Food Safety

Recently, a number of incidences have been reported about in the news regarding bacterial outbreaks due to a variety of contaminated foods. At the end of last year, an E. coli bacterial outbreak affected a number of Taco Bell consumers. Similarly, an E. coli outbreak due to spinach affected more than two hundred people. Last week, the cause of a recent thread of Salmonella infections that have affected more than 300 people nationwide since August was attributed to Peter Pan Peanut Butter manufactured by a ConAgra factory in Sylvester, Georgia. Although the cause of contamination from Salmonella (which originally is found in the feces of birds and other animals) remains unknown, it is suspected that it might be due to unsanitary equipment or jars. The factory has been shut down for nearly a week now, and ConAgra has issued a recall on all Peter Pan peanut butter jars manufactured at this location since May 2006. Consumers have been advised to dispose of jars that have a product code on the lid that begins with 2111 (denoting the Sylvester factory). Even more recently, BJ’s wholesale club noted that it would be recalling a certain brand of fresh mushrooms sold within the last week because of the presence of E. coli found during routine testing. Although no reported sicknesses have arisen from this recent occurrence, it is apparent that food safety and its regulation have become growing concerns.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/16/peanut.butter.salmonella.ap/index.html

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/20/news/companies/bjs_recall/index.htm


Because of the recent number of bacterial outbreaks, certain pieces of legislation have received a great deal of attention in both Congress and the media. One such proposal, the Safe Food Act, has suggested the implementation of a new agency known as the Food Safety Administration to oversee food regulation in the United States. Currently, a group of twelve different agencies are responsible for food safety monitoring including the USDA and the FDA. Proponents of the implementation of the Food Safety Administration claim that this new agency will solve for the lack in standardization of food inspections. Another advantage is the centralization of resources so that a reaction to an outbreak can occur more quickly. Additionally, one major benefit of this new act would be to give recall authority on any potentially contaminated foods to a federal agency. None of the current existing agencies have this mandatory recall authority, which means that they can only suggest for companies to recall specific foods.