Minnesota Farmers Union

(October 29, 2010) - The revolving door between government regulatory agencies and the industries they regulate has long been a public policy concern. On the one hand industry groups argue that it is important that regulatory agencies have access to the expertise that people obtain while they work in the industry they regulate. On the other hand, public advocacy groups express concern that such a cozy relationship between the two are likely to result in agencies giving undue deference to the desires of the industry they regulate.

All one has to do is to look at the agencies regulating Wall Street and the financial sector, the Minerals Management Agency, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration to see why the public is concerned that those working for the agencies are either coming from industry to do their bidding or looking for the opportunity to land a good industry job after they leave their regulatory or inspection agency.

One of the concerns dealt with in the report of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), “Driving the Fox from the Henhouse,” is the issue of the revolving door between the agencies that regulate food safety and the industries they regulate.

(October 22, 2010) - In our continuing series of columns on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) food safety report, “Driving the Fox from the Henhouse: Improving Oversight of Food Safety at the FDA and USDA,” we reviewed the history, organization, and funding of the US food safety system along with a summary of the key food safety laws as documented in the report. The full paper can be obtained at http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/driving-fox-from-henhouse-food-safety-report.pdf.

The title of the UCS report is provocative, no doubt about that. This column summarizes some of the findings of UCS’s survey-based research—findings that the UCS believes leads to the conclusion that parts of the food safety system are improperly influenced by the industry that it is mandated to regulate.

To evaluate their findings, it is important to understand the way the UCS conducted its survey of USDA and FDA food safety personnel.

(October 15, 2010) - Last week, in examining a 65 page study released in September 2010 by the Union of Concerned Scientists titled, “Driving the Fox from the Henhouse: Improving Oversight of Food Safety at the FDA and USDA,” we reported on the various agencies that are responsible for food safety issues. The full paper can be obtained at  http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/driving-fox-from-henhouse-food-safety-report.pdf. This week we are look at the.ir description of the legal and funding aspects of food safety.

As the report says, “A few key laws, along with many amendments, govern the U.S. food safety system.” The first one they identify is the Federal Meat Inspection Act [FMIA], which was passed by Congress in 1906, a few months after Upton Sinclair published his book, the Jungle, which was a scathing exposé of the US meat packing industry.

(October 8, 2010) - In the 1980s, Ford Motor Company introduced the slogan “Quality Is Job One” in order to meet the challenge posed by Japanese automakers who were capturing an increasing share of the US car market. This happened in part because Ford’s inattention to quality issues had provided the basis for people to say that Ford meant Fix Or Repair Daily.

The US food system—from farm to fork—needs to take a page from history and begin to introduce policies and practices to convince the US public that “Food Safety Is Job One.”

Most participants in direct sale Farmers Markets know that what they offer their customers is personal service and the perception of quality, and safety. If they fail on any one of those, they lose their credibility and their customers.

The bulk of our food, however, does not come from Farmers Markets. Instead it comes from large retailers who, for the most part, deal with large national processors and producers of the food we eat. The assumption has been that the food we eat is safe. But, the peanut butter, eggs, and repeated beef recalls have challenged that assumption.

(September 3, 2010) - If there is one topic we wish would disappear from our column topic radar, it would be food safety. Every time a food recall is activated, farmers end up with egg on their face—we couldn’t resist the line—even though most had nothing to do with it.

All it takes is a few bad actors to make everyone look bad. There was a time before the widespread availability of refrigeration that rancid butter was a problem. This problem gave an opening for the development of “oleomargarine.” And so to protect their markets and profitability, cooperative creameries began educate and monitor their members so they could consistently provide the public with a quality product. The monitoring was necessary, because rancid cream from a few careless producers would ruin the quality cream delivered by the rest.

While we would be reluctant to classify the industrial-style producers of most of the eggs sold in the US as farmers, there is little doubt that the general public does not make that distinction. Eggs come from chickens and farmers raise chickens; case closed.

(October 16, 2009) - The Sunday, October 4, 2009 issue of the New York Times featured a story that gave dramatic visibility to the issue of food safety in the beef industry. The article, "E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection," told the story of a 22-year-old woman who was left paralyzed because she ate a "hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html). Cargill "recalled 844,812 pounds of ground beef on October 6, 2007, after an estimated 940 people were sickened."

The reaction to the article was immediate with responses from the defenders of the meatpacking industry, to food safety experts, to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), to members of Congress. It even led to an article in The Economist (United Kingdom) that said, "America's dirty secret is that it is one of the most dangerous places in the developed world to eat" (http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14627082).

(August 28, 2009) - Meat recall notices warn consumers not to purchase or use specific meat products from specific processors or locations. And, just during this calendar year there have indeed been a number of recalls. Between January 1, 2009 and August 17, 2009, in addition to the JBS Swift recall of 380,000 pounds of assorted primal beef cuts, 9 smaller recalls were issued for E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef or fresh beef trim products. The smaller recalls involved 152,000 pounds of product. The largest was nearly 96,000 pounds while the smallest was 75 pounds.

While the recall notices serve their intended purpose of informing the consumer of the recall and the forms and processor's lot numbers in which the product was sold, there is still additional information that is not available to the public that might be helpful to concerned consumers and researchers like ourselves.

For example there is no way of easily finding out whether the recalled meat was slaughtered on the processor's site or if it came from a slaughter facility. And if the meat came from a slaughter facility, the plant that was the source of the material and the primals' lot number from which the contaminated ground beef or trim came is not made public.

(August 14, 2009) - In response to the principles developed by the White House Food Safety Working Group, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) jointly announced on July 31, 2009 that they were taking steps to increase the security of the US food supply (USDA News Release 0359-09).

DHHS announced that its Food and Drug Administration had issued draft guidelines “aimed at minimizing or eliminating contamination of leafy greens, tomatoes, and melons that can cause foodborne illnesses.”

“Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced that the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) is issuing guidelines for inspectors to begin conducting routine sampling of bench trim for E. Coli. Bench trim is pieces left over from steaks and other cuts that are then used to make ground beef.” In this column we will be focusing on the new sampling of bench trim.

(August 7, 2009) - One of several comments that we have run across since we began writing about food safety is that imposing additional requirements on slaughterhouses is unnecessary because the ultimate responsibility belongs to the person cooking the meat.

One person writes, "Just cook it stupid! We're trying to protect people from ignorance...never going to happen no matter how hard producers or government tries."

A blogger responding to that comment says, "Amen. Brother!!! Americans would rather [complain] about everything than take personal responsibility. Leave the patty in the pan until it is 160 degrees, problem solved."

We believe that those preparing food items should engage in safe food handling procedures, including frequent hand washing and the use of separate cutting boards for meat and vegetable products. Certainly it would not hurt for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to better communicate the importance of safe food handling in restaurants and at home.