GAO: FDA food safety plan going nowhere fast
By Gina Spadafori
June 12, 2008
I’m sorry, but when the best the government can tell you is not to eat a raw tomato, something is seriously wrong with our food safety system. But of course, we’ve known that here for a long, long time, starting when thousands of pets were dying from tainted pet food.
That, followed by recall after recall after recall, including the largest beef recall in the history of the universe. And now … e tu, tomato?
I’ve mentioned in previous posts and comments that as a lifelong Sacramentan and 30-year-observer of/participant in the political process (the participant part as a member of the media), that no one should hold his or her breath on any change or reform at the FDA with a lame-duck adminstration running out the clock.
Right now the political cronies running federal agencies are polishing up their resumes and solidifying their contacts, so they can get the best position possible relative to their connection to whoever ends up in the White House next. (If it’s Obama, the folks in the political appointment jobs now will all go to lobbying firms, industry jobs and consulting; if it’s McCain, they’ll be scrambling to keep or improve the political appointment they have already.)
I’ve watched this behavior in Sacramento for years. If your peeps are in, you’re in. If they’re out, you’re a consultant. The music is playing now, and no one knows who’ll be sitting where until the music stops. So don’t expect anything in the way of reform until 2009, if then. Maybe we’ll get “lucky” and have another deadly food crisis early in the next president’s term so he’ll have to make it a priority.
Until then … well, I hate stewed tomatoes. Hate. Fortunately, I’ll have my own homegrown tomatoes, thank you, and I’ll be eating them raw.
I’m not the only one making the observation that reform ain’t going to happen this year, by the way. Congressional Quarterly takes a look at the prospects for the reform of the food safety system:
Despite a salmonella outbreak that has caused McDonald’s and Wal-Mart to stop selling tomatoes, prospects for passing significant food safety legislation this year are dimming.
“The window for Congress to take up comprehensive legislation to overhaul the food safety system continues to narrow,” said Rosa DeLauro , the Connecticut Democrat who has led the food-safety fight in the House. “Regardless of what happens this year, the real opportunity will be next year, with a new Congress, and importantly, a new administration.”
Outbreaks of e-Coli in spinach, tainted imports from China, the biggest beef recall in U.S. history and the recent warning linking salmonella to some tomato varieties have spurred a push in Congress to overhaul food-safety laws.
But with the congressional calendar dwindling and floor time in short supply, a draft House Food and Drug Administration overhaul bill has not advanced out of committee and Senate proposals have yet to be released.
Hey, but no hurry, right? I mean, it’s not as if the Government Accountability Office has issued an urgent report that the FDA has, like, no idea how to fix things.
What? You say the GAO did issue such a report? Well, whaddyaknow! From Market Watch:
Federal investigators are voicing concern to Congress Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration’s plan to keep the nation’s food supply safe lacks clear direction.
Following a string of tainted-food scares, FDA, which is responsible for overseeing about 80% of the food supply, released a food-protection plan in November — but the agency has since added few details about implementation, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The FDA provided GAO a draft work plan this month, but vagueness remains, according to testimony from GAO’s Lisa Shames, natural resources and environment director.
“While this draft work plan provides more information on the action steps and deliverables to achieve the core elements, we continue to have concerns about FDA’s lack of specificity on the necessary resources and strategies to fully implement the plan,” according to Shames’s testimony.
On Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce’s oversight and investigations subcommittee is hearing from Shames and other witnesses, including Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s food safety czar, about the FDA’s food-protection plan. As reports about tainted tomatoes are making headlines, there’s concern that American lives are still at risk.
I get how meat could have a salmonella problem but not veggies/fruit (My microbiology class was a very long time ago.)
Anyone got a good link to help me understand how this all happens? Thanks.
Comment by Laura — June 12, 2008 @ 10:00 am
Here’s an explanation:
http://www.newscientist.com/ch.....news_rss20
CSPI was concerned about this in 2005:
http://www.cspinet.org/new/200511211.html
Comment by slt — June 12, 2008 @ 11:01 am
Have you seen this CDC report?
http://tinyurl.com/5htja4
I always thought you could kill Salmonella with cooking? I wonder when they are going to put the “Keep out of reach of children” warning on the bag . . .
Comment by straybaby — June 12, 2008 @ 11:12 am
How much experience do you have with farming and preventing disease? I’ve read a few of your articles and question your “authority” when it comes to many of the issues you write about.
Farmers do NOT take lightly these types of situations, and blaming the government is just irresponsible “journalism” if that’s what you claim your articles are.
Comment by Erica — June 12, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
Seems to be a questionably long time for them to trace the source. Wonder if it’s from the “franken-food” suppliers.
Comment by VJ — June 12, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Addendum to my earlier post. Shhhh. Don’t tell the American people.
Comment by VJ — June 12, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
Erica - I’ve been in sustainable ag here in PA for over 20 years — Gina may be new to the food safety issues, but she’s doing her homework and pretty much acting as any journalist on a new “beat” — finding reputable sources, providing analysis based on her readings and experience and sharing that with her readers. Nothing I’m reading here surprises me or seems out of line.
What is REALLY blowing my mind are the recent articles on farming and food security in the Wall Street Journal — someone gave my husband a subscription as a gift so we’ve been reading the paper every day for nearly a year. Inside the space of that year, WSJ has gone from “free trade is everything/we’ll just buy our food wherever” to “OMG, maybe those food security people have had a point for past 15 years” (Of course, this is the WSJ, they haven’t actually broken down and credited those of us in the Community Food Security Coalition as knowing what we were talking about, but the last month has had several very interesting articles taking a very serious look at food security and farming in ways that sometimes get me looking at the masthead to make sure I’m still reading the WSJ! ;-)
While we’ve got a long, long way to go, I’m actually starting to hope that the tide is beginning to turn — and everything I’ve spent my life doing for the past 20 years is actually going to turn “mainstream! :-0!
Community Food Security Coalition website is here — read it while we’re all still cutting edge! ;-)
http://www.foodsecurity.org/index.html
That said, it bothers the heck out of me that there’s been no announcement of where those tomatoes came from — it just seems to be taking longer than it should.
Comment by Dorene — June 12, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
Thanks, Dorene. And Erica, you’d better get used to questions about what you’re doing as a farmer, because they’re just starting.
I’ll be asking more and more, and getting others to ask, too. That’s my job, not trusting that the “experts” of the gov’t or corporate agribiz have our best interests as their top priority.
The media is supposed to be a “watchdog” not a “lapdog,” by the way. A lot of people seem to have missed that, even in the media.
“Journalism” isn’t supposed to be about passing along unchallenged the crap the gov’t feeds ya, literally or metaphorically.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 12, 2008 @ 9:09 pm
If anyone is up at 7:30AM ET, they are having live call-in questions to the FDA’s own Dr David A! ;) C-Span that is
Comment by straybaby — June 12, 2008 @ 10:50 pm
Remember the salmonella “tips” from the FDA July 27, 2007? They said not “directly” connected to illness in humans? Read the link below and follow the CDC timeline, and you’ll see they were either ignorant or let people keep getting sick.
Then, read closely what WASN’T recalled:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe.....5719a4.htm
“A voluntary recall of specific-sized bags of two brands of dry dog food issued by the manufacturer in August 2007 was based only on lot-specific testing of finished unopened bags found to be positive for Salmonella by official FDA testing. Other sizes of bags of the two brands of dry dog food, although produced at plant A, were not recalled. Other brands of dry dog or cat food produced at plant A, including brands associated epidemiologically and microbiologically with illness, also were not included in the recall. “
So they recalled the relatively unknown “lesser” brands? What gives with “other sizes” not recalled?
I’m clearly beside myself….what other brands were produced at plant A made pets/people sick and were not recalled?
This is a complete pile of dung.. the FDA, the pet food companies and Mars for not doing the right, safe, thing in their “voluntary” recall or non-recall.
Cwap.. “…based only on lot-specific testing of finished unopened bags found to be positive for Salmonella by official FDA testing”
Meaning if the FDA misses it, they won’t recall it even if they know it is making a pet/person sick?
I’m off the charts!!! This is a total indictment of the VSIP, AAFCO PFI FDA insanity!!
Safe pet foods? Not the way all of these are acting.
It’s all an illusion including AFSS and FDAAA…
Acheson needs to be fired & Andrew Von Eschenbach needs to be fired!!
AAFCO needs to be disbanded and held accountable for the VSIP program
Food Safety? What is that? Protecting consumers - humans or companion animals? What is that?
Comment by Ann H — June 13, 2008 @ 4:36 am
Comment by Ann H — June 13, 2008 @ 4:36 am
I love how they add this in at the end as an editorial note, as if it’s A-OK:
“…because dry pet food has a 1-year shelf life and all contaminated products were not recalled, contaminated dry pet food might still be found in homes and could provide the potential for causing illness.”
Comment by slt — June 13, 2008 @ 5:38 am
You may be interested to know that tomatoes are actually much better for you cooked than raw - more lutein is released with cooking.
That said, there’s nothing like a big, warm, flavourful old-fashioned variety of tomato right off the plant. I can’t wait, mine are growing like crazy in this heat.
I get how the e. coli thing happens. Unsanitary processing procedures for meats. With the veggies, some places use raw sewage on their fields, such as Mexico and China. Having driven by the farms around Salinas many times, I can guess at how it gets on vegetables grown in CA - the fields are huge and I don’t see any washrooms. It could also be from other animals foraging in the fields.
The salmonella is interesting, I’ll follow the link for more info on that, since it’s usually an animal-based bacteria - fish, eggs, birds.
Back to my favourite fruits, tomatoes. I’ve bought some out of season and they are very odd. They don’t get soft, they don’t rot. As a test, I kept some on my kitchen counter for two months and they looked the same as the day I bought them. No thanks, I’ll stick to tomatoes in season and canned tomatoes in the winter - which I love.
Thanks for a great post. It’s really time for our governments to get back to what they are hired to do - maintain the infrastructure, defend our borders, adminster and develop social services programs and monitor food and drug safety. I can’t think of much else that we need them for.
Comment by Caveat — June 13, 2008 @ 5:43 am
Hard red tomatoes?
I think what you are describing is the result of “gassing” the tomatoes to make them appear red & ripe.
It is common. It is disgusting. It removes the taste.
Comment by Ann H — June 13, 2008 @ 6:32 am
I’m not interested in knowing that cooked tomatoes are good for us.
In fact, I can’t even contemplate a cooked tomato without feeling a little ill. Two reasons:
1) Sacramento is known as “The Big Tomato” or “Sacratomato,” but I doubt few new residents or younger residents know why. I do. Sacramento used to be the center of the universe in terms of tomato processing (Sacramento tomato juice, anyone?) and in the days before air conditioning (yes, I AM that old), at the end of the summer the whole city would smell like simmering tomatoes. And in the 110 degree heat, you’d feel like a simmering tomato yourself.
2) At Sacred Heart elementary school, they served tomato soup all the frickin’ time. (I think they got cases donated by the cannery.) Since “little children were starving in [insert country here],” the nuns required us to suck down every last drop of whatever we were served at school lunches. If we didn’t, it was ruler and hell time.
Because of these experiences, if it were proven that cooked tomatoes cured everything that ails us … well, I’d choose to die.
The exception: Tomato-based pasta sauces, which really smell like oregano, basil, etc., and so are A-OK. Especially With cheese.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 13, 2008 @ 6:36 am
I hear you, Gina. We used to spend every summer in Gloucester, MA when I was a kid.
The smell of fish and fish processing was everywhere - including the noxious ‘pogey oil’ as they used to call it there, a byproduct of processing at the fish factory.
It certainly didn’t put me off fish or seafood but it was definitely pervasive and bore no relation to the food on our plates.
It’s OK, you can eat them anyway you like :>)
Comment by Caveat — June 13, 2008 @ 7:17 am
PS I’m probably around your age and have never had air conditioning in my house until 4 years ago when I moved out here to the village. I have a heat pump (speaking of old) and it blows through the registers at floor level. The dogs like it.
It’s not great but it certainly takes the stickiness out. I keep it at about 76 - 78 F.
Comment by Caveat — June 13, 2008 @ 7:19 am
ugh…pogeys! If you see anything that contains “menhaden” on the label, run like Hell! Last I knew, it was still okay for the factory boats to haul in the pogeys from their fleets, process them and dump the effluent back overboard.
This whole food safety business brings back memories of being a child and eating fruits and vegetables only when they were in season. Winter was carrots and other root veggies, potatoes and winter squash with the occasional canned something or other. Summer, one could tell the month by the angle of the sun and the veggies and fruits one was eating. Just bought my first box of local strawberries today.
I have gone back to this approach, eating what only is local and in season. It will be 2 more months before I have tomato ignition on my Box Car Willy, Green Zebra and Grandma Mary’s Paste plants. I am in no hurry. They’ll ripen when they are ready, and soo be worth the wait!
Comment by Deb — June 13, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
My girlfriend came home from her winter stay in Fla and brought a box of tomatoes to pass out to friends. I took 4 tomatoes. That was on June 2. Today still have one left and it is just as solid if not more so, then when she gave it to me. Checked it this morning. Have you ever heard of tomatoes staying as solid as the one pictured at the top of this post for over 2 weeks?
Comment by VJ — June 14, 2008 @ 5:47 am
I hope you enjoy this article in a big sigh, shake your head, get another coffee kind of way.
I do not want to ruin the article’s impact but for those who do not like to follow links
the punch line for me in this Canadian government memo on our food inspection agency
is that firing inspectors and allowing meat and grain companies to police themselves will
make our food supply safer.
http://www.canada.com/edmonton.....987becca4f
Comment by Karen Fraser — July 15, 2008 @ 4:35 am