Help May Be on the Way In Stopping Food Contamination Scares

The outbreak of salmonella carried in contaminated peanut butter blamed for at least eight deaths and more than 500 illnesses across the United States is just the latest in a string of massive food contamination scares.

 

The crisis comes on the heels of similar outbreaks involving tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and other foods, which have blamed for killing and sickening thousands more in recent years.

But help may be on the way.

Legislation now pending in Washington, D.C. and designed to streamline the system for detecting and responding to outbreaks of food-borne bacteria could be approved in 2009. President Obama is expected to support the new approaches to handling food-contamination outbreaks, since he campaigned in part on the need for improving the nation’s current food-safety system and the functioning of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Tougher Rules for Food Manufacturers

Most of the new laws, if approved, would require food manufacturers to describe their safety and testing routines in greater details. Additional testing of the cleanliness of food-making facilities and increased inspections of food plants in China and other countries would also be among the new, tougher rules.

The laws would also seek to close up loop holes in the nation’s current food safety program for detecting outbreaks of salmonella and other food-borne bacteria. The current patchwork system of federal, state, and county regulations can create confusion and ineffective responses to fast-moving outbreaks, critics say.

Some lawmakers have called for creating a separate, independent agency, apart from the FDA, singularly focused on food safety. The FDA is charged with regulating everything from food safety to new prescription drugs and medical devices, such as hip replacements and heart stents. Focusing one federal agency singularly on food safety would streamline the food-safety review system and free up the FDA to focus its efforts more directly on approving new drugs and medical devices, which have also been a source of scandal lately, supporters say.

Peanuts are the Poster Children for the Need for Change

While outbreaks of contaminated food sadly are nothing new, the current outbreak of salmonella is for many a perfect symbol of why changing the current food-safety system is needed.

Under the current system, cases of food poisoning are reported to local health departments, who are then charged with passing the information on to a number of federal agencies. Other states may be experiencing similar cases of food poisoning, but that information is not necessarily shared. Federal officials may therefore be slow to connect all the dots and recognize that a larger outbreak, rather than isolated incidents, is occurring.

In the meantime, as days and weeks pass, the contamination can spread unchecked, causing more injuries and consumer deaths. In the case of the peanut salmonella outbreak, it took several months before FDA investigators identified a peanut-processing plant in Blakely, Georgia as the source of the salmonella.

That plant supplied peanut butter, peanut paste, and peanut oil to some of the nation’s biggest food manufacturers, who in turn used the products in their own cookies, ice cream, dog biscuits, and hundreds of other consumer products.

Later examination of records kept at the Peanut Corporation of America facility showed that on 12 occasions from 2007 to 2008, tests of peanut products made at the plant were contaminated by salmonella. Those positive test results should have led plant officials to quarantine their product and clean their facility, but in each case, the contaminated food was eventually shipped to consumers.

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