According to the American Society for Microbiology, Americans are eating safer. The number of people who reported eating one or more foods associated with an increased risk of foodborne disease declined by a third from 1998 to 2002, according to survey results released today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
“Overall we are seeing a decline in risky food consumption and that may be attributable to published media reports of foodborne outbreaks and outreach efforts by the public health community,” says Erica Weis of the California Department of Health Services, the lead author on the study.Continue Reading Consumption of risky foods declines
Warning: This bill could make you sick
A recent LA Times OpEd by Al Meyerhoff and Carl Pope said the House of Representatives this month passed the National Uniformity for Foods Act, a measure that would kill or cancel significant parts of 200 food-safety laws in 50 states. This ill-advised bill, supported by millions of food-industry dollars, passed without a single hearing. Now it’s in the hands of the Senate. If it passes there, among its many victims would be California’s requirement that foods containing harmful chemicals display a warning for consumers.
Those warnings are mandated by Proposition 65, enacted, as one court described it, to be “a legislative battering ram” by an overwhelming majority of voters in 1986. In passing the measure, Californians wanted to encourage manufacturers to remove dangerous substances from their products before they reached supermarket shelves.
Proposition 65’s requirement that companies either warn consumers or remove harmful chemicals works, and it remains a vital protection.Continue Reading Warning: This bill could make you sick
No Over-The-Counter Remedy for Food Poisoning
Suzy Cohen of Newsday.com reports that when you’re dealing with food-borne illness, there’s no over-the-counter remedy to “head off” the symptoms. If you are certain the food poisoning occurred at that restaurant, you should contact the manager and relate what happened. Other patrons may also have gotten sick. If the owners are decent and reputable, they will pay your medical bills.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends that you report incidents like this to your local health department. By investigating outbreaks, public health officials learn about problems in food production that lead to illness.Continue Reading No Over-The-Counter Remedy for Food Poisoning
Stomping on state standards
The Chicago Tribune reports that by the time the U.S. Food and Drug Administration got around to worrying about how much lead we might be ingesting along with our calcium supplements, most of the manufacturers of those tablets had grudgingly gotten the lead out.
Why? Because California already had its own standard for allowable levels of lead, and the companies wanted to sell calcium in California. Told to either reduce the lead or label the product as potentially dangerous, the companies chose to make their product safer, not just for Californians but for everyone. The FDA had nothing to do with it.Continue Reading Stomping on state standards
Today’s question: How do you properly cook an alligator?
Jane Zhang of the Wall Street Journal reports that a public-health officer in Sydney, Australia, had an urgent question: A consumer found a black, shiny, 1.3-centimeter-long beetle with fine, short antennas and hairy legs in a sandwich. The plastic bag the bread came in “had no holes in it, and I could see the imprint of the beetle within the slice of bread. Would it be possible for the beetle to live through the baking process?”
The official in question knew just where to get the answer: an email network called Foodsafe that posts the correspondence of an elite lineup of microbiologists, chefs, restaurateurs, industry consultants and regulators from about 30 countries, including the U.S., Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and even Iraq. With its debates, battles and mini-celebrities, Foodsafe (www.foodsafetyweb.info) puts on display world experts as they grapple with the increasingly complex and strange world of food and disease.Continue Reading Today’s question: How do you properly cook an alligator?
Restaurant reports available online for Va.
Tammie Smith of the Times-Dispatch reports that restaurant inspections in Virginia turn up plenty of establishments with violations. Consumers can find out if their favorite breakfast, lunch or dinner spot is a culprit by going to the Virginia Department of Health’s restaurant inspection Web site: www.healthspace.ca/vdh.
Inspection reports for more than 25,000 restaurants and other food service establishments around the state are included in the database, which has been online since May 1, 2003.Continue Reading Restaurant reports available online for Va.
Let health ‘umps’ call potlucks
In a Wisconsin State Journal OpEd last week, Brae Surgeoner and Ben Chapman said Wisconsin Assembly recently passed the aptly named Potluck Liberation Act, a law exempting community dinners from health inspection.
Patriotically, Rep. Barb Gronemus, D-Whitehall, stated, “To say you shouldn’t have a potluck is like saying you shouldn’t have a ballgame.”
Comparing dinners where the possibility of foodborne illness is a frightening reality to one of America’s much-loved pastimes is intriguing. Acquiring a salmonella infection from an improperly handled turkey would be kind of like standing in front of a Pedro Martinez fastball: The messy reaction in your pants would be similar.Continue Reading Let health ‘umps’ call potlucks
Government to scale back mad cow testing
Libby Quaid of the Associated Press reports that despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease, the government intends to scale back testing for the brain-wasting disorder blamed for the deaths of more than 150 people in Europe.
The Agriculture Department boosted its surveillance after finding the first case of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003. About 1,000 tests are run daily, up from about 55 daily in 2003.
The testing program detected an infected cow in Alabama last week, and further analysis confirmed Monday that the animal had mad cow disease.
Still, a reduction in testing has been in the works for months. The department’s chief veterinarian, John Clifford, mentioned it when he announced the new case of mad cow disease.Continue Reading Government to scale back mad cow testing
A hard bill to swallow
In an OpEd yesterday, Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post discussed that last week, even as Congress with great fanfare was protecting the American people against whatever mischief the harbor barons of Dubai were contemplating, it quietly decided to strip some long-standing protections from the same American people at the behest of our very own food industry. Last Wednesday the House passed the National Uniformity for Food Act, which might better be named the Swallow at Your Own Risk Act.
In one swoop, the bill preempts roughly 200 state laws governing food safety. The theory here is that we lack uniform national standards in such areas as lead and arsenic content, milk and shellfish safety, and the stuff that goes into food coloring and additives. National standards, the bill’s champions argue, would be good for the whole country.Continue Reading A hard bill to swallow
New consumer group’s web site debuts as resource on food and water issues
Per a Food & Water Watch press release, amidst the furor of takeovers of U.S. resources by multinational corporations and media reports about the meat industry’s controversial practice of using carbon monoxide to extend shelf life on meat products, a new consumer group has emerged to tackle the growing corporate control and abuse of essential resources. Food & Water Watch today launched its new Web site. It is available at www.foodandwaterwatch.org.
“Nearly everyday, we hear about yet another food safety scare or another community that is protesting jacked-up water rates forced on them by private providers. People across the United States and the world are starting to realize the impact that corporations have had on our public resources — and they aren’t happy about it,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “We hope our new Web site will help people learn more about what they eat and drink, and motivate them to take action, get involved, and demand change.”Continue Reading New consumer group’s web site debuts as resource on food and water issues