Food Poison Journal - Food poisoning outbreaks and litigation: surveillance and analysis

Something called the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission last week held a hearing on “Chinese Seafood: Safety and Trade Issues.”

The big talker was Don Kraemer from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. He is deputy director in the Office of Food Safety.

Kraemer went into some extensive detail on the legal authority FDA maintains over Chinese imports to the United States; and all the policies and procedures it employs.

With doctors telling us all to eat fish twice a day, Kraemer started to get our attention with statements like this: “More than 80 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported from approximately 130 countries, and over 40 percent of that seafood comes from aquaculture operations.”

And about China specifically, this:

"By volume, China is the largest exporter of seafood to the U.S., and the second largest in terms of monetary value. In particular, China exports significant amounts of shrimp and catfish products, which represent two of the ten most consumed seafood products in the U.S.

As the aquaculture industry continues to grow, concern about the use of unapproved drugs and unsafe chemicals in aquaculture operations has increased significantly. There is clear scientific evidence that the use of unapproved antibiotics and other drugs and chemicals, such as malachite green, nitrofurans, fluoroquinolones, and gentian violet, can result in the presence of residues in the edible portions of aquacultured seafood.

 

Fluoroquinolones are not approved for use in food fish and have been prohibited from extra-label use in the U.S. and many other parts of the world because of public health concern about the development of antimicrobial resistance. Moreover, prolonged exposure to nitrofurans, malachite green, and gentian violet, or their metabolites, has been shown to induce cancer in humans or animals.

 
Since June 28,2007, there’s been a detention order on all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace and eel from China. This means the Chinese farm fish are subject to detention FDA without examination.

Since imposition of the countrywide Import Alert, FDA has detained 2,964 shipments of aquacultured seafood from China, and through laboratory testing, 1,387 of those shipments have been released into U.S. commerce.
Only one company, Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products Corporation, Zhanjiang, China (Guolian), has taken the steps needed to get out from under the detention order.

The Review Commission is a 12-member panel created by Congress to monitor trade with China.

For Kraemer’s complete statement, go here.

The CDC estimates that 76 million foodborne illness, or food poisoning, cases occur in the United States every year, which means that one in four Americans contracts a foodborne illness annually after eating foods contaminated with such pathogens as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Campylobacter, Shigella, Norovirus, and Listeria. Approximately 325,000 people are hospitalized with a diagnosis of food poisoning, and 5,000 die. The estimated costs in terms of medical expenses and lost wages or productivity are between $6.5 and $34.9 billion (Buzby and Roberts, 1997; Mead, et al., 1999).  While most foodborne illness cases go unreported to health departments, nearly 13.8 million food poisoning cases are caused by known agents – 30% by bacteria, 67% by viruses, and 3% parasites (Mead, et al., 1999).

The Centers on Disease Control & Prevention today (4/10/08) held a telephone press conference to mark the release of "Preliminary FoodNet Data on the Incidence of Infection with Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food - 10 States, United States, 2007" which is also being published in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Dr. Robert Tauxe, Deputy Director, CDC Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, said that after marking declining trends for food borne diseases after FoodNet was established in 1996, more recent data--including that for 2007--is not showing progress.

"The lines go up and the lines go down," Dr. Tauxe said.  "We cannot say we've made significant progress in the last few years.

FoodNet monitors every diagnosis of a major food borne illness in each of ten states and then projects on the population to spot trends.

FoodNet has picked up on a signficant increase in cyptosoridium that Dr Tauxe says may be partially due to a better lab test and treatment for the parasite.

Here's the preliminary data from FoodNet for 2007 from the MMWR;  Go here for the real thing.

Every year the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association and Pennsylvania Diary Promotion Program sponsor the "butter sculpture" at the Harrisburg Farm Show.  This year, the buttery likenesses of Benjamin Franklin and the Liberty Bell were big hits.   At the end of the show, they were converted into high quality biodiesel.

Butter would become a whole lot more expensive if Auckland University epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson gets his way.   Professor Jackson says butter is poison and should be hit with high taxes just like tabacco and alcohol.

Here's the news about the proposed butter tax from Stuff.co.nz

A top public health expert is calling for a health tax on butter, saying it's "pure, natural poison" and as bad as cigarettes.

 New Zealanders eat more butter per head than any other nationality and Auckland University epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson says that's why our cholesterol levels are also among the world's highest.

"We have a health tax on alcohol and cigarettes and there should be a health tax on butter. It's the most poisonous commonly consumed food in New Zealand. It's about the purest form of saturated fat you can eat and it has no protein and no calcium. Butter has had all the good things taken out and just left the poison."

Find out more here.