand animal drug data to include information about species. In comments about the proposal, many groups supported its finalization while also noting the need for on-farm use – especially purpose for use – in addition to sales data. In September, FDA held a public meeting alongside USDA and CDC to discuss possible approaches for collecting additional on-farm antimicrobial drug use and resistance data. Consumer groups supported the idea of obtain this use information from feed mills. The Veterinary Feed Directive rule, which was finalized earlier in the year, brings the use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals under veterinary supervision so that they are used only when necessary for assuring animal health. It also will require feed mills to keep records of use, so it’s already an aggregation of data and close enough to the farm to allow for species distinction. Attempts to reduce subtheraputic use The concerns surrounding FDA Guidance #213, which asks animal pharmaceutical companies to remove growth-promotion claims from medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals, were quieter in 2015 than in 2014. But the debate surrounding the guidance’s effectiveness is sure to rear its head at the end of 2016 as the voluntary policy goes into effect. In the meantime, California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill which will enact requirements that go beyond what FDA has proposed thus far. The new law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2018, will ban subtherapeutic uses on farms and require that data be collected on antibiotic use. Antibiotic advocates in Congress also reintroduced their bills for banning non-therapeutic uses of medically important antibiotics in food animal production at the federal level. This included Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) and Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins’ (R-ME) Prevention of Antibiotic Resistance Act (PARA). One of the bigger antibiotics stories of the year was President Obama’s declaration that it is now the policy of the federal government to encourage responsible use of antibiotics in the production of meat and poultry. This means supporting the supply chain for those products by directing federal departments and agencies to create a preference for acquiring them. And schools were given a new option for the type of chicken they purchase for school lunches – a USDA-verified standard that allows producers to use antibiotics only under the supervision of a veterinarian and only to appropriately control and treat disease, not to promote growth. More companies make judicious use pledges It became clear this year that chicken really is at the forefront of the shift to antibiotic-free sourcing. We learned that this is mostly likely chickens produced for food have short life spans — typically 42-45 days – so it’s easier to raise the birds with fewer or no antibiotics because there’s a lot less opportunity for any microorganisms. And making a swath of changes in order to reduce antibiotic use is easier to do in the vertically integrated production systems of companies like Tyson or Perdue because one company owns and controls multiple stages of production from the breeder flocks to the feed mill, the processing plant, etc. In April, Tyson Foods, the largest poultry producer in the U.S., announced it would strive to quit using human antibiotics in its chicken flocks by the end of September 2017. A few months later, Foster Farms, the California-based company linked to an outbreak of multi-drug resistant Salmonella Heidelberg that sickened 634 people in 2013 and 2014, introduced two new lines of antibiotic-free chicken. McDonald’s made lots of headlines in March when it announced that within two years, all of the chicken served at its 14,000 U.S. restaurants will come from farms which raised the birds without medically important antibiotics. Walmart began urging U.S. suppliers to its stores to adopt and implement judicious use principles for antibiotic use this year. And just this month, Papa John’s pledged to cut antibiotics from its chicken by summer 2016. Subway also said they plan to switch to chicken raised without antibiotics, but antibiotic preservationists were frustrated by the lack of details from the company. The sandwich chain was one of 20 chains that failed in a ranking of antibiotics policies and sourcing practices which was produced by several organizations including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Food Safety. A similar ranking of top turkey producers found that most allow routine antibiotic use. And on the pharmaceutical side of things, Elanco Animal Health announced a new antibiotic stewardship plan and pledged to host an animal health accountability summit in 2016 to provide a progress report on its efforts. Other stories of interest:

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Coming Next Summer: Antibiotic-Free Chicken From Papa John’s

Lydia Zuraw — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 06:03:51 +0000

Papa John’s is the latest fast-food chain to announce plans to cut out antibiotics from its chicken production. But while McDonald’s set a two-year timeline, Chick-fil-A set a five-year timeline, and Subway was criticized for setting no timeline at all, the pizza chain is pledging to be antibiotic-free by next summer. Papa John’s will be the first national pizza chain to serve their grilled chicken pizza toppings and chicken poppers with chicken never raised with antibiotics. Antibiotics are commonly used to promote the growth of food-producing animals and to prevent, control and treat disease. Overuse of antibiotics on farms can lead to resistant bacteria that cause infections in both animals and humans and could spread resistance genes from animal bacteria to human pathogens. Each year, antibiotic-resistant infections from foodborne germs cause an estimated 430,000 illnesses in the United States. Multi-drug resistant Salmonella, from food and other sources, causes about 100,000 illnesses in the U.S. each year. Chicken production has seen major shifts toward being antibiotic-free in the past two years – much more so than other animal protein sources, such as pork or beef. This is likely the result of multiple factors, including the short lifespan of chickens and vertically integrated production systems. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Spending Bill Includes $104-Million Increase for FSMA, COOL Repeal

Lydia Zuraw — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 06:03:27 +0000

Late Tuesday night, the House of Representatives released a $1.1-trillion spending bill to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30, 2016. Lobbyists for full funding of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) were pleased with the numbers. The Food and Drug Administration will receive a total of $2.72 billion in discretionary funding in the bill. Within this total, food safety activities are increased by $104.5 million. The president’s budget request for fiscal year 2016 asked for a $109.5-million increase for FDA. The House’s spending bill is much closer to matching that request than the $41.5-million and $45-million increases allocated for FDA’s food safety activities by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, respectively. “We are thrilled,” said Sandra Eskin, director of food safety at The Pew Charitable Trusts. “Congress understands that this is a pivotal year for FSMA implementation and they responded accordingly.” She credits the leaders of the Agriculture Appropriations Committees — Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) — and their staffs for understanding what FDA needed “to get the job done on food safety.” The legislation also includes more than $1 billion for the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) — $1.6 million below the fiscal year 2015 enacted level, but $3.3 million above the president’s request. There’s also a provision to repeal mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) requirements for certain meat products. Last week, the World Trade Organization (WTO) authorized Canada and Mexico to impose on the U.S. $1 billion in retaliatory tariffs for COOL. While many organizations and members of Congress want the requirement repealed as soon as possible to avoid tariffs, Food & Water Watch and R-CALF USA disagree. “Congress is forsaking consumers and producers by terminating the right of U.S. citizens to know the origins of their food,” said Bill Bullard, CEO for R-CALF USA. “We urge members of Congress to demand that the COOL repeal language be removed from the spending bill. If it is not removed, then we will urge the President to veto the measure.” The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) supported both the increased FSMA funding and the COOL repeal. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

A Timeline of Chipotle’s Five Outbreaks

Lydia Zuraw — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 06:03:59 +0000

The multistate E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle that began in October has garnered extensive national coverage, but it’s just one of five outbreaks the “fast casual” restaurant chain has had to deal with since July. The other four outbreaks took place in single states; however, three of them were larger than the multistate outbreak. In total, more than 350 people have been sickened at Chipotle this year. Here are the details we currently have for Chipotle’s five outbreaks:

Seattle When: July Sickened: 5 people Culprit: E. coli O157:H7 Source: Unknown

Simi Valley, CA When: August Sickened: At least 234 Culprit: Norovirus Source: Unknown

Minnesota When: August and September Sickened: 64 people Culprit: Salmonella Newport Source: Tomatoes

CA, IL, MD, MN, NY, OH, OR, PA, WA When: Began Oct. 19 Sickened: 52 people Culprit: E. coli O26 Source: Unknown

Boston When: December Sickened: At least 136 people Culprit: Norovirus Source: Unknown

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CDC Hosts Third-Annual Food Safety Twitter Chat

Lydia Zuraw — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 06:03:38 +0000

On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hosted its third-annual Twitter chat using the tag #CDCfoodchat to give consumers tips on keeping holiday meals safe and healthy.

It’s important to remember food safety year-round because about one in six Americans is sickened with foodborne illness every year, and about half of those 48 million cases are children.

Here are some of the chat highlights:

When hosting your next #HolidayParty, remember to keep hot food hot and keep cold food cold! #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/1TUJdoN3SA

— USDA Food Safety (@USDAFoodSafety) December 9, 2015

4 steps to holiday #FoodSafety: Clean, Separate, Cook, & Chill https://t.co/9iut6ORUOo #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/slmxkwFNet

— foodsafety.gov (@foodsafetygov) December 9, 2015

Grocery shopping? Tips for choosing & storing fruits & veggies. #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/a0WHEkyV8m

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Prevent food poisoning by getting tips specific for types of food. https://t.co/Vc2tr4hWG7 #CDCFoodChat

— foodsafety.gov (@foodsafetygov) December 9, 2015

.@FroBunni No need to avoid. Pay attention to how food is handled and stay away from risky foods. https://t.co/xcNEgx6HOV #CDCFoodChat

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

If one of your guests are at risk for foodborne illness, select safer holiday foods. https://t.co/Z30Su7wZVx #CDCFoodChat

— foodsafety.gov (@foodsafetygov) December 9, 2015

Prep: Thawing

When thawing frozen leftovers or any other frozen food, NEVER thaw on the counter top. https://t.co/B23HftlFjN #CDCFoodChat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

Defrost frozen foods in 1 of 3 ways-under cold running water, in the fridge, or in the microwave. Don't leave it on the counter #CDCFoodChat

— FoodSafetyCoE (@FoodSafetyCoE) December 9, 2015

If you thaw it in the microwave, cook it right away—it’s not safe to go back in the fridge. #FoodSafety #CDCfoodchat

— Kroger (@kroger) December 9, 2015

If thawing meat in fridge – put in a glass baking dish! That ziplock bag is not enough to prevent leaking! #CDCFoodChat

— Melissa Joy Dobbins (@MelissaJoyRD) December 9, 2015

Don't use stagnant water to thaw either. My mom used to do that. #foodsafety #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/Jf4nH9EemP

— Hamilton Co. Health (@HamCoHealth) December 9, 2015

The bigger the bird, the earlier it needs to go in the fridge! Learn more at https://t.co/0TadmyZOW6 #CDCFoodChat

— Kroger (@kroger) December 9, 2015

Prep: Wash Hands, Produce & Utensils, Not Meat

Wash hands & surfaces often. Bacteria can get onto cutting boards, utensils, counter tops, & food. https://t.co/0rXndNW9BU #CDCfoodchat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

Handwashing is 1 of the best ways to prevent spreading infection & illness #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/NfQN6VPvDu pic.twitter.com/fkihNBcKxy

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Frequently wash your hands while preparing meals #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/R48S0KC47R

— FoodSafetyCoE (@FoodSafetyCoE) December 9, 2015

Why wash your hands when prepping food? Read the science behind CDC’s recommendations #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/jxGBXsmkG4

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

#Washyourhands often to prevent the spread of germs. Nobody likes being sick during the holidays #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/QBu3gJJcr2

— APIC (@APIC) December 9, 2015

Food safety is in YOUR HANDS – 80% don't wash thoroughly before food prep: https://t.co/oqAGp3btmb #cdcfoodchat

— Melissa Joy Dobbins (@MelissaJoyRD) December 9, 2015

Tip for a #kidsafeholiday: Wash your hands frequently & make sure your children do the same https://t.co/AoSeycs4M4 #CDCFoodChat

— Amer Acad Pediatrics (@AmerAcadPeds) December 9, 2015

Fun maze to help teach kids the importance of #handwashing! Download: https://t.co/UCW8PNw0Sa #kidseatright #CDCfoodchat

— Kids Eat Right (@kidseatright) December 9, 2015

Prompt kids to sing the ABC's during hand washing to ensure they're washing them for long enough. #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/6Aj86W3Wcq

— CSPI (@CSPI) December 9, 2015

Wash produce (fruits & vegetables), & rub firm-skin fruits and vegetables under running tap water. #CDCfoodchat pic.twitter.com/39WfInwAkk

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

.@JoannaGalli it's not necessary to wash pre-washed produce. If you choose to do so, be careful about cross contamination. #CDCFoodChat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

Make sure to clean all your food prep surfaces to avoid cross-contamination #CDCFoodChat

— FoodSafetyCoE (@FoodSafetyCoE) December 9, 2015

@FroBunni Cleaning and Sanitizing are two separate and important steps. https://t.co/RpK6JDKITY #cdcfoodchat

— Shelley Feist (@ShelleyRFeist) December 9, 2015

.@Tlibarian Washing poultry is a no-no! It's unsafe and unnecessary. Here's more on that: https://t.co/MWEUDiGd0W #cdcfoodchat

— APHL (@APHL) December 9, 2015

Prep: Keep Raw Meat Separate From Produce

#FoodSafety begins at the grocery store. Separate meats from produce to prevent cross contamination. #CDCFoodChat

— FoodInsight.org (@FoodInsight) December 9, 2015

Keep raw foods (like salad) away from potential contaminates like raw meat when preparing your meal #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/8yJDZgawEk

— CA Leafy Greens LGMA (@LGMAnews) December 9, 2015

Store raw meats below ready-to-eat foods in the fridge to avoid cross-contamination #CDCFoodChat

— FoodSafetyCoE (@FoodSafetyCoE) December 9, 2015

Keep separate cutting boards for produce and meats – https://t.co/3I35GyNLPf #foodsafety #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/IagTUz66Hl

— FoodInsight.org (@FoodInsight) December 9, 2015

I use different colors to remind me #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/UBC0aMh3gj

— Melissa Joy Dobbins (@MelissaJoyRD) December 9, 2015

Raw meat & cooked meat don’t mix! #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/7mfYG8zclI pic.twitter.com/g2J3bS1Vzs

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Cooking

Cook food to proper temperature. #CDCfoodchat
165º F chicken/leftovers
155º F hamburger
145º F pork, steaks, fish, eggs
135º F vegetables

— Hamilton Co. Health (@HamCoHealth) December 9, 2015

Different traditions call for different dishes. Cook your #holiday meats to the right temp! #CDCFoodChat #FoodSafety pic.twitter.com/gt7vKX4xBr

— USDA Food Safety (@USDAFoodSafety) December 9, 2015

Slow cookers are great to keep food hot! How long can food stay in these pots? #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/qIedvRavx7

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

Use a slow cooker on your buffet to keep hot foods above 140˚F #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/GljaSueWv4

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Use a thermometer when microwaving to cook your holiday meal? Yes! #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/pYcUM92iXl

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

Ready-to-cook isn’t the same thing as ready-to-eat. Learn how to handle ready-to-cook foods safely! #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/tDKywmNlqM

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

.@Original_JamieD For optimal safety we say nix the stuffing. But if you do, use a food thermometer to be sure it reaches 165F. #CDCFoodChat

— USDA Food Safety (@USDAFoodSafety) December 9, 2015

You can cook stuffing this way, but there are a few considerations. Use these tips: https://t.co/f1tMlkoktv @Original_JamieD #CDCFoodChat

— eatright (@eatright) December 9, 2015

Tips For Travellers

Traveling w/ food makes it easier for bacteria to grow – keep it safe https://t.co/zs5ZPiB9BO #CDCfoodchat #foodsafety

— OAH (@TeenHealthGov) December 9, 2015

Wrap dishes in insulated bags or towels & newspaper to keep hot foods hot when traveling #CDCFoodChat

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Attending a holiday party? Use a cooler w/ ice or gel packs to keep food below 40˚F when transporting #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/rPJ6JzoOse

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

#Foodsafety tips may be different when traveling abroad. Eat & drink safe w/ this infographic. #CDCfoodchat pic.twitter.com/wazs73Jlz7

— CDC Travel Health (@CDCtravel) December 9, 2015

Bring our international food & water tips w/ u for #healthyholiday travel; get the Can I Eat This? app! https://t.co/E0v9ldyPnB #CDCfoodchat

— CDC Travel Health (@CDCtravel) December 9, 2015

Tips For Gifting Foods

Alert your friends & family if you’re sending perishable food, so it gets refrigerated/frozen promptly #CDCFoodChat

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

.@FaithPepp Sending holiday treats? Make sure perishable items stay cold throughout shipping #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/UVUnpN1z3b

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

This is a great guide about food safety for canning from @FoodSafetygov: https://t.co/QKZbR09D91 #CDCfoodchat https://t.co/2E8PC5I6Ev

— Hamilton Co. Health (@HamCoHealth) December 9, 2015

nobody wants botulism for Christmas RT @NchfpUGA: Beware of gifts of home canned “secret” recipes without tested recipes #CDCFoodChat

— UGA Extension (@UGAExtension) December 9, 2015

Home canned food gift questions: where did the recipe and process come from, when and how it was made. #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/1CqabxcJst

— HomeFoodPreservation (@NchfpUGA) December 9, 2015

Practice safe home-canning to prevent #botulism #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/SiL8cnmpTr

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

Remind Me About Eggnog

Eggnog & raw cookie dough: Get info on raw eggs & when to use pasteurized eggs #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/1kdbkaZnNr pic.twitter.com/ecHzl6QMRk

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Eating uncooked cookie dough with raw eggs in it can make you sick. Remember to cook the dough according to the directions. #CDCFoodChat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

.@Original_JamieD If contaminated unpasteurized eggs are used in eggnog you can't count on alcohol to kill all the bacteria. #CDCFoodChat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

Serving eggnog this year? Get tips for making it safe. #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/ulywbZlqhf

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

@CDCgov For eggnog, cooking the eggs to 160 F (use a kitchen thermometer) will make them safe to eat #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/ea4nZxb4nV

— SafeBee (@SafeBeeTweets) December 9, 2015

After You Eat: Leftovers

Chill out! Go40orBelow from Fight BAC! https://t.co/b6BFMkDoz6 #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/b6bBqyZVtQ

— Fight BAC! (@Fight_BAC) December 9, 2015

Refrigerator temps should be between 40°F & 32°F. Give a fridge thermometer as a gift! #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/yy55FnJahk

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Remember the 2-2-4 rule for leftovers! Refrigerate leftovers in under 2 hours, store 2 inches deep max, and eat within 4 days. #CDCFoodChat

— CSPI (@CSPI) December 9, 2015

Rule of thumb: If food is left out at room temp for more than 2 hours, throw it out. #CDCFoodChat

— foodsafety.gov (@foodsafetygov) December 9, 2015

@CDCgov When it comes to saladsone of the easiest things you can do is to make sure to keep them cold #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/yswlBXoTF8

— CA Leafy Greens LGMA (@LGMAnews) December 9, 2015

Place large leftovers into shallow containers for fast cooling in the fridge.https://t.co/a8BktaLm5Z #CDCFoodChat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

The men in my life always try to let the food "cool" on the counter before fridge…DON'T do that! https://t.co/xZYi83Hqxm #CDCFoodChat

— Melissa Joy Dobbins (@MelissaJoyRD) December 9, 2015

Tossing bones in the trash may not keep Barney out. No bones are safe for pets.https://t.co/oofLXJtfe3 #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/bHBR5xuHFK

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) December 9, 2015

Microwave leftovers carefully. Bacteria can survive in cold spots. #FoodSafety #CDCfoodchat pic.twitter.com/6ZMx6yzzjs

— Hamilton Co. Health (@HamCoHealth) December 9, 2015

.@Original_JamieD Don't use a crockpot to reheat food bc it takes too long. Heat food in oven first! #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/9WVHfiHeXr

— USDA Food Safety (@USDAFoodSafety) December 9, 2015

Harmful bacteria may be growing in your leftovers before they look or smell bad #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/RuCYMQyHwQ

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

How long is too long to keep leftovers? Use this chart to find out: https://t.co/RKkXwuUNuN #CDCFoodChat

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Have a plan for holiday leftovers! Tips and downloadable checklist: https://t.co/cu2cE8lnBT #CDCFoodChat #eatright #foodsafety

— eatright (@eatright) December 9, 2015

After You Eat: Cleaning Up

.@Original_JamieD & @FroBunni you can sanitize kitchen surfaces w/ a tsp. of unscented bleach to one gallon of water. #CDCFoodChat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

Use paper towels to clean kitchen surfaces. If using cloth towels, wash them often on the hot cycle of the washing machine. #CDCfoodchat

— FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) December 9, 2015

A contaminated dishcloth can produce millions of bacteria in just a few hours. Use a clean dishcloth or paper towel to clean up #CDCFoodChat

— ASTHO (@ASTHO) December 9, 2015

DYK the top spot for kitchen cross-contamination is…dish towels?! https://t.co/FFCl4Zhvts #CDCFoodChat

— Melissa Joy Dobbins (@MelissaJoyRD) December 9, 2015

Be sure to clean stove, sinks, strainers, cutting boards, scrub brushes and utensils. #CDCfoodchat #FoodSafety https://t.co/ctNXhfKZ70

— Hamilton Co. Health (@HamCoHealth) December 9, 2015

Follow manufacturer’s directions when it comes to cleaning and sanitizing kitchen appliances.#CDCFoodChat #livesafer pic.twitter.com/swH7c003f4

— NSF.Int'l Consumer (@LiveSafer_NSF) December 9, 2015

If You Get Sick

.@FroBunni Nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea are common symptoms for many. https://t.co/QMT3wo3hIz #CDCFoodChat

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

Remember: If you get sick, it isn't necessarily from the last thing you ate. Incubation periods could be weeks or months long. #cdcfoodchat

— APHL (@APHL) December 9, 2015

Public health officials need to know about illnesses to stop outbreaks quickly. https://t.co/glhHdE8So7 #CDCFoodChat

— CDC Environment (@CDCEnvironment) December 9, 2015

Even if you don't know what made you sick, report your group's illness to your local health department! #CDCFoodChat https://t.co/mrqZJuZL63

— Hillary Booth (@hillouria) December 9, 2015

Learn how CDC investigates foodborne outbreaks: https://t.co/ATdyfQlaMi #CDCFoodChat

— CDC (@CDCgov) December 9, 2015

Check out CDC’s new infographic on preventing foodborne illness outbreaks. https://t.co/iy3gzdf2Hd #CDCFoodChat pic.twitter.com/uAjB0ZTkjH

— CDC Environment (@CDCEnvironment) December 9, 2015

Follow @CDCgov & @CDC_NCEZID for the latest updates & #FoodSafety tips for this holiday season & year round #CDCFoodChat

— CDC Emerging Infections (@CDC_NCEZID) December 9, 2015

You can also click here to view the full collection on Storify.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

International Targets Recommended for Reducing Animal Antibiotic Use

Lydia Zuraw — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 06:02:44 +0000

If you want to reduce something, a good place to start is with a target. That’s what the U.K.’s Review of Antimicrobial Resistance suggests in its new report on antibacterial use in agriculture. More antibiotics are used on animals than humans, and bacteria that become drug-resistant as the result of overuse can infect humans through direct contact with animals, through the food chain, or through the environment. The Review, commissioned by British Prime Minister David Cameron last year and chaired by economist Jim O’Neill, analyzed 139 academic studies and 280 published, peer-reviewed research articles that address the issue of antibiotic use in agriculture. Only seven argued that there was no link between antibiotic consumption in animals and resistance in humans, while 100 (72 percent) concluded that there was evidence to support limiting the use of antibiotics in agriculture. “I find it staggering that in many countries most of the consumption of antibiotics is in animals, rather than humans,” O’Neill said. “This creates a big resistance risk for everyone, which was highlighted by the recent Chinese finding of resistance to colistin — an important last-resort antibiotic which has been used extensively in animals.” The Review’s report released Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, proposes three global interventions that would substantially reduce the use of antibiotics in agriculture and the quantities being dispersed into the environment. The first step is to establish a global target. “We believe an ambitious but achievable target for reducing antibiotic use in agriculture is needed, to reduce use over the next 10 years,” the report stated. This target could potentially be based on Denmark’s average of less than 50 milligrams of antibiotics used a year per kilogram of livestock in the country, but the exact level would have to be discussed and tested by experts and low- and middle-income countries may need more time to achieve such a target. Steven Roach, senior analyst for the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition, notes that matching Denmark would require the U.S. to reduce its agricultural antibiotic use by two-thirds. But not everyone supports target-setting. Sean Wensley, president of the British Veterinary Association, said that antibiotic use in agriculture “is just one piece of the jigsaw when tackling AMR,” adding that his organization “is opposed to the introduction of arbitrary, non-evidence based target setting; such targets, to reduce antibiotic use, risk restricting vets’ ability to treat disease outbreaks in livestock, which could have serious public health and animal welfare implications.” As a second piece of the target recommendation, the Review said that the types of antibiotics used are just as important as the quantity. “Currently many antibiotics that are important for humans are used in animals. Countries need to come together and agree to restrict, or even ban, the use of antibiotics in animals that are important for humans,” it noted. The Review’s other two recommendations are for the the rapid development of minimum standards to reduce antimicrobial manufacturing waste released into the environment and improved surveillance to monitor problems and progress. “It’s time for policy makers to act on this,” O’Neill said. “We need to radically reduce global use of antibiotics and to do this we need world leaders to agree to an ambitious target to lower levels, along with restricting the use of antibiotics important to humans.” The Review will spend the next few months working with governments, NGOs and industry to discuss and further develop these proposals before presenting a more detailed final package of actions in the late spring of 2016 covering the whole antimicrobial resistance landscape. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

WTO Authorizes $1 Billion in Retaliatory Tariffs Against COOL

Lydia Zuraw — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 06:01:02 +0000

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has authorized Canada and Mexico to charge the U.S. $1 billion in retaliatory tariffs for country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on meat. Last spring, WTO rejected a U.S. appeal of its decision that COOL unfairly discriminates against meat imports and gives the advantage to domestic meat products. COOL, which went into effect for meat in 2013, requires that packaging indicate the country, or countries, where animals were born, raised and slaughtered. Canada and Mexico initially sought more than $3 billion in retaliatory tariffs. The United States Trade Representative (USTR) said this was a dramatic overestimation of damages and argued that the WTO set allowable tariffs at no more than $43.22 million and $47.55 million for Canada and Mexico, respectively. WTO decided on Monday that Canada could impose $780 million in retaliatory tariffs for COOL, and Mexico could impose $228 million. Bill Bullard, CEO for R-CALF USA, called the decision “utterly absurd,” arguing that those numbers can’t possibly represent the losses those countries are facing. Other industry groups, such as the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, the National Grain and Feed Association, the National Pork Producers Council, and the National Chicken Council, urged Congress to repeal COOL immediately. “It is important that the United States adhere to its WTO obligations and set an example for the rest of the world, particularly as it pursues significant new trade accords under the Trans Pacific Partnership and other initiatives,” said Randy Gordon, president of the National Grain and Feed Association. “A full repeal of COOL is the only policy option available that unquestionably would prevent imposition of sanctions and the economic damage that would result.” Over the summer, many in Congress called for a full repeal of COOL for beef, pork and chicken, and the House of Representatives passed a bill which would do just that. Others, such as Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), said action had to wait at least until WTO had approved tariff levels. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) offered up a bill to make COOL on meat voluntary. POLITICO reports that a rider to fix COOL could be included in the omnibus bill expected later this week. “The WTO has warned us multiple times, and Congress has ignored the warning,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, in reaction to WTO’s decision Monday. “This is no longer a warning. Retaliation is real. Now more than ever, we need to repeal COOL.” But R-CALF’s Bullard said that Congress still shouldn’t repeal COOL or make it voluntary. “Instead, Congress should direct our U.S. Trade Ambassador to negotiate a diplomatic solution to Canada’s and Mexico’s complaints,” he said. “Congress should also direct the U.S. Agriculture Secretary to immediately begin promulgating new COOL rules to close some of the loopholes identified in the WTO dispute that are effectively limiting the effectiveness of COOL.” (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Vermont’s Members of Congress Defend Raw Milk Cheese

Lydia Zuraw — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 06:01:43 +0000

Vermont’s congressional delegation is upset with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the agency’s recommendations for the allowable level of a certain bacteria in raw milk cheese. According to Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the new edition of the FDA Compliance Program Guidance Manual released earlier this year reduced the standard for allowable non-toxigenic E. coli in cheese from 10,000 most probable number (MPN) per gram to 10 MPN per gram. Most E. coli bacteria are harmless or even beneficial to the human intestinal tract, but generic E. coli has traditionally been used as a microbiological indicator of the lack of adequate sanitation during processing. FDA’s most recent guidance released in December 2010 states that “Dairy products may be considered adulterated … when Escherichia coli is found at levels greater than 10 MPN per gram in two or more subsamples or greater than 100 MPN per gram in one or more subsamples.” A spokesperson for FDA told Food Safety News that “current science indicates that FDA’s guidance for non-toxigenic E. coli represents an appropriate limit to ensure sanitary conditions of a dairy product,” but that the agency welcomes new information from stakeholders. In August, FDA called for the public to submit information regarding possible ways of dealing with pathogens in cheeses manufactured from unpasteurized milk. The comment period for that request closed Nov. 2. Most commenters support continued availability of raw milk cheeses and asked the agency not to impose more “burdensome regulations” on the relatively small industry for fear of being forced out of business. Some argued to keep the 60-day aging rule for raw milk cheese, while others argued to abandon it. Many wanted the performance criteria for non-toxigenic E.coli done away with. “We are concerned that this standard could have a detrimental effect on cheese producers in our districts,” the lawmakers wrote on Thursday, Dec. 3, to Michael Taylor, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine. In addition to the Vermont delegation, the letter was signed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Maine, Connecticut, Oregon, California, Virginia, New York, Michigan, and Texas. They asked that the agency reconsider whether the standard is commensurate with the risk to public health. “The new standard will severely limit the production of raw milk cheeses across the country,” the letter read. “Such a drastic step would only be justified were these cheeses presenting a demonstrable public health risk, which, to date, we have not seen evidence of.”

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

WHO Releases First Global Estimates of Foodborne Disease

Lydia Zuraw — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 06:01:57 +0000

About one in every 10 people around the world is sickened by foodborne disease each year. Of those 600 million people, 420,000 die as a result. These numbers are the first global estimates — conservative ones — of foodborne illnesses and were calculated by the World Health Organization (WHO). The comprehensive report, published Thursday, Dec. 3, incorporated 31 foodborne hazards, including bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals. Diarrheal diseases were responsible for most of the global burden, causing 550 million illnesses and 230,000 deaths, WHO reported. And children younger than 5 years old carried 40 percent of the foodborne disease burden, despite representing only 9 percent of the global population.

31 Foodborne Hazards in WHO Global Estimates
Diarrheal Disease Agents	Campylobacter spp., Cryptosporidium spp., Entamoeba histolytica, Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), Giardia spp., Norovirus, Salmonella enterica (non-invasive infections) non-typhoidal, Shigella spp., Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), Vibrio cholerae
Invasive Infectious Disease Agents	Brucella spp., Hepatitis A virus, Listeria spp., Mycobacterium bovis, Salmonella enterica (invasive infections) non-typhoidal, Salmonella enterica Paratyphi A, Salmonella enterica Typhi
Helminths	Ascaris spp., Echinococcus multilocularis, Echinococcus granulosus, Clonorchis sinensis, Fasciola spp., Intestinal flukes, Opisthorchis spp., Paragonimus spp., Taenia solium, Toxoplasma gondii, Trichinella spp.
Chemicals	Aflatoxin, Cassava cyanide, Dioxin

Certain diseases, such as those caused by non-typhoidal Salmonella, are a public health concern across all regions of the world. Other diseases, such as typhoid fever, foodborne cholera, and those caused by pathogenic E. coli, are much more common in low-income countries. Campylobacter is an important pathogen in high-income countries. “Until now, estimates of foodborne diseases were vague and imprecise. This concealed the true human costs of contaminated food,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO director-general. “This report sets the record straight.” The risk of foodborne diseases is most severe in low- and middle-income countries and is linked to preparing food with unsafe water, poor hygiene and inadequate conditions in food production and storage, lower levels of literacy and education, and insufficient food safety legislation or implementation of such legislation.

WHO Regions

The WHO African and South-East Asia regions have the highest incidence and highest death rates, including among children younger than 5 years. The WHO African Region was estimated to have the highest burden of foodborne diseases per population. More than 91 million people are estimated to fall ill, and 137,000 die each year. Non-typhoidal Salmonella causes the most deaths, and 10 percent of the overall foodborne disease burden in this region is caused by Taenia solium (the pork tapeworm), according to the report. Chemical hazards, specifically cyanide and aflatoxin, cause one-quarter of deaths from foodborne diseases in the region. Konzo, a particular form of paralysis caused by cyanide in cassava, is unique to the African Region, resulting in death in 1 of every 5 people affected. The WHO South-East Asia region has the second-highest burden of foodborne diseases per population. In terms of absolute numbers, though, more people living in the region fall ill and die from foodborne diseases every year than in any other WHO Region, with more than 150 million cases and 175 000 deaths a year. Diarrheal disease-causing agents, Norovirus, non-typhoidal Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli cause the majority of foodborne disease deaths in the region. Globally, half of the people who are infected and die from either typhoid fever or Hepatitis A reside in the South-East Asia Region. “Knowing which foodborne pathogens are causing the biggest problems in which parts of the world can generate targeted action by the public, governments, and the food industry,” Chan said. In addition to disease incidence and mortality, WHO estimated disease burden in terms of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). They calculated that the global burden of foodborne disease is 33 million DALYs. Worldwide, 18 million DALYs were attributed to foodborne diarrheal disease agents, particularly non-typhoidal Salmonella enterica and enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC). Other foodborne hazards with a substantial contribution to the global burden included Salmonella Typhi and Taenia solium.

Click here for more details on WHO’s subregional country groupings.

The estimates are “conservative” ones, said Dr. Kazuaki Miyagishima, director of WHO’s Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses. “More needs to be done to improve the availability of data on the burden of foodborne diseases.” But “[d]espite the data gaps and limitations of these initial estimates, it is apparent that the global burden of foodborne disease is considerable,” WHO concluded. “All stakeholders can contribute to improvements in food safety throughout the food chain by incorporating these estimates into policy development at national, regional and international levels.” (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

White House Releases Fall 2015 Regulatory Plan

Lydia Zuraw — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 06:02:21 +0000

The White House has released its “Current Regulatory Plan and the Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” for fall 2015, which provides an overview of the Obama administration’s regulatory plans for the coming year. Two final rules expected to be released next month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) deal with catfish and ground beef. In December, the agency plans to publish its rule regarding “Mandatory Inspection of Fish of the Order Siluriformes and Products Derived From Such Fish.” The 2008 Farm Bill included provision to define “catfish” and bring the species under the jurisdiction of FSIS. On Feb. 24, 2011, FSIS published a proposed rule that outlined a mandatory catfish inspection program and presented two options for defining “catfish.” The 2014 Farm Bill replaced the term “catfish” with “all fish of the order Siluriformes.” Still listed for final action in December is the amendment to record-keeping regulations to specify that all establishments and retail stores that grind raw beef products for sale in commerce must keep records of the supplier of all source materials used and identify the names of those source materials. Another FSIS action of note are the proposed changes to egg products inspection regulations, which include requiring egg products plants to develop and implement Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems and Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), consistent with HACCP and Sanitation SOP requirements in the meat and poultry products inspection regulations. This notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) is planned for March 2016. Additional FSIS Regulation:

Stage of Rulemaking	Title	RIN	Date of Action
Final	Electronic Export Application and Certification as a Reimbursable Service and Flexibility in the Requirements for Official Export Inspection Marks, Devices, and Certificates	0583-AD41	Dec. 2015
Final	Requirements for the Disposition of Non-Ambulatory Disabled Veal Calves	0583-AD54	March 2016
Proposed	Revision of the Nutrition Facts Panels for Meat and Poultry Products and Updating Certain Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed	0583-AD56	March 2016
Proposed	Eligibility of Honduras to Export Poultry Products to the United States	0583-AD58	March 2016
Proposed	Elimination of Trichina Control Regulations and Consolidation of Thermally Processed, Commercially Sterile Regulations	0583-AD59	March 2016
Proposed	Product Labeling: Use of the Voluntary Claim “Natural” on the Labeling of Meat and Poultry Products	0583-AD30	April 2016
Final	Classes of Poultry	0583-AD60	June 2016

Regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory actions, the last two major rules of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), regarding sanitary transportation and intentional adulteration, will be finalized by March 31, 2106, and May 31, 2016, respectively. FDA is also planning a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for “Updating Tolerances for Residues in New Animal Drugs in Food” in April 2016. The comment period on the initial NPRM ended in March 2013. By August 2016, FDA will finalize its rule for the process of determining food substances as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), as decided last year in a settlement agreement with the Center for Science in the Public Interest. And the agency is planning to release a NPRM for laboratory accreditation for analyses of foods in August 2016. If finalized, the proposed rule will enable FDA to recognize accreditation bodies that will ensure that laboratories performing analyses of food under certain circumstances have appropriate equipment, personnel, and procedures to conduct reliable analyses. Use of accredited laboratories will increase the number of qualified laboratories eligible to perform testing of food. Additional FDA regulation:

Stage of Rulemaking	Title	RIN	Date of Action
Proposed	Food Labeling; Gluten-Free Labeling of Fermented, Hydrolyzed, or Distilled Foods	0910-AH00	Nov. 2015
Final	Use of Materials Derived From Cattle in Human Food and Cosmetics	0910-AF47	Dec. 2015
Proposed	Updated Standards for Labeling of Pet Food	0910-AG09	June 2016
Final	Food Labeling; Revision of the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels	0910-AF22	March 2016
Final	Food Labeling: Serving Sizes of Foods That Can Reasonably Be Consumed At One-Eating Occasion; Dual-Column Labeling; Updating, Modifying, and Establishing Certain RACCs	0910-AF23	March 2016
Proposed	Direct Food Substances Affirmed as Generally Recognized as Safe; Partially Hydrogenated Menhaden Oil and Rapeseed Oil	0910-AH28	April 2016
Final	Reports of Distribution and Sales Information for Antimicrobial Active Ingredients Used in Food-Producing Animals	0910-AG45	May 2016
Final	Registration of Food Facilities: Amendments to Food Facility Registration Requirements	0910-AG69	June 2016

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Safely Thawing a Thanksgiving Turkey Takes Planning

Lydia Zuraw — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 06:01:08 +0000

If you’re defrosting a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, you might want to start now. There are only three safe ways to thaw food: in the refrigerator, in cold water or in the microwave. Be sure to plan ahead because birds thawed in cold water or in the microwave will have to be cooked immediately. And, if you choose the refrigerator, a 20- to 24-pound turkey is going to take five to six days to thaw. When you’re thawing meat and poultry, it has to be kept at a safe temperature below 40 degrees F in order to keep any foodborne bacteria that may be present before the freezing from growing again. When thawing a turkey in the refrigerator, you’ll need approximately 24 hours per four pounds. Place the turkey in a container to prevent the juices from dripping on other foods and make sure that your fridge thermometer reads 40 degrees F or below. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recommended thawing times for a whole turkey in the refrigerator are:

4 to 12 pounds — 1 to 3 days
12 to 16 pounds — 3 to 4 days
16 to 20 pounds — 4 to 5 days
20 to 24 pounds —5 to 6 days

A thawed turkey can remain in the refrigerator for a day or two before cooking. Foods thawed in the refrigerator can be refrozen without cooking, but there may be some loss of quality. Cold water thawing will need about 30 minutes per pound. Be sure the turkey is in a leak-proof plastic bag to prevent cross-contamination and to prevent the turkey from absorbing water. Then submerge the wrapped turkey in cold tap water. Change the water every 30 minutes until the turkey is thawed and then cook immediately. USDA’s recommended thawing times for a whole turkey in cold water are:

4 to 12 pounds — 2 to 6 hours
12 to 16 pounds — 6 to 8 hours
16 to 20 pounds — 8 to 10 hours
20 to 24 pounds — 10 to 12 hours

For microwave turkey thawing, follow the appliance manufacturer’s instructions. Plan to cook the turkey immediately after thawing because some areas of the food may become warm and begin to cook during microwave thawing. Holding partially cooked food is not recommended because any bacteria present wouldn’t have been destroyed. If you have other Thanksgiving food safety questions, you can call USDA’s Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET on Thanksgiving Day itself.

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First World Antibiotic Awareness Week Focuses on Education

Lydia Zuraw — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 06:01:41 +0000

This week, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the governments of several countries want people to learn more about antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health today, and, while it occurs naturally, misuse of antibiotics in humans and animals accelerates the process. Monday kicked off the first World Antibiotic Awareness Week, which is aimed at increasing the awareness of antibiotic resistance and encouraging best practices for using antibiotics in order to prolong their effectiveness. The campaign is targeting governments, health and agriculture professionals, and individuals. WHO’s resources include stories about certain countries’ experiences with antibiotic resistance, fact sheets and educational infographics, and a new multi-country survey which points out some of the practices, gaps in understanding and misconceptions which contribute to overuse and misuse of antibiotics. WHO found that almost two-thirds of the 10,000 people who were surveyed across 12 countries say they know antibiotic resistance is an issue that could affect them and their families, but they don’t really understand how it affects them and what they can do to address it. More than 70 percent said farmers should give fewer antibiotics to food-producing animals, with China having the highest proportion of any country in the survey. In recognition of World Antibiotic Awareness Week, the World Organisation for Animal Health made several education tools available through its web portal on antimicrobial resistance. These tools for promoting best practices for the use of antibiotics in animals include posters designed in conjunction with WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and an infographic explaining what’s required from each country to ensure the responsible and prudent use of antibiotics within its territory. “More than 110 of the countries evaluated — mainly developing and emerging countries — do not yet have relevant legislation concerning appropriate conditions for the importation, manufacture, distribution and use of veterinary products, including antimicrobials,” wrote OIE Director General Bernard Vallat. “In some cases, legislation is totally non-existent. Where it does exist, it is very often not properly applied because of lack of public funds for the implementation of controls.” The European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has coordinated the European Antibiotic Awareness Day on Nov. 18 every year since 2008 and this year partnered with WHO on its week-long campaign. To mark the first World Antibiotic Awareness Week, ECDC will coordinate a 24-hour global Twitter chat on Wednesday, Nov. 18, using the hashtag #AntibioticResistance. WHO’s headquarters in Geneva and its regional offices, along with partner organizations in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the United States, will also participate. Experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will lead the conversation from 2-4 p.m. ET. In the U.S., President Obama declared the week “Get Smart About Antibiotics Week” and most of the resources, commitments and events publicized by CDC focus on human health. These include The Pew Charitable Trust briefing on Capitol Hill, Walmart’s educational videos for checkout lines across the country, an in-flight PSA featured on Jet Blue and other airlines, and the latest U.S. antibiotic prescribing rate map. Animal antibiotics are left out of the U.S. conversation. However, a technical report released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says that non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics in food-producing animals is endangering medicine’s ability to treat life-threatening infections in young patients. “Infants and children are affected by transmission of susceptible and resistant food zoonotic pathogens through the food supply, direct contact with animals, and environmental pathways,” the report reads. “The overuse and misuse of antimicrobial agents in veterinary and human medicine is, in large part, responsible for the emergence of antibiotic resistance.” The AAP report describes how antimicrobial agents are used in animal agriculture, reviews the mechanisms of how such use contributes to the development of resistance, and discusses U.S. and global initiatives to curb the use of antimicrobial agents in agriculture. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Boston to Experiment With Letter Grades for Restaurants

Lydia Zuraw — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 06:01:35 +0000

Boston will soon start assigning letter grades to all restaurants based on their health inspections, The Boston Globe reports. The A, B or C grades will initially only be posted online and may later be displayed in restaurant windows. The system is expected to be put in place early next year. “We want to make it as simple as we can for people to understand the health conditions at our restaurants,” William Christopher, head of the city’s Inspectional Services Department, told the newspaper. Boston joins a number of other jurisdictions across the country, including Los Angeles, already requiring letter grade placards in restaurant storefronts. Other locations, such as Hawaii, issue color-coded placards. New York City began issuing letter grades in 2010, and since then, the city has found that 76 percent of New Yorkers feel more confident eating in an A-grade restaurant and the number of critical violations issued to restaurants has decreased nearly 20 percent. Between 2010 (the last year before grading) and 2013, there was also a 14-percent decline in Salmonella cases in the Big Apple. But not everyone considers restaurant grading systems to be a good thing. One working paper by the American Association of Wine Economists recently published online suggests that restaurant hygiene grade cards in New York City might not reflect the true hygienic quality of restaurants there. The concern is that some restaurants might do just enough to earn an A grade without doing all they could to ensure excellent hygiene. The authors suggest having subcategories within the A grade or posting the underlying scores instead of just the letter grades as a means of dealing with the issue. Then there are also the restaurant owners and managers in jurisdictions such as Weld County, CO, who object to a restaurant grading system because they consider it to be more punitive than informative.

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Food Safety Groups Oppose Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership

Lydia Zuraw — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 06:01:13 +0000

The full text of the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP) was released last week, and after initial reviews of the proposed treaty, concerns raised by food safety advocates during the negotiations have not been mollified. Debbie Barker, International Programs Director for the Center for Food Safety, says the predominant issues with TPP are the Rapid Response Mechanism and the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Mechanism. The trade agreement’s chapter on sanitary or phytosanitary measures states that border inspections on imported food must be “limited to what is reasonable and necessary, and is rationally related to the available science.” And if there’s an issue, a country has to provide “an opportunity for a review of the decision and consider any relevant information submitted to assist in the review.” Barker refers to this measure as the Rapid Response Mechanism and says it might give countries exporting food to the U.S. the right to challenge “even laboratory food safety testing and the new food import rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act.” Barker and her colleagues are also concerned about the inclusion of the ISDS, which the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) calls “a neutral, international arbitration procedure.” However, the Center for Food Safety calls it “an extrajudicial legal body that allows private corporations to sue national governments over rules that companies believe inhibit their profit-making ability.” ISDS is the place to see the real effects of TPP over the years, Barker says, adding that TPP might make it easier for companies to challenge food safety standards than in prior trade agreements. “A particular concern is that a U.S.-owned food and agribusiness can now challenge domestic public health laws they do not like through their subsidiaries in TPP countries,” she adds. USTR doesn’t see it that way. Concerns about ISDS affecting governments’ ability to regulate “are why we have been at the leading edge of reforming and upgrading ISDS,” USTR said in a fact sheet released last March. “The United States has taken important steps to ensure that our agreements are carefully crafted both to preserve governments’ right to regulate and minimize abuse of the ISDS process.” Because of these issues and others related to jobs, the environment, public health, the Center for Food Safety, Food & Water Watch, Public Citizen and other organizations oppose the trade deal. Earlier this year, Congress voted for “fast track” authority over TPP, meaning that it will be brought up for discussion without amendments and with limited debate. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Study: Lawsonia May Cause Pigs to Shed More Salmonella

Lydia Zuraw — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 06:01:21 +0000

Earlier this year, at least 152 people in Washington state were infected with multidrug-resistant Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:- linked to pork produced by Kapowsin Meats. According to federal estimates, pork is the source of about 8 percent of Salmonella illnesses in the U.S. Scientists interested in finding ways to control Salmonella in pigs first want to know what might predispose the animals to carry the pathogen and cause them shed higher levels of it. Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences are looking into the connections between Salmonella and Lawsonia intracellularis, the cause of a common diarrheal disease in pigs called porcine proliferative enteritis. In the first part of their study, Minnesota professor Richard Isaacson and his colleagues experimentally challenged pigs with Lawsonia, Salmonella, or both, and followed their secretion of Salmonella over time. What they found was that the animals infected with both pathogens had higher levels of Salmonella in their feces and over a longer period of time. “It suggested to us that Lawsonia predisposes to this higher-level shedding and may cause what we’d like to call a ‘supershedder,’” Isaacson told Food Safety News. People have found supershedders of E. coli O157 in cattle, but “people have looked for that in Salmonella and never has anyone actually been able to identify it as far as I’m aware,” he added. The second part of the Minnesota study, which was published last month in the journal PLOS One, tracked changes in the microflora — the community of microorganisms living in the digestive tract — found in the pigs’ feces. “People have said for a long time that normal flora of animals and people help protect us against pathogens coming in,” Isaacson said. His team wanted to find out whether or not that was actually true. And the answer, according to their study, was that it’s not. Both Lawsonia and Salmonella cause substantial changes to the composition of that microflora, and each one caused somewhat different changes, Isaacson explained. The researchers are now looking at how those changes might cause increased shedding of Salmonella. In a further research that has just begun, the scientists aim to find out whether vaccinating pigs for Lawsonia would protect them from shedding Salmonella. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Why USDA Needs a New Program to Export Sandwiches to Canada

Lydia Zuraw — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 06:01:58 +0000

Which foods the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates and which foods the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulates are not easy questions to answer. One oft-repeated example used to demonstrate the complexities is that cheese pizza falls under the jurisdiction of FDA, but a pizza topped with pepperoni is under USDA’s jurisdiction. Another example is that USDA regulates open-face sandwiches with meat on them. But put the top of the bun on there, and it becomes FDA’s responsibility. Come February 2016, USDA will be giving closed-face sandwiches a little attention. Earlier this week, USDA announced a new Export Verification Program for sandwiches destined for Canada. It entails two types of testing to make sure manufacturers are controlling the risk of Listeria and Salmonella contamination, as well as Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspections to verify the sandwiches are produced under a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan. In February 2013, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) audited the U.S. food safety system for meat and poultry products intended for export to Canada. In its report, “they identified that these products were being certified by FSIS to come to Canada, but they observed that FSIS was not verifying the same requirements for just the meat product,” said Daniel Engeljohn, assistant administrator for FSIS’ Office of Policy and Program Development. CFIA notified FSIS that it requires these products to be produced according to HACCP plans and Listeria controls. Ready-to-eat meat products going to Canada are ensured to meet the testing and HACCP requirements, but because closed-face sandwiches fall outside the jurisdiction of FSIS, and FDA isn’t authorized to conduct the same inspections as FSIS, the products weren’t given the same attention. That’s not to say that there were no inspections. All along, the companies have “been paying for FSIS inspection that was for sanitation, but they were not paying for an FSIS inspection program that included verification of HACCP requirements and the same requirements that we have for other ready-to-eat meat products,” Engeljohn explained. The agency’s decision to subject closed-face sandwiches to those requirements within the voluntary program will “make it essentially the same as any other meat product,” he added. Engeljohn emphasized that the change is “not because [Canada] identified a risk or they found Listeria in product or they had concerns about it. It’s just that they wanted any product that contained meat to be treated the same as FSIS does other ready-to-eat meat products.” The program will be implemented on Feb. 1, 2016, and USDA invites the public to comment on:

The timetable for implementation of this program, including readiness to participate in the program’s pathogen testing and HACCP verification, and business and trade interests affected by compliance or non-compliance with the program;
How the proposed programs can be implemented operationally to avoid disruption of trade or business activities; and,
Any other operational issues that commenters need to have explained.

FSIS will clarify any issues or make adjustments to the implementation date of the program in a Constituent Update. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Update: 37 People Sickened With E. Coli Linked to Chipotle Restaurants

Lydia Zuraw — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 01:28:56 +0000

At least 37 people have been sickened with E. coli in connection with Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants. According to updated case counts released Tuesday, there are 12 victims in Oregon and 25 in Washington. In Washington, residents of Clark (11), Cowlitz (2), Island (2), King (6), and Skagit (4) counties have been reported as outbreak cases. Of the 25 cases, 23 reported having been at Chipotle restaurants before getting sick. Nine of the Washington residents were hospitalized. Cases range in age from 5 to 60. Oregon’s 12 cases — up from three cases reported Oct. 31 — are linked to eating at Chipotle restaurants in the Portland metro area. Chipotle has closed at least 14 of its restaurants in Oregon’s Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties to assist public health agencies with their investigation. The Oregon Health Authority, Washington State Department of Health, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with local health departments in the Portland area and in other Oregon counties on the outbreak investigation. During a call with reporters on Tuesday to discuss the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new Vital Signs issue on food safety, CDC Director Tom Frieden said there isn’t much new information to report on the E. coli outbreak because “the investigation is really just starting now.” “We don’t have much more to tell you about this outbreak,” Frieden said. “We don’t yet know of a vehicle — what food caused it,” or whether all of the reported infections are even related to each other. He added that “there’s no reason to believe that this is associated with prior outbreaks that have affected [Chipotle].” The fast casual restaurant chain has recently experienced three consecutive outbreaks involving three separate pathogens. It briefly closed a restaurant in Simi Valley, CA, in August after 82 customers and 17 employees were sickened by Norovirus. Then, in September, 22 Chipotle locations in the Minneapolis area were associated with a Salmonella Newport outbreak in which 64 people were sickened. Later in the Nov. 3 CDC briefing, in answer to a question regarding Chipotle’s decision to close 43 of its restaurants, Frieden said, “I think it’s always better to take a broad action and then narrow it down as we learn more … . They’re being very responsible in their actions in response to the cases that have been reported.” Most people infected with E. coli develop watery or bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps within one to 10 days, with the average three to four days. Most illnesses resolve on their own within seven days. Most people recover within a week but, rarely, some develop a severe type of kidney failure which can begin as the diarrhea is improving and is most common in children younger than five years and the elderly. Health officials want people who have eaten at a Chipotle restaurant during October 2015 and become ill with vomiting and bloody diarrhea to see their health care provider and mention this outbreak. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

CDC Report: Multi-State Outbreaks Few But Deadly

Lydia Zuraw — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 00:21:28 +0000

Multi-state outbreaks are not particularly common, but they are particularly dangerous. A little more than half of all deaths associated with foodborne outbreaks come from multi-state outbreaks, according to a new report released Tuesday, Nov. 3, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday as part of its latest Vital Signs issue. According to data from CDC’s Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System, there were 120 multi-state foodborne disease outbreaks reported in the U.S. between 2010 and 2014.

Infographic by Lydia Zuraw

Although these outbreaks accounted for only 3 percent of all reported foodborne outbreaks, they were responsible for 11 percent of illnesses, 34 percent of hospitalizations, and 56 percent of deaths associated with foodborne outbreaks. Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), and Listeria monocytogenes were the leading culprits in multi-state outbreaks, and CDC notes that these more dangerous pathogens account for the disproportionate effect they have compared to localized outbreaks. Salmonella was responsible for the most illnesses and hospitalizations and was the cause of the three largest outbreaks, which were traced to eggs, chicken and raw ground tuna. The three most common Salmonella serotypes identified were Newport, Enteritidis, and Javiana. Among the 34 STEC outbreaks, almost half were linked to vegetable row crops, such as leafy greens, and another one-quarter of them were linked to beef. Dairy products, sprouts, and fish were also reported. Of the STEC outbreaks, 20 were caused by serogroup O157, while serogroups O26 and O145 were responsible for three outbreaks each. Listeria was responsible for the most deaths, largely due to an outbreak caused by contaminated cantaloupe in 2011 that killed 33 people. Six deaths resulted from contaminated dairy products, three from contaminated fruit, and one from sprouts. Imported foods accounted for 18 of the 120 reported outbreaks. Food imported from Mexico was the leading source in these outbreaks, followed by food imported from Turkey. During 2010-2014, investigators conducted product tracebacks for 87 of the multi-state outbreaks and, in 55 cases, food was ultimately recalled. An average of 24 multi-state outbreaks occurred per year. The median number of states involved in each outbreak was six. All states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico were affected by one or more multi-state foodborne disease outbreaks during the five-year period. The median number of cases per outbreak was 22. CDC is using the findings from the report to emphasize that the government and the food industry need to do more to protect the public’s health and stop outbreaks from happening. “Americans shouldn’t have to worry about getting sick from the food they eat,” CDC Director Tom Frieden told reporters Tuesday. “We have done a lot to improve food safety, but we need to do more.” This report “comes at a time of increasing federal focus on ways to improve food safety and reduce foodborne disease,” Frieden said. “That includes the new Food Safety Modernization Act regulations from the Food and Drug Administration, and new USDA standards designed to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter contamination in chicken and turkey.” The report also notes some of the things companies can do to improve food safety, such as maintaining records that enable the rapid tracing of foods and using only those suppliers who apply food safety best practices. Collaboration between industry and government can also speed up outbreak investigations and traceback processes and share lessons learned to reduce the likelihood of future outbreaks. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Study: Food Pantries Have ‘Room for Improvement’ in Food Safety

Lydia Zuraw — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 06:03:06 +0000

The food safety of food pantries is a fairly new arena for researchers, but with 14 percent of American households insecure about food at some point during 2014, it’s drawing more attention. The latest bit of research on the subject finds that there is “much room for improvement,” particularly when it comes to recalls. The report was published online Sunday in the Journal of Food Protection. “Populations of lower socioeconomic status are suspected to experience greater rates of foodborne illness, although this is difficult to demonstrate,” wrote study authors Ashley Chaifetz of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Ben Chapman of North Carolina State University. Also, those who rely on food pantries often have less access to healthcare in the event that they are infected with a foodborne pathogen. They studied the standard operating procedures and interviewed managers at 105 food pantries from 12 North Carolina counties. The “snapshot” of the state’s food pantries compared differences between independent pantries and those partnered with a food bank, metropolitan versus rural, and pantries in which the managers did and did not receive any food safety training. Many of the food safety procedures Chaifetz and Chapman encountered were informal. Nearly all pantries did a good job of limiting opportunities for cross-contamination and providing adequate hand-washing facilities, but safe food handling training and knowledge about recalls were lacking. Managers at 77 pantries received some food safety training, and those at pantries partnered with a food bank — a warehouse that stores and distributes food obtained from producers, retailers, federal commodity programs, and the food industry to food pantries — rather than at independently run pantries were more likely to have received training. Only 41 percent of the volunteers at all the pantries were reported to have gone through training, including but not limited to, food safety. Only 64 percent of pantry managers said they had up-to-date information regarding recalls, and 60 of the 67 pantries with recall information partnered with a food bank. “That most pantry managers lacked information on food recalls is a public health failure,” Chaifetz and Chapman wrote. Some of their other findings regarding recalls were that:

“Ten pantry managers assumed the food bank would remove any recalled items before distribution or that the food bank would contact them in the event of a recall, even though it had never done so.”
“Twenty-nine managers had never pulled nor searched the pantry for a recalled product, but 13 pantry managers explicitly remembered that they had to search for or pull peanut butter during its most recent recall.”
“[S]ix pantry managers currently post information for clients, seven additional pantries would tell the clients if they learned of a recall (but had never done so), and 15 pantry managers responded that they would not tell the clients, either because they were unable to do so or because they made the assumption that recalled food would not reach the client.”

Chaifetz and Chapman emphasized in their report that there are limitations in stating that their findings are representative of other states, but they offered some recommendations for things any food pantry could do to improve food safety. These include emphasizing regular hand-washing, obtaining more regular information on recalls, creating strict rules for what foods they will and will not distribute, and having set procedures on repackaging items, from glove use to packaging and labeling. Producing a written set of Standard Operating Procedures would also help pantry staff and volunteers understand the reasons for, and importance of, food safety tasks. There is a lot more research still to be done regarding emergency food operations, but this study has already been used by officials with North Carolina Cooperative Extension to develop a set of free educational resources for food pantries. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Open Data on Restaurant Inspections a Useful Tool for Consumers and Government

Lydia Zuraw — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 05:01:56 +0000

“My husband ate at this restaurant on Friday 10/16/2015 and was admitted to the ICU with a bacterial infection from food poisioning [sic],” Kari F. wrote on the Mariscos San Juan Yelp page on Oct. 19. “It was a very scary experience for all. I hope that others affected are healing and doing ok. My heart goes out to you all.” The outbreak of Shigella linked to the seafood restaurant in downtown San Jose, CA, has sickened at least 182 people so far and is reminding people of the power of social media when it comes to tracking foodborne illness. In the past few years, jurisdictions across the country have begun publishing health inspection scores on Yelp using a standardized scoring system called LIVES, or Local Inspector Value Entry Specification. San Francisco was the first to take part in 2013 and, since then, eight other municipalities in California, Kentucky, North Carolina, Illinois and Colorado have joined in. And Socrata, a tech company that’s working to make government data more easily accessible, will soon be launching LIVES in 50 counties of one as-yet-unnamed state and in all 350 jurisdictions under the Food Standards Agency’s regulation in the U.K. According to research conducted by Yelp over the past couple of years, restaurants told that their scores were displayed on the website took more steps to improve their future inspection scores.

Panelists (from left): Daniel Castro, director, Center for Data Innovation (moderator); Luther Lowe, vice president of public policy and government affairs, Yelp; Carey Anne Nadeau, CEO, Open Data Nation; Sarah Schacht, public health data advisor, Socrata, and Jack Madans, product growth manager, Code for America.

“Even though we don’t have peer-reviewed research on that yet, it seems to be having some effect on restaurant behavior,” said Sarah Schacht during a Center for Data Innovation panel on foodborne illness held Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Schacht is a public health data advisor for Socrata. Yelp also announced Tuesday that it has started offering hygiene consumer alerts for San Francisco restaurants in the bottom 5 percent of health scores. The alerts appear as pop-ups on the Yelp pages for these 150 restaurants. But consumers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from open data. Local governments have started exploring how it can be used to forecast food safety problems. Last year, Chicago tried using data analysis to predict which food establishments would be most likely to have critical violations so that they could be inspected first. During the pilot, 25 percent more critical violations were identified and they were found, on average, 7.5 days earlier. And Montgomery County, MD, has been working with Open Data Nation to adapt Chicago’s publicly available model for its own local government use. “We’re seeing if it’s possible to take what we know can work in one city and bring it to another place and figure out how to scale it from there,” Open Data Nation CEO Carey Anne Nadeau said during Tuesday’s panel. She later told Food Safety News that the goal over the next year is to get similar algorithms running in another 10 cities. These are examples of jurisdictions “being proactive stewards of public health,” Schacht said. Barbara Feder Ostrov of Kaiser Health News reported last week that, in the case of the Shigella outbreak, Santa Clara County epidemiologists haven’t used Yelp in their investigation and that the online reviewers were not ahead of public health officials. Even so, it demonstrates why investigative work now needs to include social media outlets, Schacht said. “There are opportunities to truncate outbreaks early in the process and achieve the agency’s objectives in new and enriching ways,” she explained. Some research has shown that social media reports of illness can be helpful to epidemiologists. Public health workers in New York City worked with Columbia University in 2014 to create a program for identifying incidents of illness from Yelp reviews, and it allowed them to identify three previously undetected outbreaks. Another study, published in Preventive Medicine in 2014, found that foodborne illnesses reported by Yelp reviewers matched up with statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for foods implicated in outbreaks. Schacht said that her other key takeaway from the Mariscos San Juan situation is that the public health community needs to think about how to better engage with foodborne illness victims. Oftentimes, many people don’t know which department of their local government to contact when they get sick. She said one solution may be to include links on Yelp that direct consumers to the appropriate reporting system. “There has been a massive proliferation of data … but it’s connecting them to those secondary questions that provide meaning and insight that help us do our jobs better in government or make better decisions as consumers,” Nadeau said. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

The Complexities of Defining a ‘Farm’ Under FSMA

Lydia Zuraw — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 05:02:51 +0000

What is a farm? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has learned in recent years that this isn’t an easy question to answer. The agency has had to define “farm” for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) because farms are subject to the law’s produce safety rule but not the preventive controls rules. According to the rules for preventive controls in human and animal food, which were finalized at the end of August, there are two types of farms. The first is a “primary production farm.” This is an operation under one management in one general, but not necessarily contiguous, physical location devoted to the growing of crops, the harvesting of crops, the raising of animals (including seafood), or a combination of those activities. Jenny Scott, a senior advisor at FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told attendees of a public meeting held Oct. 20 on the finalized preventive controls that FDA made several changes to the definition first put forward in the proposed rules in response to stakeholder concerns. The definition originally used the word “facility,” but this was confusing because companies that have to register with FDA as a food facility are subject to the preventive controls requirements. “Establishment” (used in the supplemental language) didn’t work either, so FDA settled on “operation.” There were also concerns that a farm had to be “under one ownership” because many farmers are tenants of the land and some are run by cooperatives. “We have changed this definition to better reflect the wide set of arrangements under which farms operate,” Scott said. Finally, “not necessarily contiguous” replaced “one general location” because farms might be separated by a road or a parcel of land owned by someone else. A primary production farm can also pack or hold raw agricultural commodities (RACs) and process, pack, or hold processed foods as long as they are consumed on that farm (or another farm under the same management), or the processing falls into limited categories. One such category is drying or dehydrating RACs to create a distinct commodity, such as producing raisins from grapes. These categories also include treatment to manipulate the ripening of raw agricultural commodities, such as treating produce with ethylene gas, and packaging and labeling. The finalized preventive controls rules also include another type of farm. This is a “secondary activities farm,” which is an operation not located on a primary production farm and devoted to the key farming operations of harvesting, packing, and/or holding of raw agricultural commodities. But the primary production farm(s) that grow, harvest, and/or raise the majority of the raw agricultural commodities harvested, packed, and/or held by the secondary activities farm must own, or jointly own, a majority interest in these secondary activities farms. A secondary activities farm can also conduct the limited processing activities allowed on a primary production farm. Examples of secondary activities farms include off-farm packinghouses and off-farm hullers and shellers. “Stakeholders informed us that some farms have a packinghouse that’s still part of its operation, but it’s far enough away that it couldn’t really be considered part of the same general physical location,” Scott said, adding, “Also, we heard that farms pool their resources to build a packinghouse” where they share expensive equipment. Dan McChesney, director of the Office of Surveillance and Compliance in FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, said at the public meeting that the inclusion of a secondary activities farm is not as important to the animal food. A farm can have its own feed mill as long as all of the feed produced is for its own animals, McChesney said. If farmers start selling or even giving feed away, they’d probably have to register as a food facility and be subject to the preventive controls rules. For anyone still confused about whether their business activities would require registration or not, FDA is working on a guidance document to provide greater detail. Scott said this guidance, which “will probably go into clearance fairly soon,” will be available for public comment. Scott, McChesney and other FDA officials also directed complicated questions about whether or not an operation qualifies as a farm, or would have to register as a food facility, to the FSMA Technical Assistance Network.

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Final Update: 3 Deaths, 30 Illnesses in Outbreak Linked to Soft Cheese

Lydia Zuraw — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 20:44:15 +0000

Update: CDC declared this Listeria outbreak investigation over on Oct. 23. The final case count was 30 in 10 states. Three deaths were reported — two from California and one from Ohio. The original story from Sept. 18 follows: Whole genome sequencing has allowed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to connect at least 24 Listeria infections over the past five years to soft cheese. The 24 illnesses in nine states have been report since Aug. 8, 2010. One death was reported from Ohio. Twenty-one people were hospitalized. Five illnesses were pregnancy-related; one resulted in a fetal loss. The illnesses are in California (14), Colorado (1), Illinois (1), Massachusetts (2), Michigan (1), New York (2), Ohio (1), Tennessee (1), and Washington (1). CDC says that additional illnesses are under investigation. There are five rare DNA fingerprints of Listeria included in this investigation, which whole genome sequencing has shown to be closely related genetically. The cluster was first identified in August 2015 after investigators saw an increase in one of the five rare PFGE fingerprints reported to PulseNet. Whole genome sequencing found that the three other PFGE fingerprints were closely related genetically to the first outbreak strain. Illnesses associated with those PFGE fingerprints were added to the investigation, including illnesses that occurred more than five years ago. The investigation has not conclusively identified the source of this outbreak, but most ill people interviewed reported eating soft cheese before becoming ill. Fifteen victims are of Middle Eastern or Eastern European descent, or shopped at Middle Eastern-style markets. Of 22 ill people for whom information is available, 18 consumed soft cheeses, and 16 reported eating Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Mediterranean, or Mexican-style cheeses, including ani, feta (including Bulgarian feta), Middle Eastern-style string cheese, and nabulsi. Four of seven ill people who specified a brand of cheese reported brands distributed by Karoun Dairies. No other brand of cheese was reported more than once. On Sept. 16, 2015, Karoun Dairies Inc. voluntarily recalled and ceased production of certain cheeses that the company distributes due to possible contamination with Listeria. Products were sold under the following brands: Karoun, Arz, Gopi, Queso Del Valle, Central Valley Creamery, and Yanni. Products are vacuum-packed, in jars or in pails. Weights vary from 5 ounces to 30 pounds. Consumers should not eat, restaurants should not serve, and retailers should not sell the recalled cheeses. These products may be contaminated with Listeria and may make people sick. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Study: Reusable Plastic Containers are Difficult to Clean

Lydia Zuraw — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 05:01:38 +0000

New research continues to demonstrate that typical cleaning doesn’t actually sanitize the reusable plastic containers (RPCs) used to transport fruits, vegetables, poultry and other foods. In a study publicized earlier this year, Steven Ricke, director of the University of Arkansas Center for Food Safety, and his team grew Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, and E. coli O157:H7 on RPC surfaces and then subjected them to cleaning and sanitizing practices typical in the industry. They found that bacterial biofilms could still survive on the surface of RPC material. The new set of studies that Ricke conducted measured the actual number of Salmonella cells remaining on RPC surfaces after cleaning. At the maximum concentrations the Food and Drug Administration allows for sanitizing food contact surfaces, and at levels much higher, the residual number of Salmonella organisms ranged from 2,700 to 5.1 million after sanitization. The first two studies evaluated the effectiveness of sodium hypochlorite and peracetic acid each at 200 ppm (parts per million) – the maximum concentrations allowed for each chemical. It’s hard to say what constitutes a safe number of bacterial cells, but scientists typically look for a 5-log reduction, or a 100,000-fold reduction. The 200 ppm of sodium hypochlorite led to an average 2.73-log reduction per surface, and the 200 ppm of peracetic acid led to an average 2.50-log reduction. To put it another way, the surfaces consistently exceeded the 1,000-organism limit expected on clean RPCs. In a third study, Ricke tested 200,000 ppm of sodium hypochlorite, a concentration 1,000 times higher than the maximum. Some surfaces had nearly a 5-log reduction in Salmonella at these levels, but the average was a 3.77-log reduction. One reason for the persistence of bacterial cells is the strength of biofilms, but another is that the roughness of RPC surfaces give bacteria places to hide. “When you really look at scanning electron microscope pictures of these surfaces, they’re not as smooth as they appear to the naked eye,” Ricke says. “They look like a lunar landscape with lots of nooks and crannies.” Both Ricke and Maryann Sanders, a microbiologist and regulatory compliance specialist at Haley & Aldrich, who conducted a third-party review of Ricke’s research for the corrugated packaging industry, recommend that shippers and retailers use single-use containers to eliminate the contamination risk. While his research was funded by the corrugated packaging industry (a single-use container option), Ricke says that in working for a public institution, he has to “serve the taxpayers” and always has to “follow the science.” It’s important to consider all of the foods that are transported in reusable plastic containers, Sanders says, because “after they’re used, they’re basically collapsed and placed together in one spot to be taken back to the depot to be cleaned.” This collection of containers means “there’s a very high probability of cross-contamination,” she explains. A container that transported apples may not harbor any pathogens, but if it’s stacked under one that held raw chicken, pathogens on the second container could transfer. And once a biofilm is introduced, it’s very difficult to remove. No foodborne illness outbreak has been directly linked to pathogens lingering on a RPC, but tracing an infection all the way back to one container would be impossible. Sanders says single-use containers are her ideal. “I’m not going to say that every plastic container that gets reused is contaminated, but I wouldn’t want to take that chance if I was a manufacturer or producer,” she says. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

CDC Spruces Up Foodborne Outbreak Search Tool

Lydia Zuraw — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 05:03:57 +0000

For those who want or need to look back at foodborne outbreak data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a useful tool. It’s called the Foodborne Outbreak Online Database Tool (FOOD Tool) and, on Tuesday, the agency revealed a shiny new version. Originally developed in 2009, the FOOD Tool includes both single and multistate foodborne outbreak data reported to CDC from 1998 to 2014. It originally only let users sift through the data by state, where the food was consumed, and the pathogen responsible. In addition to the ability to search by food item or ingredient, the updated tool now includes interactive maps and graphs. Users looking for the more traditional table of data can still access it in the Tabular View. FOOD Tool’s data come from CDC’s Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (FDOSS), which captures information on foodborne outbreaks caused by enteric bacterial, viral, parasitic, and chemical agents reported by state, local, and territorial public health agencies. CDC analyzes the data (more detailed than what are presented in the public tool) to understand the impact of foodborne outbreaks and the causes or contributing factors, such as food kept at room temperature for too long. CDC states that the database is for reporters and members of the public to understand the history of recent or ongoing outbreaks of foodborne illness. But it’s important to remember that health departments can modify their reports at any time, even months or years after an outbreak, and that some outbreaks are never reported to CDC. To learn more about the database, visit CDC’s FAQ page.

The previous look of CDC’s FOOD Tool, with help from the Wayback Machine.

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California Governor Signs Bill Regulating Animal Antibiotics

Lydia Zuraw — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 23:02:34 +0000

On Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 27, which will make the Golden State the first in the nation to require a veterinarian’s prescription for therapeutic antibiotic uses in livestock, ban other uses (including low-dosage levels used to prevent diseases), and require that data be collected on antibiotic use. In his signing message, Brown stated that, “SB 27 addresses an urgent public health problem. The science is clear that the overuse of antibiotics in livestock has contributed to the spread of antibiotic resistance and the undermining of decades of life-saving advances in medicine. “Recently, American poultry producers have shown leadership by voluntarily committing to better husbandry practices and eliminating the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics. This is an example that the rest of the lifestock industry should follow.” Last October, Brown vetoed a similar bill, saying that it simply codified the Food and Drug Administration’s voluntary standard for removing growth promotion claims from animal antibiotics labels and the agency’s rule bringing all antibiotics under veterinary oversight. At the time, California’s governor said it was an “unnecessary since most major animal producers have already pledged to go beyond the FDA standard.” The 2015 bill that reached Brown’s desk in September included provisions about growth promotion and veterinary oversight, but it went even further by not allowing the regular pattern of use for prophylactic purposes. This gives the law more teeth, says Avinash Kar, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) health program. It also addresses a loophole public health advocates see in the FDA guidance. Antibiotic overuse on farms can lead to resistant bacteria that cause infections in both animals and humans and could spread resistance genes from animal bacteria to human pathogens. Despite drug companies’ commitment to FDA’s plan last year, public health advocates worry that the drugs will be re-listed with new “disease prevention” labels and still be used in the same way. The new law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2018, and was sponsored by State Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), also requires the California Department of Food and Agriculture to start a monitoring program “to gather information on medically important antimicrobial drug sales and usage, antimicrobial resistant bacteria, and livestock management practice data.” Discussion about the best way to collect on-farm use data recently began at the federal level. “This bill will instantly put California at the forefront of U.S. efforts to address the overuse of antibiotics in livestock,” Kar says. “It’s the first law in the country to actually regulate this issue.” (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

FDA Shares Its FSMA Training Strategy

Lydia Zuraw — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 05:03:46 +0000

In order for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) to be successfully implemented, training is key. Employees in the food industry are ultimately responsible for getting the training they need to comply with FSMA rules, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a plan for facilitating this training, along with the help of public and private partners. One size doesn’t fit all, so the FSMA Training Strategy has multiple facets for curricula development and actual training. First, the Produce Safety Alliance (PSA), Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance (FSPCA), and Sprout Safety Alliance (SSA) are developing model, standardized curricula to help domestic and foreign food businesses understand what they need to do to comply with preventive controls regulations and the produce safety rule. These alliances, established since 2010 and primarily funded by FDA, are composed of representatives from the government and state regulatory agencies, the food industry and academia. The programs, which will be available shortly after the FSMA rules have been finalized, will be intended for the majority of those affected by these rules. But for other, more targeted groups, FDA is going to fund certain alternate programs through cooperative agreements. “The agency’s goal is to work with groups that understand the special needs of and have direct access to businesses that face unique circumstances and challenges in implementing FSMA,” according to the strategy. In particular, these cooperative agreements are planned to support local food producers and tribes. Last in the strategy as it currently stands is a partnership between FDA and the Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to fund a National Coordination Center and four Regional Centers to actually provide training to owners and operators of farms, small food processors, and small fruit and vegetable merchant wholesalers. The competitive grant program was first announced in January 2015 and has now awarded $600,000 over three years to the International Food Protection Training Institute in Battle Creek, MI, to establish the National Coordination Center. The Regional Centers will be established with separate grant money in the southern, western, north-central and northeast areas of the country. Consideration of those grants has already begun. FDA intends for the standardized curricula developed by the alliances and the alternate curricula developed through cooperative agreements to be the only ones they officially recognize. The agency encourages anyone developing other training courses to work with the alliances, the National Coordination Center and the Regional Centers “to ensure consistency and completeness of training.” FDA also said it plans to provide more information about how such programs will be evaluated. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)