The Marler Clark Network
Posted by Colin Caywood on August 31, 2009

Is China Leaping to the Forefront of Food Safety?

The Chinese media is reporting today on sweeping changes announced for the nation's food safety standards.  In a bold statement, a senior health official declared that the new system "is expected to guarantee people's health and be more compatible with international norms."  The primary focus points of the changes are the amount of pathogenic microorganisms, pesticide residue, microorganism residue, heavy metals and pollutants in food products, as well as the use of food additives are the priority areas.

Some of the changes being touted include:

  • the integration of existing food safety standards, elimination of areas that overlap or contradict each other, and establishment of new standards for areas that previously lacked regulation;
  • transparency in the making of the new system, including subjecting the new system to the opinions of international organizations and other countries, in line with a request from the World Trade Organization (WTO);
  • stepping up efforts to establish an efficient food safety coordination mechanism, improve the health emergency response system, and set up a food safety risk-monitoring and assessment system.

In sum, there are a lot of very exciting and potentially excellent elements being discussed that are necessary for a comprehensive food safety system.  All this has me wondering: Is China going to legitimately be in a position to tout itself as having the world's safest food supply?  Washington, are you paying attention?

Let's keep our fingers crossed that these changes are actually put into effect and enforced.  After all, China has some of the most impressive and far-reaching environmental laws on the books, but with almost no meaningful enforcement or violation penalties they are essentially worthless.

Posted by Colin Caywood on August 31, 2009

The True Cost of "Cheap" Food Is Higher Than You Think

I have recently had some interesting, and heated, conversations with various folks about the current state of the US's food system.  Everything from prolific foodborne pathogens, like E. coli and Salmonella, to widespread obesity and environmental degradation issues can be traced in some profound way to our highly industrialized food system.  What does this system mean for our long-term health?  How can we shift to a more sustainable, healthy food system when a majority of Americans are priced out of healthy food options and instead caught up in a dangerous cycle of cheap, buy-five-for-five fast food items to feed a family?

My attention was therefore caught in the check-out line at the grocery store by Time magazine's recent cover story, "Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food."  The writings of the author, Bryan Walsh, along with others like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, are hopefully starting a dialogue in the country and abroad about the incredible damage, on many fronts, that "cheap food" is having on our lives. 

Bryan's article starts off with an effective kick-to-the-gut summary of the life and care of a typical US-raised pig that will likely end up as a piece of bacon next to someone's breakfast pancake.  I'll let you digest this little snippet before you head over to Time.com and read the full article.

Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That's the state of your bacon — circa 2009.

I don't know about you, but I'm compelled to make another grocery store run and stock up on fruits and veggies.

Posted by Dan Flynn on August 30, 2009

Might Iowa Agriculture Like Having Harkin In Charge Of What Happens To Food Safety Bills In Senate?

If Iowa agriculture had the choice, would it prefer that its most powerful Senator, Tom Harkin, remain as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee with its great sway over all farm bills or take to the late Edward M. Kennedy’s powerful Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee?

For not only does the HELP Committee, as it is known, have one whale of a job to do if President’s Obama’s health care reform is ever going to see the light of day, but Kennedy’s old committee also control the future of food safety legislation that has already passed the House.

“Politics in our nation’s capitol stops for the death of almost no man—even if that man is the “Lion of the Senate,” one Senator Edward M. Kennedy, “ a blog writer for the American Agricultural Law Association observed over the weekend.

Before Senator Harkin gets to pick between chairing Agriculture or HELP, Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd has to decide if he wants to give up the Banking Committee gavel in order to succeed Kennedy.   Dodd’s is the ranking Democrat on HELP, right ahead of Harkin.

While most are thinking about how these chairmanship choices will impact either heath care or the country’s financial mess, Harkin’s role in the future of food safety could be critical to millions of Americans.

Just before the summer recess, the House passed the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, which has now been read by the Senate and assigned to the HELP Committee.

H.R. 2749 imposes fees on food companies to fund increased inspections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.   It also focuses on traceability and makes both domestic and imported foods subject to the same safety standards.   The bill, authored by Michigan Democrat John Dingell, is largely the product of testimony of victims and families of victims of food-borne illness outbreaks during the past three years.

Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin’s food safety bill, S. 510, has also been assigned to the HELP Committee. Interestingly, while Democrats Kennedy and Dodd are listed as co-sponsors, Harkin is not. It also has Republicans Judd Gregg (NH), Richard Burr (NC), Lamar Alexander (TN), and Johnny Isakson (GA) as co-sponsors.

Prior to the House passage of H.R. 2749, grain, livestock, and other big agricultural interests worked mostly behind the scenes, but very effectively, to limit the impact of the reforms.   FDA’s expanded powers are not suppose to impact beef, pork, and poultry operations regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The new food safety law has also run into opposition from an assortment of rural Americans, including organic growers, roadside fruit and vegetable peddlers, and folks who don’t want to be part of any animal identification and tracking system.

Most observers say Harkin likes chairing Agriculture and what could be a better fit with Iowa? Still, he just got the last multi-year farm bill adopted last year and Iowans might like to see him in the historic role of handling health care. On the side, Harkin could trim to the sails on whatever food safety legislation passes to make sure it does hurt Iowa agriculture.

The only thing certain now is that Dodd must decide first. 

Posted by Drew Falkenstein on August 30, 2009

Recall Advice for ground Beef, cantaloupes . . . well any contaminated food

In my last post regarding a recent recall of cantaloupes in the upper midwest due to Salmonella contamination, you can tell that I was struck by the sequence of events being reported.  Melon Acres' recall notice went up on August 27; the FDA reported the Salmonella-positive test result on which the recall was based on August 21, a full six days before Melon Acres' recall notice; and the FDA's salmonella-positive test actually occurred on August 11.  Problem is, the melons were shipped to grocery stores, and maybe into consumers homes, on August 13 or 14.

We don't know all the details yet, but I'm not sure how many ways there are to spin this.  The bottom line appears to be that the Salmonella positive test result occurred more than two weeks before Melon Acres issued its recall notice, by which point the cantaloupes had certainly been distributed . . . and very likely sold to consumers. 

When seeing this, my immediate thought was, "what's the shelf life for cantaloupes after harvest" Pragmatism dictates that we at least look at whether the delays were justified, or not as big a deal as they appear to be at first blush.  I googled it and found an answer that, although a bit dependant on ripeness at harvest and other factors, the shelf life is not long enough to explain away a more than two week delay in recalling affected product.  Ripe cantaloupes should be consumed in not more than a few days.  Thus, there is much more than a theoretical risk that contaminated product will be consumed, particularly considering that these melons were distributed on August 13 or 14. 

Maybe nobody will get sick from these bad melons.  No way to tell yet because, if people did get sick, the epidemiological data is certainly not in the public domain yet.  But this episode is nonetheless distressing.  If a company's motivation for delaying recalls boils down to dollars and cents, they should take a lesson from companies, in fact entire industries, who have recently felt the economic impact of massive product recalls (PCA peanut recall cost the industry 1.5 billion dollars).  

Companies faced with a potential recall situation should consider this:  What really generates the damage are illnesses caused, not whether a notice goes up on the FDA website.  The reason is that illnesses, not simply recall notices, are what drive the sometimes frenetic media response.  

The media attention and other buzz that affects the bottom line will be much less significant if there are no illnesses, and I assure you that the best way to avoid making people sick, assuming that you know your product is contaminated, is to take it off of store shelves if you've got the chance.  Indeed, the only way for a food seller to protect its consumers is know the risks, and effectively communicate those risks to the public.  

Posted by Drew Falkenstein on August 30, 2009

Cantaloupe Recall due to Potential Salmonella Contamination

A company called Melon Acres, which is located in Oaktown, Ind., recently recalled cantaloupes that it had shipped to three states in the Midwest due to Salmonella contamination.  The bad, or potentially bad, melons made their way on August 13-14 to the Aldi's store in Greenwood Indiana, and Meijer stores in Lansing and Newport Michigan and Tipp City Ohio.  The company's recall notice indicates that nobody has yet become sickened by the contaminated melons.  The recall was prompted by FDA testing, which generated a positive result for Salmonella in the affected lots.

The affected melons were identified as 41 MG 10, bin numbers 4753-4980; the release didn't say how many bins were included in the recall. One melon in a sample of 20 tested positive for salmonella, according to the company's release.

Now recalls and outbreaks happen all the time--and this certainly is not the first go 'round for cantaloups--but I certainly hope that there is some explanation (it is probably too beurocratic to be comprehensible) for the FDA's failure to report the positive result for 10 days, as well as Melon Acres' failure to recall the melons until six days after receiving the report from the FDA.  

If people do end up getting sick as a result of ingesting Salmonella bacteria from these melons, we will be interested to find out the real answers to these seeming failures.  Unacceptable answers, at least from a civil-liability standpoint, will be that Melon Acres did not know precisely who received the contaminated melons; or that the test result was merely a presumptive positive rather than being confirmed by further testing days later.  

I understand that outbreaks are going to happen; and everybody agrees, i think, that everybody in the chain needs to do a better job of policing stores, testing for pathogens and preventing contamination from occuring in the first place.  But all efforts will undeniably be in vein if the regulators, and more importantly the companies being regulated, do not act quickly when their products are, in fact, contaminated.  That is the proverbial deal-breaker.  The entities with the last clear chance absolutely must be willing and able to act, preferring consumer safety over profit margins.  

 

Posted by Drew Falkenstein on August 29, 2009

Green Onion Recall due to Potential Salmonella Contamination

Ocean Mist Farms, a Castroville, California vegetable company, has issued a voluntary recall of iceless green onions due to potential contamination by Salmonella bacteria.  The company decided to issue the recall after confirmation from federal regulators of a positive test for salmonella on green onions supplied by Circle Produce to several shippers, including Ocean Mist Farms.

“The health and safety of our customers and their consumers always comes first. As soon as we learned of the positive test, it became our immediate responsibility to begin a voluntary recall of the product in the interest of protecting public health,” said Ed Boutonnet, president, Ocean Mist Farms. “We quickly traced back the product using our tracking system and will work closely with our customers and officials.”

Ocean Mist states that they have not yet been notified by, or heard of, any illnesses occurring as a result of the contamination.  Ocean Mist indicates, however, that It is possible that a small amount of product has already been purchased by consumers.

The recalled iceless green onion pack styles and code dates are as follows:

• 4 x 12 count
• 2 x 24 count
• 36 count 5.5 oz Cello Bag
• 40 count 5.5 oz Cello Bag

Trace Back Code: 95ONCP7G
Production Dates: 80309; 80709; 80809; 81109; 81209; 81309

Green onions and foodborne pathogens.  Certainly not the the first rodeo for this pair.  In late-October 2003, Chi-Chi's mexican restaurant in Pennsylvania was the sight of  a massive hepatitis A outbreak linked to raw green onions.  Ultimately, 650 people were confirmed to have been infected and multiple people died.  We represented about 50 people in the outbreak, including a gentleman named Richard Miller who had a liver transplant as a result of his illness.  Read more.
 

Posted by Suzanne Schreck on August 28, 2009

Fish from 291 streams test positive for mercury in USGS survey

In its recent publication, “Data on Mercury in Water, Bed Sediment, and Fish from Streams Across the United States, 1998–2005,” (pdf) the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a division of the Department of the Interior (DOI), released information related to mercury contamination in 291 streams and rivers across the country. 

mercury in freshwater fishThe USGS study’s findings are alarming: every fish sampled in 291 streams across the country were found to be contaminated with mercury, a contaminant that can react with certain bacteria in water and form methylmercury, a dangerous poison. According to the National Institutes of Health:

Unborn babies and young infants are very sensitive to methylmercury's effects. Methylmercury causes central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) damage. How bad the damage is depends on how much poison gets into the body. Many of the symptoms of mercury poisoning are similar to those seen in cerebral palsy. In fact, methylmercury is thought to cause a form of cerebral palsy.

Populations that regularly consume a large amount of fish are more at risk for developing methylmercury poisoning because their potential exposure to the poison is much greater than populations with lower fish consumption rates. According to a press release issued by the DOI in conjunction with the release of the USGS report:

About a quarter of these fish were found to contain mercury at levels exceeding the criterion for the protection of people who consume average amounts of fish, established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. More than two-thirds of the fish exceeded the U.S. EPA level of concern for fish-eating mammals.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar commented, “This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds, and many of our fish in freshwater streams. This science sends a clear message that our country must continue to confront pollution, restore our nation’s waterways, and protect the public from potential health dangers.”  

The report revealed that tea-colored or “blackwater” streams in “relatively undeveloped forested watersheds containing abundant wetlands” in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana yielded fish with some of the highest levels of mercury. Coincidentally, similar relatively undeveloped watersheds in the Upper Midwest and Northeast also contained fish with high levels of mercury.  

According to USGS, atmospheric mercury is the main source of mercury in most of the streams studied, while coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States. Gold and mercury mining also contribute to the level of mercury in some streams, particularly on the West Coast. 

USGS scientist Barbara Scudder stated, “This study improves our understanding of where mercury ends up in fish in freshwater streams. The findings are critical for decision-makers to effectively manage mercury sources and to better anticipate concentrations of mercury and methylmercury in unstudied streams in comparable environmental settings.”

Additional studies by USGS will continue to shed light on mercury contamination in our streams, and will hopefully shed more light on how much and which kinds of fish are safest for the general population, but most importantly for at-risk populations like pregnant women, children, and populations who depend on fishing for a large portion of their diet, such as Native American tribes.

Posted by David Babcock on August 27, 2009

Food Safety Regulators Voice Support for Animal ID System

High-profile food safety regulators recently explained the need for a national animal identification system, according to this report on Drovers.com. The comments were made at the "ID Info Expo 2009" in Kansas City, Missouri.

Proposals for such a tracking system often draw criticism from the livestock industry, centering around concerns over cost and bureaucracy. Speakers at the Expo, though, explained that such a system could offer significant protection to the industry. Greg Hugoson, Minnesota Department of Agriculture commissioner stated,

“It’s like having an insurance policy against a catastrophic health event.. If a problem occurs, it will allow authorities to isolate where the problem is and keep other, uninfected herds from being sacrificed.”

 

This sentiment was echoed by Douglas Meckes, acting director of food, agriculture, and veterinary defense for Homeland Security. According to Drovers, Meckes also stated that an animal ID system would help “mitigate damage” in a major disease event.   Meckes specifically mentioned the example of the 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak.   During the outbreak, tomato growers lost millions in sales while the FDA struggled to determine the source of the outbreak that sickened over 1,000 people. The 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak has been pointed to, on this blog and elsewhere, as an example of the importance of food traceability to industry health.

 

Regulatory support for an animal identification system marks a change from the past. The final line of the Drovers report struck me as wholly unsurprising: “Under the Bush Administration, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns was adamantly opposed to mandatory animal ID.” 

Posted by David Babcock on August 26, 2009

E. Coli O157:H7 Illnesses Close Daycare in UK

The majority of the E. coli O157:H7 cases we pursue involve the consumption of contaminated food or drink.   It is possible though, for E. coli O157:H7 to be transmitted from person to person, through fecal-oral transmission.   Such transmission is more likely in a day-care settings. 

BBC news is reporting on the closure of the "Going Places Day Nursery" in the UK after 3 children fell ill with E. coli O157:H7 infections.  One child is hospitalized.

The apparent link between these E. coli O157:H7 infections and the day-care do not rule out contaminated food or drink as the source.  Food or drink served at the day-care may be the source.   It is also possible, though, that the illness was spread among ill children.  A third possibility is that illnesses can be attributed both to contaminated food (in one or more primary illnesses) followed by person-to-person (secondary) illnesses. 

The nursery says "an inspection had shown no links to the nursery kitchen "or any of our procedures".

Marler Clark has previously represented the families of children that developed E. coli O157:H7 infections in day-care settings.

Posted by Drew Falkenstein on August 25, 2009

E. coli and Food Recalls: Progress, Really?

The Wisconsin State Journal recently published an excerpt from an interview on the increased number of food recalls we have seen in the last few years.  In the interview, Dr. Kathleen Glass of the Food Research Institute at UW-Madison concluded, in part at least, "That the food-safety system is working, even though the number of recalls is rising."  This inspired me to respond with a slightly different take on the safety of our food safety system as a whole.

Over the last several years—in fact, beginning with the infamous Dole baby spinach outbreak in September 2006—fully 90% of the people we, at Marler Clark, have represented have been victims of severe E. coli O157:H7 infections, sometimes resulting in hemolytic uremic syndrome. And aside from approximately 100 spinach victims, close to 95% of these folks were sickened by contaminated ground beef. This may be nothing more than a real world application of non-scientific fact. Whatever the case, it sure doesn’t jibe well with Dr. Glass’s optimism about our food safety system, as a whole, or ground beef more specifically.

Certain sectors expressed sentiments similar to Dr. Glass’s as recently as the beginning of 2007, touting that the incidence of E. coli O157 in meat had plummeted since the 1990s, dropping nearly 80%. The rate of actual illnesses in people, it was said, was also way down. It appeared, by both statistics and the profiles of our clients, that the meat industry had indeed cleaned up its act—that big beef finally would put Bill Marler and his firm in Seattle out of business.

If the first several years of this millennium showed progress by the beef industry, 2007, 2008, and 2009 are years that it would rather forget. Beef companies recalled over twenty-nine million pounds of meat in 2007. 2008 saw at least sixteen recalls of beef products, totaling at least 2,361,295 pounds of meat. And to date in 2009, beef companies have recalled close to one million pounds of product, including the recent recall of 825,000 pounds due to possible Salmonella contamination. True enough, these are just bare numbers—courtesy of the USDA website—but a simple contrast with the first five or six years of this millennium is illustrative. Progress? Optimism? I don’t see it.

Ultimately, these numbers may serve Dr. Glass’s points directly: more recalls may mean more testing, but it does not necessarily mean more illness. To that, all we can really say is that, well, we’ve sure as heck seen a lot more sick people in the last three years than we did the six previous ones. Indeed, there are more than a few families that I can think of around the country who would be shocked—probably even dismayed—to learn that our “food-safety system is working, even though the number of recalls is rising.”

Let me make a different assessment; perhaps it will be a better platform from which to build a national, and international, food-safety system that’s more in keeping with what consumers expect: no, we are not making good enough progress; and no, I don’t agree that the increased number of food recalls (ground beef in particular) is just because of better testing, and more surveillance within the public health community. Take it for what you will, but we have represented more victims of foodborne disease in the last three years alone that we did in the entirety of this firm’s first decade of existence.