The USDA’s Microbiological Data Program is under attack.  As first reported by Bill Marler at Marlerblog on June 17, the House of Representatives recently approved a bill that would end funding for the 10-year-old Program, which tests about 15,000 annual samples of produce for nasty bugs like Salmonella and multiple different disease causing strains of E. coli, including E. coli O157:H7.  What is the backup plan?  Well, probably nothing, or alternatively, allowiing industry to police itself, or relying on the meager testing program in place with the FDA. 

While the produce industry has undoubtedly cleaned up its act substantially after the spinach E. coli outbreak, and others, in 2006, the FDA’s testing program is largely ineffective, testing only an average of 1,000 samples a year, and those for the most part on foreign produce coming in to US ports.  Moreover, the MDP’s cost is a relatively insubstantial 4.5 million dollars per year.  In a budget that runs into the many billions of dollars, and with annual medical and public health expenditures certainly dwarfing 4.5 million annually as a result of contaminated food, and likely contaminated produce, this is an industry-driven measure that needs to die. 

Here are just a few faces of produce outbreaks over the years who would agree, or at least their families in the case of several of the following women who died.

BARB PRUITT

Barb Pruitt was infected by Salmonella typhimurium in August 2009. She had four feet of her small intestine removed a few days later, which had become so necrotic (dead) as a result of her Salmonella infection, that it was no longer functional and probably would have killed her if it had been left in (not to mention some critical, first rate medical care). Her life will never be the same as a result.

BETTY HOWARD

Betty Howard was born on September 14, 1923 in Sharon Springs, Kansas. She graduated high school in Salina, Kansas in 1941. Like others of the GI Generation, during World War II Betty did her part by working in a gunpowder plant in Oklahoma. After the war, she moved to Yakima, Washington, where she met John W. Howard. The striking young couple married on February 26, 1947.

John and Betty Howard raised four sons: Kim, Paul, Brian, and Darryl. Kim, the Howard’s first son, died in 1998. Paul, Brian, and Darryl are independent, successful men with families of their own. And to a man, each reflects on his childhood, and his mother more specifically, as idyllic in both appearance and reality.

The Howard boys’ mother left an indelible impression on each from day one, most significantly the way in which she lived and conducted her life. Darryl Howard eulogized his mother on February 1, 2007. He stated:

As I thought back this morning, it reminded me of the movie Second Hand Lions.

Two uncles raise a son of a relative. They tell him of their unbelievable adventures. Adventures in the Foreign Legion, tales of saving a girl, and wittingly getting a reward of gold offered for their own heads from a Saudi Prince.

In the end after the two 90-year old uncles pass away by flying their bi-plane into a barn, the boy returns to the farm and this helicopter lands. There is the son of the Saudi Prince with his son. They had heard of the uncles’ passing. The Prince looks over at a large yacht in a small pond and comments: “I see they spent my father’s money well.” Hearing this, the Prince’s son exclaims “So the stories grandfather told of the men are true, they really lived.” To which the boy who the uncles raised, now a man, says: “Yeah, they really lived, boy how they lived.”

My mom and dad really lived.

Continue Reading Kill the Microbiological Data Program? Nasty bugs like E. coli and Salmonella say YES