According to Katie Mulvaney at the Providence Rhode Island Journal, meat producer Daniele International has filed suit against the spice companies who supplied the Salmonella-contaminated pepper that led to Daniele’s recall of nearly 1.2 million pounds of meat and $1.5 million in refunds to customers.
Daniele filed suit Tuesday against Wholesome Spice and
Marler Clark has produced a Parent Food Safety Guide for Hepatitis A.
Hepatitis A (formerly known as infectious hepatitis) is an acute infectious disease of the liver caused by the hepatitis A virus (HAV), which is most commonly transmitted by the fecal-oral route via contaminated food or drinking water. Every year, approximately 10 million people
Kristen Hansen, community columnist with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel posted today on the raw milk debate that is brewing in Wisconsin over the state’s upcoming vote on Senate Bill 434:
There is a trend toward healthy eating and natural foods in this country, and that is a good thing. Even though some labels of
The outbreak linked to salami and pepper, and the recall linked to hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), have sparked additional food recalls. First, the pepper. The FDA’s recall notice posted today (it is dated March 25th–from a consumer health standpoint, shouldn’t these notices be going up a little closer in time to the day they occurred)
As I post this latest article, I do realize that Food Poison Journal appears this week to be more like Raw Milk Journal. Believe it or not, we do make a genuine effort to post on a variety of foodborne illness-related subjects. With that in mind, I was tempted to refrain from posting another article
The mastermind of www.barfblog.com has been kind enough to keep track of raw milk outbreaks over the years. Click on image below:
I really was not going to jump too much further into the Wisconsin Raw Milk debate until I read this quote the other morning: "We just don’t see that as an issue.” That’s what Kathy Kramer, nutritionist and office manager at the Weston A. Price Foundation in Washington, D.C., told Mike Nichols of the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Clinical Infectious Diseases 2009; 48:93–100; Jeffrey T. LeJeune and Paivi J. Rajala-Schultz
SUMMARY
Although milk and dairy products are important components of a healthy diet, if consumed unpasteurized, they also can present a health hazard due to possible contamination with pathogenic bacteria. These bacteria can originate even from clinically healthy animals from which milk is
Sue Wallis, a Wyoming Republican legislator, recently introduced a bill called the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, which, in Wallis’s words, "seeks to clarify the fundamental right of Wyoming citizens to eat whatever they want to eat."
Ron Paul, libertarian-minded republican congressman from Texas undoubtedly would have supported Mrs. Wallis’s bill, had he been a Wyoming
The FDA issued a statement yesterday on the campylobacter outbreak in Michigan linked to raw milk, which reads as follows:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with several state agencies, is alerting consumers to an outbreak of campylobacteriosis associated with drinking raw milk. At least 12 confirmed illnesses have been recently reported in Michigan. Symptoms of campylobacteriosis include diarrhea, abdominal pain and fever.
The FDA is collaborating with the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH), the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Indiana State Board of Animal Health and the Indiana State Health Department, to investigate the outbreak. MDCH reports that, as of March 24, 2010, it received reports of 12 confirmed cases of illness from Campylobacter infections in consumers who drank raw milk. The raw milk originated from Forest Grove Dairy in Middlebury, Ind.
The milk was produced in Indiana under a cow-share agreement (sometimes called a herd share agreement). Federal law prohibits the interstate sale of raw milk. In fact, it is not a constitutional right to eat whatever you want; and states are, as a result, well within their legal authority to prohibit the sale of raw milk within their borders.
The fact that federal law prohibits the interstate sale and shipment of raw milk (a measure done in furtherance of Congress’s ability to regulate interstate commerce) prompts a question. What is an Indiana dairy doing selling and shipping milk across state lines? This was tried before, and it resulted in a criminal prosecution against the offenders (the owners of Dee Creek Farms in Woodland Washington). What will happen in this cse?
It is no answer for Forest Grove Dairy, located in Indiana, to say that it did not sell raw milk. It certainly did, and it’s product was also shipped in interstate commerce, thus violating state and federal law. Also, Michigan law says, specifically: "Only pasteurized milk and milk products shall be offered for sale or sold, directly or indirectly, to the final consumer or to restaurants, grocery stores or similar establishments."
The fact that Forest Grove Dairy distributed the subject raw milk using the illusory framework of a cow/herd-share agreement is also a bad defense. In fact, it’s no defense at all. I authored the following article for www.foodsafetynews.com back in November 2009 on this issue specifically:
Truly, to call a cow share agreement a species of legal maneuvering may be giving too much cred to an effort that is designed either to flout the law entirely, or at the very least to avoid the often stringent requirements associated with licensure. In reality, cow shares are poorly disguised attempts to accomplish something that is, in most states, patently criminal. As a result, when juding whether such conduct constitutes the sale or distribution of raw milk, courts are likely to approach these cases with a healthy dose of realism in determining what the parties’ true intent was, whether the forum be civil or criminal court.
Read Cow Share Agreements: Fooling Nobody.Continue Reading Cow/Herd Share Agreements Revisited