Sometimes major food-safety events (i.e. large-scale outbreaks and recalls) have the effect of bringing important issues to the fore, thereby preventing them from being ignored any longer. The 2006 Spinch E. coli O157 recall certainly did; the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement–which sets forth standardized, fairly stringent rules for the production of leafy greens–came out the other end of the illness vortex that sickened over 200 people and killed 5 (not 3, which is normally the number given). (It has also been effective at reducing the number of people that we represent in produce-related outbreaks). Maybe the egg outbreak will leave senators with absolutely no excuse for letting the issue of food safety and recalls languish any longer in the hands of producers alone.
It never hurts to have widely-viewed media outlets supporting the cause. Boston Globe’s op-ed today, "Egg debacle reveals loopholes:"
IF FEDERAL inspectors had miraculously discovered salmonella bacteria at two Iowa egg farms before the microbes infected at least 1,470 people with food poisoning this summer, they would have had no authority to mandate a recall of potentially contaminated eggs.
Eventually, the two farms agreed voluntarily to recall more than a half-billion eggs in the largest outbreak of this salmonella strain since government scientists began keeping track in the late 1970s. But granting mandatory recall authority to the Food and Drug Administration should be a no-brainer response by Congress to this latest demonstration of the yawning gaps in the nation’s safety net for food.
Today’s editorial in the USA Today titled "Egg recalls fit pattern of negligence, lax oversight:"
Here we go again. With the massive recall by two farms in Iowa, eggs now join spinach, hamburger and peanuts on a list of things you thought you could eat without worry but now might have doubts about.
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The FDA, like other federal regulators, has a sad history of inspecting but ignoring: For six years, for example, inspectors found violations at the Del Rey Tortilleria in Chicago, whose tortillas were repeatedly linked to outbreaks of vomiting and diarrhea in school kids. It wasn’t until last year that FDA higher-ups finally moved to shut the plant down.
As for bad eggs, broader vaccination of chickens would help. So would a long-stalled food safety bill, pending in the Senate, that would mandate inspections of farms and give the FDA authority to order recalls that are now voluntary. Good, but even this is no magic bullet. The agency will need more money for inspections. Just as important, instead of just writing up violations, it needs to crack down on rogue companies, treating them the same way the criminal justice system treats repeat offenders.
The FDA, like other federal regulators, has a sad history of inspecting but ignoring: For six years, for example, inspectors found violations at the Del Rey Tortilleria in Chicago, whose tortillas were repeatedly linked to outbreaks of vomiting and diarrhea in school kids. It wasn’t until last year that FDA higher-ups finally moved to shut the plant down.
And this from Mina Kimes in an article that appeared on CNN and in Fortune titled "Egg recall is a golden opportunity to whip food safety into shape:"
The section of the bill [S 510, aka "Food Safety Modernization Act"] that calls for increased surveillance may be the most pertinent to the current salmonella outbreak. Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in taking on food recall cases (including the current egg outbreak), thinks that particular proposal, which calls on the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a pilot project to improve tracking methods and enhance surveillance systems, could have helped regulators catch the outbreak much earlier.
"There’s no question in my mind that, if there was more communication and coordination going on between health departments, this thing would have been figured out months ago," says Marler.
Though the salmonella outbreak began in May, the first egg recall didn’t occur until mid-August. Such delays are common, says Marler. "If you look back historically at every major food-borne illness outbreak, by the time the CDC or state or local health departments are announcing an outbreak that’s nationwide in scope, the outbreak is usually over," he says.
It’s definitely hard to look past the current issues that matter in this outbreak–thousands of people ill, millions of eggs recalled, and blatant disregard for health and safety by the company involved. See Decosters in Iowa: a checkered history, which appeared today in the Des Moines Register. But maybe it’ll all give us some momentum before we go into retrospective mode again, and things become less important.