Food watchdogs blast the agency for slow response
By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
As Texas and the nation grapple with a major outbreak of potentially deadly salmonella poisoning from tomatoes, critics of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are blasting the agency for sluggishness in ensuring the safety of America's food supply.
This latest outbreak, which has sickened 23 people locally, is the third significant salmonella case in America this year.
The FDA's food watchdogs, internal critics contend, are in "a state of crisis" and have stood by as budget and staffing problems have eroded their power to inspect and regulate the expanding food industry.
The FDA, others note, is part of a dangerously fragmented food safety system of 15 agencies — a system challenged by garden variety germs and the spectre of food-targeted bioterrorism.
Despite the system's best efforts, foodborne illnesses continue to pose a significant health threat.
Last year, spinach contaminated with E. coli bacteria sickened 206 Americans, hospitalizing 100 and killing three. Salmonella infections, many of them food-related, afflicted 1.4 million people in 2007.
This year salmonella, which causes severe diarrhea and can be fatal for infants, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, has been spread through tainted cantaloupes, dry cereal and tomatoes.
The current outbreak, believed to be linked to raw tomatoes of unknown origin, has affected 56 people in Texas — 14 in Harris County, five in Brazoria County and two each in Fort Bend and Galveston counties. Thirty-six New Mexico residents and 34 elsewhere in the country also became ill.
Early last week, Houston supermarkets responded to a federal salmonella alert by pulling suspect tomatoes from their shelves or posting signs warning their customers not to eat the succulent fruit raw.
On Friday, Houston's health department confirmed it is investigating the death on Wednesday of Raul Rivera, a lymphoma patient who reportedly died of salmonellosis. Department spokeswoman Kathy Barton said it is unclear if Rivera's case was linked to tomato consumption.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that for every salmonella case reported, 38 are not brought to the attention of physicians.
"The number of outbreaks of food-borne illnesses from both domestic and imported products over the past several years indicates that the program isn't working," said Carol Tucker Foreman, an assistant agriculture secretary in President Carter's administration and now a distinguished food policy fellow with the Consumer Federation of America.
"The FDA is an agency with a long and glorious history," she said, "but it stopped living up to that history about 10 years ago. All through the Clinton and Bush administrations there have been, effectively, budget cuts, flat lines year after year. ... The FDA was laying off employees, and food safety has always been the poor stepchild of the agency's other responsibilities."
Seeking recall power
Tucker Foreman said that not until last November did the FDA devise a strategy for dealing with food contamination.
With the release of its Food Protection Plan, the agency expresses its intent to galvanize food producers to increase efforts to prevent foodborne illnesses, base inspections on perceived risks and improve the agency's ability to respond in emergencies.
The plan also calls for the agency to seek federal approval for the power to mandate recall of contaminated foodstuffs. Now, such recalls rely on the good will of the sellers unless the agency can prove the foods in question have been dangerously adulterated, and even then such seizures must be implemented jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
Dr. David Acheson, FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection, said his agency will evaluate food production practices to determine which foods and which stage of their growth, processing and transportation pose the greatest consumer risk.
Spinach might present greater risks than crackers, he said, and the period of growth field more danger than an interval on a grocer's shelf. The business practices of food producers will be weighed in the decision of how often to inspect.
"We're not just going to do more inspections and testing," he said. "We'd never get to the point where we could do enough. That's not smart. We're going to build prevention up front."
Acheson said the plan should address concerns about the agency that were detailed by an internal FDA report authored by its science and technology subcommittee, also released in November.
That study declared the agency's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, which annually oversees the safety of $417 billion in domestic foodstuffs and $49 billion in imported foods, is in "a state of crisis."
The agency, it said, is prepared neither to prevent problems from novel sources such as genetically modified organisms, nor from traditional sources including chemical contamination.
As the food industry has rapidly grown in the past 35 years, the study said, the FDA has cut inspections by 78 percent. Now, inspectors visit a given food manufacturing plant once a decade; no inspectors visit farms or retail sales outlets.
The Government Accountability Office, long critical of the FDA, says the agency is part of a fragmented food safety system involving multiple agencies and a welter of laws. The GAO has designated the system a matter of "high risk."
Big bucks go to USDA
Typical of the problems, the FDA contends, is that the Department of Agriculture, which gets most of the food safety dollars, regulates only about 20 percent of the food supply, notably meat, poultry and eggs.
The FDA, which regulates 80 percent of the food supply, gets only about 24 percent of available funds.
Still, said Lisa Shames, director of GAO's food safety and agriculture issues section, the FDA has resisted suggestions of ways it could better manage the money it has.
"We have found areas of overlap, where the FDA and USDA are at the same facility," Shames said. "They could work better with USDA, let USDA share some of the training and some of the inspection responsibility. ... But the FDA really hasn't followed through."
Tucker Foreman concurred.
"If you put the food part of the FDA together with the food part of USDA, you'd finally have the structure to begin dealing with these issues," she said.
allan.turner@chron.com
Whole Foods Market Inc. has recalled fresh Roma and large field-grown round tomatoes at all of its stores after the Texas Department of State Health Services warned of a salmonella outbreak linked to eating uncooked tomatoes.
Whole Foods has a store in Pittsburgh's East Liberty section.
Texas Department of State Health Services officials found 21 confirmed cases of salmonella in Texas since mid-April. State health officials believe the consumption of raw tomatoes is the likely source of the bacterial infection. No deaths have been reported.
Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) has voluntarily pulled tomatoes without attached vines or stems from the shelves of its more than 270 stores.
"Additionally, the company's prepared foods departments at all stores are pulling these varieties from salads, sandwiches and other locations in the stores where tomatoes are used fresh," said Whole Foods spokeswoman Kate Lowery. "We have placed signage in the produce and prepared foods departments alerting shoppers of the salmonella issue. Since officials do not yet know the source, it is impossible to know what growers are affected at this time so we are taking extra precaution until we know more."
Customers who bought tomatoes are urged to cook the produce at 145 degrees to kill any possible salmonella, thoroughly wash all tomatoes under running water, separate tomatoes from raw meat and seafood, wash cutting boards and countertops with hot soap and water when switching between types of foods and remember to wash hands thoroughly before preparing or serving food.
Salmonella symptoms include headache, stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea and sometimes vomiting.
By Roman Gokhman
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 06/06/2008 09:33:01 PM PDT
WALNUT CREEK — A Contra Costa County woman has been identified as having the same type of salmonella connected to an outbreak in several other states.
The California Department of Public Health confirmed Friday that the woman had salmonella saintpaul, an uncommon strain that has been linked to raw tomatoes. The woman, who is older than 35, was not hospitalized and has recovered, Contra Costa Health Services spokeswoman Kate Fowlie said.
It is the first reported case involving a California resident. The strain is the same type of salmonella that has sickened 57 people in New Mexico, Texas and several other states, and 17 of those cases have included hospitalizations, officials said. Salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, especially in the very young and elderly.
The state Department of Public Health said Friday that it is also working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other agencies to determine if an Oregon man confirmed to have salmonella saintpaul ate a tomato in Southern California or elsewhere. "We're not sure where either person consumed (a) tomato," said California Public Health Department spokeswoman Janet Huston.
Fowlie said officials are still investigating where the woman may have contracted the illness because she had recently traveled to a state where several other cases have occurred. Huston said there is no indication that tomatoes
Advertisement
grown in California caused the infections.
But at least one East Bay restaurant was taking precautions. In Lafayette, a Jack In The Box franchise displayed a sign announcing that it was switching to canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones during the salmonella outbreak at the request of CDC. The FDA is recommending people limit tomato consumption to cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine still attached and homegrown varieties.
For more information, go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site at www.cdc.gov/salmonella/saintpaul.
Staff writer Matthias Gafni contributed to this story. Reach Roman Gokhman at 925-945-4780 or rgokhman@bayareanewsgroup.com.
SANTA FE (AP) - New Mexico restaurants, hospitals, schools and grocery stores are being asked to stop selling and serving certain raw tomatoes and products made with the raw produce due to a recent wave of salmonella cases.
rising food prices
New Mexico officials are asking restaurants and others to stop serving tomatoes in response to salmonella fears.
(AP Photo)
The department points specifically to raw red plum, Roma and round red tomatoes as well as fresh salsa made with tomatoes.
"The department's food program bureau is contacting distributors of tomatoes to ensure they notify food establishments to stop serving tomatoes suspected in making people sick," Environment Secretary Ron Curry said Thursday in a statement.
State and federal health officials are investigating the specific type and source of tomatoes causing the outbreak. However, the Environment Department said preliminary data suggests raw red plum, Roma and round tomatoes are the cause.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that people eat tomatoes that have not been implicated in the outbreak. Those include cherry and grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine still attached and homegrown tomatoes.
Four dozen New Mexicans have become ill with a strain of salmonella linked to tomatoes. Cases have been reported in nearly a third of the state's 33 counties. Several people were hospitalized but no deaths have been reported.
Symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after being infected. The illness usually lasts four to seven days, and most people recover without treatment, the state Health Department said.
However, the elderly, the very young and people with impaired immune systems are more likely to become severely ill, which may require hospitalization due to diarrhea.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment