Currently browsing posts about: Food-safety

I’m hoping the Making America Healthy Again includes keeping us safe from food pathogens.

Four items relevant to food safety.

I.  Food Safety News: Salmonella outbreak sickens over 100; Animal operations blamed for leafy greens risk.

II. And the FDA is investigating yet another outbreak.

Cucumbers grown by Bedner Growers, Inc., and distributed by Fresh Start Produce Sales, Inc., to retailers, distribution centers, wholesalers, and food service distributors from April 29, 2025, to May 19, 2025. Cucumbers distributed before this timeframe should be past shelf life and should no longer be available on the market…FDA has posted a list of additional recalls being conducted by retailers that may have received potentially contaminated recalled cucumbers from Bedner Growers, Inc. This list includes recalls conducted by companies that further processed the cucumbers by using them as ingredients in new products or by repackaging them.

III.  The Journal of Food Protection just published this article: An Overview of Farm Investigation Findings Associated with Outbreaks of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli Infections Linked to Leafy Greens: 2009 – 2021

These investigations showed that the outbreak strain can be found throughout the lifespan of leafy greens products, from the agriculture water used for the leafy greens, sediment from irrigation reservoirs, manure in nearby land, to retail product.

The contaminants come from animal manure leaching into water and soil.  Leafy greens should not be grown near CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations).

IV.  And what are FDA (plants) and USDA (animals) doing about all this?  The budget cuts are unlikely to help.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) recently laid off approximately 6,000 employees of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Additionally, the Trump administration has proposed almost $40 million in budget cuts to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a $1 billion decrease in the USDA budget, which recently resulted in workforce cuts and the suspension of services such as milk quality tests…The budget cuts and layoffs are partially intended to lessen federal government oversight and to shift many of the responsibilities to the state level. However, some states simply do not have the resources to serve as equally effective replacements.

This could have significant impacts on food safety and quality assurance.

How’s that for an understatement?

[Personal note: my graduation address today at Hopkins has been rain-postponed to 1:00 EDT .  It will be streamed here.]

Food safety is always a difficult topic because nobody wants to talk about it.

• We expect the food we buy to be safe (a quite reasonable expection, in my view).
• Food companies, by law, are supposed to produce foods safely.
• Regulators are supposed to make sure they do.

Any breakdown in rules and regulations causes problems.  Three troubling examples:

I.  Sentient Food: Federal Inspectors Found Antibiotics in Beef ‘Raised Without Antibiotics.’ They Took No Action

These letters, recently obtained by the advocacy group Farm Forward through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that the world’s largest meat producers — JBS, Cargill, and Tyson — raised cattle that tested positive for antibiotics prohibited under USDA-approved labels advertising the beef as free of antibiotics…These findings were announced last August, but the names of the companies which tested positive for antibiotics were not made publicly available until recently, as part of a new report released by Farm Forward questioning the validity of this popular label.

II.  Phyllis Entis: Manufacturer repeatedly shipped pet food after presumptive-positive pathogen test results

During the 2024 calendar year, Morasch Meats, Inc. (Portland, OR) sold dozens of batches of Northwest Naturals raw pet foods and pet treats after the finished products tested presumptive-positive for Salmonella or Listeria monocytogenes.

Instead of confirming the presumptive result as required by the test kit manufacturer, the company repeated the same rapid test on fresh samples. When the repeat test did not find the pathogen, Morasch released the production batch for sale.

III.  Food Safety News:   Intent or impact? New rules redefine food safety justice

On May 9, President Trump signed Fighting Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations, an executive order directing agencies like the FDA and USDA to limit criminal charges for food safety violations unless companies knowingly break the law. The executive order discourages criminal charges for unintentional violations…while deliberate acts, like falsifying tests, remain subject to prosecution…Critics, including consumer advocates, warn that the executive order, combined with reported cuts to FDA and USDA staff, could weaken deterrence against food safety violations.

Comment: When it comes to food safety, enforcement regulation is essential.  History tells us that unwatched food companies sometimes tend to let safety measures slide.  FDA and USDA food safety inspectors need to be on the job.  FDA inspectors have been cut.  USDA staff cuts undoubtedly will affect meat inspections.   None of this bodes well for the safety of the US food supply.

The USDA announced last week that it is withdrawing its proposed framework for reducing Salmonella in raw poultry.  Oh great.

Why?

FSIS received 7,089 comments on the proposed framework…from a variety of stakeholders that included poultry and meat industry trade associations, small poultry producer and processor trade associations, large and small poultry processing establishments, consumer advocacy organizations…The issues that generated the most comments…[were] the proposed Salmonella levels and serotypes for the final product standards…the scientific and technical information used to support the proposed framework, the potential economic impacts of the proposed framework, and the potential impact of the proposed framework on small poultry growers and processors. Several comments also suggested alternative approaches other than the proposed framework for addressing Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry products.

While FSIS continues to support the goal of reducing Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry products, the Agency believes that the comments have raised several important issues that warrant further consideration.

Consumer Reports, which has for years been pushing the USDA to do something about Salmonella contamination in poultry, is not happy with this move, not least because its investigators found large numbers of poultry plants to be heavily contaminated with Salmonella. contamination.

The proposed rule was intended to help reduce the number of salmonella infections in the U.S. Of the estimated 1.35 million illnesses that occur each year from food tainted with the bacteria, nearly 200,000 of them are due to chicken, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “And instead of declining, salmonella infections are increasing and expected to continue to grow…This move, along with the steep budget and staffing cuts at the USDA and FDA, appears to be part of an overall effort to weaken food safety oversight,” says director of food policy at Consumer Reports.

Comment

This is an extremely disappointing decision.  The poultry industry argues that Salmonella contamination is normal.  They don’t need to do anything to prevent chickens getting contaminated.  It is your responsibility to store and cook your chicken properly.

Safety advocates (like me) argue that Salmonella is not normal, contamination is preventable, and the industry ought to be doing that.  The USDA’s 2021 proposal to declare Salmonella an adulterant was a major step in making food safer.

This decision is a major setback.

Resources

What the USDA says about Salmonella

What the USDA says today about reducing Salmonella in poultry.  The web page displays USDA’s 2021 announcement that it would be “mobilizing a stronger and more comprehensive effort to reduce Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry products.”

It’s not easy to figure out what’s happening on the food front in DC these days, but a lot of it does not sound good.  Here are a bunch from last week.

I.  Food Bank Support. USDA stops $500 million worth of shipments of food to food banks.

Food banks across the country are scrambling to make up a $500 million budget shortfall after the Trump administration froze funds for hundreds of shipments of produce, poultry and other items that states had planned to distribute to needy residents.

The Biden administration had slated the aid for distribution to food banks during the 2025 fiscal year through the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is run by the Agriculture Department and backed by a federal fund known as the Commodity Credit Corporation. But in recent weeks, many food banks learned that the shipments they had expected to receive this spring had been suspended.

II.  Line speeds in meat processing plants.  USDA announces “streamlined” meat processing.  This is USDA-speak for increasing line speeds in processing plants, something terrifying to anyone who cares about worker safety and food safety.  As Food Safety News puts it, this is unsafe at any speed—again.

Once more, policymakers are making the same catastrophic mistake. Once more, industries are downplaying risk while lives hang in the balance. Once more, we are choosing efficiency over responsibility…It’s a reckless increase in processing speeds that threatens to overwhelm the very safeguards meant to protect both workers and consumers.

III.  Food safety rules.  FDA puts food safety rule on hold

In an announcement on March 20, the Food and Drug Administration said it intends to publish a proposed rule “at a later time.” The rule has already been published and approved and was set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2026. The rule was mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act, which Congress approved in 2010.

The food industry has been pushing back against the rule since before it was written, citing expenses. Industry groups applauded the FDA’s postponement of enforcement of the rule.

IV.  Seed Banks.  DOGE is trying to fire staff of the USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System, which stores 62,000 seed samples.

Comment

I’m not seeing much about Making America Healthy Again, beyond encouraging the elimination of artificial colors and trying to do something about the GRAS loophole, which lets companies essentially self-determine whether additives are safe.  Those are both worth doing, and have been a long time coming.  I still want to see this administration take strong action on:

• Ultra-processed food
• Food Safety
• School meals
• Support for small and medium farms

The cancelling of funding for the Diabetes Prevention Program, a 30-year longitudinal study, seems at odds with MAHA.  I hope the funding gets restored quicky.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued: Food Safety: Status of Foodborne Illness in the U.S.

This one sounds much like GAO reports I’ve been reading since the early 1990s.

We have long reported that the fragmented nature of the federal food safety oversight system causes inconsistent oversight, ineffective coordination, and inefficient use of resources. Since 2007, we have identified federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk issue and made several recommendations and matters for congressional consideration. In 2017, we called for the Executive Office of the President to develop and implement a national strategy for overseeing food safety. As of January 2025, there were no plans to create a national strategy, according to officials from the Office of Management and Budget.

What’s impressive about this report is its comprehensiveness.  If you want to understand why food safety in the U.S. remains a problem, this is the place to start.

Among other things, it’s got great graphics, like this one.

It makes several points, none for the first time.

Oversight of food safety is a mess; it needs consolidation.

At least 30 federal laws govern the safety and quality of the U.S. food supply, both domestic and imported. Collectively, 15 federal agencies administer these laws, including CDC, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and HHS’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The federal food safety oversight system is supplemented by states, localities, Tribes, and territories, which may have their own laws and agencies to address the safety and quality of food.

The division of oversight responsibility between USDA (meat and poultry) and FDA (everything else) makes no sense.  It needs fixing.

Foodborne pathogens can be transmitted through multiple types of food and, therefore, can affect both FDA- and FSIS-regulated foods. For example, in 2024, two Salmonella outbreaks—one attributed to cucumbers, an FDA-regulated food, and one attributed to charcuterie meats, an FSIS-regulated food—collectively caused 650 confirmed illnesses and about 180 hospitalizations.

We keep trying and wish everyone would listen to us.

We previously reported on the need for a national strategy to guide federal efforts to address ongoing fragmentation and improve the federal food safety oversight system. This strategy could address our other previous matters for congressional consideration about a government-wide performance plan and sustained leadership for federal food safety. We maintain that such a strategy could create an opportunity to further strengthen federal oversight of the nation’s food supply and reduce the economic and public health effects of foodborne illness.

Food Safety News reports that the FDA says

the biggest stumbling block to conducting inspections of food facilities is understaffing…The annual target for FDA inspections is 19,200, according to the report. The most annual inspections of foreign food facilities occurred in 2019, with 1,727 inspections, or 9 percent of the annual target… in July 2024, FDA had a total of 432 investigators — 90 percent of the full-time equivalent ceiling — for conducting both domestic and foreign inspections, according to FDA officials.

Comment

The instructions to the MAHA Commission (see yesterday’s post) say nothing about food safety beyond its being a matter requiring fresh thinking. Food safety does not appear to be a MAHA priority, especially in light of the threatened mass firings of FDA staff.  Reducing the number of FDA inspectors is unlikely to help at this point.  I hope the Commission adds safe food to its agenda.  The GAO has called for a single food safety agency for decades.  This might be just the time to take that on.  Fresh thinking indeed!

OOPS: A reader alerted me that all links have been taken down by the new administration.

In his last weeks in office, former President Biden issued a Fact Sheet on the food system investments achieved by his administration. A reader, Ethan Wolf, sent in a link from the Wayback Machine. Fact Sheet on the food system investments achieved by his administration

The Fact Sheet divides the achievements into several categories.

• Building new markets and income for farmers and ranchers
• Modernizing the middle of the agriculture and food supply chain: food processing, aggregation, and distribution
• Creating more fair and competitive markets
• Improving food access, nutrition security and health
• Enchancing food safety
• Supporting breakthrough agricultural rewearch and innovation

To highlight just one—food safety:

• USDA issued a rule to classify raw poultry products contaminated with specific Salmonella levels and serotypes as adulterated.
• USDA also finalized a rule declaring Salmonella an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products exceeding 1 colony-forming unit per gram.
• FDA launched the “Closer to Zero” initiative (C2Z), which sets forth a science-based approach to continually reducing exposure to lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury to the lowest levels possible in foods eaten by babies and young children.
• FDA has issued numerous action levels for toxic elements: draft levels for lead in juices; final levels for lead in foods intended for babies and young children; and a final level for arsenic in apple juice. 
• FDA revoked authorizations for the uses of brominated vegetable oil (BVO) in food because of the potential for adverse health effects in humans.
• FDA also revised its regulations and revoked prior-sanctioned uses of partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) because studies consistently link consumption of PHOs (industrially produced trans fat) with heart disease. 
• Before the end of the term, FDA also plans to revoke the authorization of Red No. 3, a red dye used in certain medications and various foods and beverages, including candies, cakes, frostings, and frozen desserts, due to studies showing that the dye caused cancer [it did this].

Perhaps coincidentally, Lisa Held at Civil Eats published How Four Years of Biden Reshaped Food and Farming: From day one, the administration prioritized climate, “nutrition security,” infrastructure investments, and reducing food system consolidation. Here’s what the president and his team actually did.

Her categories are somewhat different:

• Taking on Consolidation and Corporate Power, and Supporting Farmer Livelihood
• Tackling the Climate Crisis
• Regulating Pesticides and Other Chemicals
• Focusing on Food Safety
• Linking Hunger, Nutrition, and Health
• Supporting Food and Farm Workers
• Advancing Equity

Here’s my excerpted summary of her analysis of Taking on Corporate Power.

Two items about pet food this week.  Today: safety.  Tomorrow: environmental sustainability.

I have a long-standing interest in pet food, which I view as an integral—essential—component of our overall food system , not least because pet food uses food components that would otherwise be wasted.  I co-authored a book about pet food issues: Feed Your Pet Right.

If there are problems with the safety of pet food, you can bet those problems will occur in the food supply for humans.  I wrote a book about that too: Pet Food Politics: The Canary in the Coal Mine.

I am not the only one interested in such topics.  Phyllis Entis has written two books crticizing the safety hazards of pet foods.

• TAINTED. From Farm Gate to Dinner Plate, Fifty Years of Food Safety Failures 
• TOXIC. From Factory to Food Bowl, Pet Food Is a Risky Business

She keeps me up-to-date on the latest problems that arise.

I don’t know how closely you’re watching the pet food industry these days, but I thought this piece I just posted might interest you: When ‘truths’ collide: Darwin’s, ANSWERS, and the FDA

This was an account of an FDA Advisory and its non-consequences: Do Not Feed Certain Lots of Darwin’s Natural Selections Pet Food Due to Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is cautioning pet owners that FDA samples of five Darwin’s Natural Pet Products raw cat and dog food made by Arrow Reliance, Inc. tested positive for Salmonella and a sixth FDA sample tested positive for Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes (L. mono)…If you have any of the Darwin’s Natural Selections pet food product listed above, stop feeding the product to your pets and throw it away in a secure container where other animals, including wildlife, cannot access it. Do not donate the food.

The bigger story here, as Phillis Entis explains, is that the FDA did not force the company to recall the products; it asked Darwin to rissue a recall volunarily.

But in this case, the company resisted.  It voluntarily decided not to do the recall.  Pet Food Industry (an essential source of information) tells this story.

In a September 20, 2024, memo from the company to consumers which was sent to Petfood Industry, Darwin’s Natural Pet Products had this to say given the FDA’s public notice regarding the affected lots of cat and dog food.

The memo is worth a look.  It says things like this:

• At Darwin’s, the health and safety of your pets is our absolute top priority, and we take rigorous steps to support their well-being and to foster strong lines of communication with you and our fellow community members.
• It is also very important to know that the FDA has received no consumer complaints regarding any of these lots.
• We find the FDA’s public notice to be wholly unnecessary, and ultimately, based on flawed regulatory decision-making, and we have taken steps to make this position clear to the agency.

Oh.

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler asks: Will the FDA use its Recall Authority to Mandate a Pet Food Recall due to Salmonella and Listeria?   .The FDA has that authority.  It did not use it.

That leaves you on your own to make sure you do not buy Darwin products for your pet.

The FDA provides plenty of information as a basis for you taking responsibility for such things.

Its advisory asks this question: Why is the FDA concerned about Salmonella and L. mono in pet food?

Pet foods contaminated with Salmonella and L. mono are of particular public health importance because they can affect both human and animal health. Pets can get sick from Salmonella and may also be carriers of the bacteria and pass it on to their human companions without appearing to be ill…The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires that all animal foods, like human foods, be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, contain no harmful substances, and be truthfully labeled. Refrigeration or freezing does not kill Salmonella or L. mono.

It provides  these resources:

• Get the Facts about Salmonella
• Salmonella (Salmonellosis)
• Get the Facts about Listeria
• Listeria (Listeriosis)

Do we need more forceful regulation of pet food?  Of course we do.

A reader writes:

Can you address the current food crisis outlining the many foods, long time frame, economic impact, and personal effort involved in this event?

I did not realize until I read the NPR email news brief this morning that one factory is the source of nine  deaths,  that multiple meat products are suspect, that many stores are involved, that sell-by dates extend into October, that products may be in appliances at home, and that all food in the appliance must be disposed of and that the empty appliance must be thoroughly cleaned.

My immediate response was to say that this is yet another recall due to foodborne illness and I’ve written previously about lots of these.  But this one is especially tragic.

• The products—meat contaminated with Listeria—killed people who ate them.
• The plant in which they were produced is inspected daily by an on-site USDA inspector.
• Even so, the plant was especially dirty and unsafe.

The CDC reports: “Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback data show that meats sliced at delis, including Boar’s Head brand liverwurst, are contaminated with Listeria and are making people sick.”

This particular outbreak began in June.

The USDA issued a recall notice at the end of July.

FSIS [USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service] is concerned that some product may be in consumers’ refrigerators and in retail deli cases. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them and retailers are urged not to sell these products with the referenced sell by dates. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase. Consumers who have purchased these products are also urged to clean refrigerators thoroughly to prevent the risk of cross-contamination.

Boar’s Head published a list of the recalled products.  These include several brands and product types.

CBS used FOIA to request USDA’s records of Boar’s Head inspection results.  These take up 44 pages.

Food Safety News did a summary: “Inspection report reveals history of sanitation issues at Boar’s Head plant linked to deadly Listeria outbreak.”

Over a year of repeated sanitation failures — totaling 69 violations — at Boar’s Head’s Virginia plant, appears to have fueled the ongoing Listeria outbreak that has sickened 57 people across 18 states and claimed nine lives…The violations documented in the report include the presence of mold and mildew on surfaces that employees use to wash their hands, on the outside of steel vats and in holding coolers between smokehouses. These conditions are particularly concerning given the ability of Listeria monocytogenes to thrive in cold, moist environments.

CBS did a news video on the inspection results: “Mold, mildew and bugs linked to listeria outbreak, records show.”

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler is calling for a Congressional Investigation.

…years of inspection reports leave little doubt that the Boar’s Head plant’s HACCP [required safety plan] must have been either non-existent or used for toilet paper. It is hard to wrap your head around how food could be produced in these conditions by this company and under the un watchful gaze of FSIS inspectors.

Today’s New York Times points out that food safety recalls have additional consequences.  The economic viability of the town that houses this Boar’s Head plant depends on it for employment and purchases of local services.

Comment

Few of the food safety issues I’ve written about recently involve meat.  This is because of a major overhaul of USDA requirements for meat safety in the 1990s.  Once the USDA required meat producers to develop and use HACCP [Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point] safety plans, outbreaks due to contaminated meat declined.  When done right, these plans are highly effective.  They require producers to identify places in production where contamination could occur, take steps to prevent contamination at those critical control points, and monitor to make sure those steps were taken.  USDA inspectors are supposed to make sure all that happens.

But the inspection system has a built-in conflict of interest.  The system is voluntary.  The USDA cannot force compliance or order recalls.  All it can do is to withdraw its inspectors, thereby forcing the plant to close.  Nobody ever wants to do that.

The food safety system, divided between two agencies as it is (with different legislative mandates and different powers), needs an overhaul.  Lives are at risk.

If you have any Boar’s Head products in your freezer, better take a look at what they are and get rid of any on the recall list.

And let your congressional representatives know that you want better food safety oversight.

Additions

Thanks to Michael Jacobson for sending a link to the Boar’s Head website and the company’s promotional video.  After seeing it, this feels like even more of a tragedy.

Here’s Bill Marler’s legal complaint, just filed.

7-31-24: USDA withdraws inspectors

9-13-24: Boar’s Head announces plant closure