Needed Improvement and Accountability
U.S. Food Safety No Longer Improving By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: April 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/health/policy/10food.html?hpw
This article should be carefully read it has some interesting comments.
1. The safety of the nation’s food supply has not improved over the past three years.
2. Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the C.D.C.’s division of food borne diseases, suggested that whatever progress the department had made in improving overall food safety might have been lost by the F.D.A.
3. For a case to be included in FoodNet, someone must become sick enough to see a doctor, the doctor must be concerned or well trained enough to ask for and get a stool sample, and the laboratory to which the doctor sends the sample must be part of the government’s system.
4. Dr. Tim Jones, the state epidemiologist in Tennessee, said many of the easy improvements in the nation’s food-safety system had already been made. “You can only tell people so much to wash their cutting boards and wash their hands,” Dr. Jones said. “I think we’re running out of things to do to make dramatic improvements.”
So the buck passing continues, it is almost impossible for many citizens obtaining a food borne sickness of getting any attention unless it passes the FoodNet obstacle course.
What we have been stating, for some time now, holds true. A manufacturers request, like the ATL request, to have potentially Salmonella contaminated food recalled may very well have had an effect on the stagnation being shown by this report. Our repeated alarm was of little concern to our food safety system, it was of no value to the CDC, FDA, USDA or the State of Florida, all who were contacted and made well aware of this meat contamination and our request for a recall.
All authoritative voices, spokesmen and articles which state that these agencies don’t have the authority to initiate a recall , that it can only be initiated by the distributor or manufacturer, are not stating the facts when considering our out cry and outreach to these agencies and reporters. Let all facts speak for themselves.
Published: April 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/health/policy/10food.html?hpw
This article should be carefully read it has some interesting comments.
1. The safety of the nation’s food supply has not improved over the past three years.
2. Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the C.D.C.’s division of food borne diseases, suggested that whatever progress the department had made in improving overall food safety might have been lost by the F.D.A.
3. For a case to be included in FoodNet, someone must become sick enough to see a doctor, the doctor must be concerned or well trained enough to ask for and get a stool sample, and the laboratory to which the doctor sends the sample must be part of the government’s system.
4. Dr. Tim Jones, the state epidemiologist in Tennessee, said many of the easy improvements in the nation’s food-safety system had already been made. “You can only tell people so much to wash their cutting boards and wash their hands,” Dr. Jones said. “I think we’re running out of things to do to make dramatic improvements.”
So the buck passing continues, it is almost impossible for many citizens obtaining a food borne sickness of getting any attention unless it passes the FoodNet obstacle course.
What we have been stating, for some time now, holds true. A manufacturers request, like the ATL request, to have potentially Salmonella contaminated food recalled may very well have had an effect on the stagnation being shown by this report. Our repeated alarm was of little concern to our food safety system, it was of no value to the CDC, FDA, USDA or the State of Florida, all who were contacted and made well aware of this meat contamination and our request for a recall.
All authoritative voices, spokesmen and articles which state that these agencies don’t have the authority to initiate a recall , that it can only be initiated by the distributor or manufacturer, are not stating the facts when considering our out cry and outreach to these agencies and reporters. Let all facts speak for themselves.
posted by BULLSTONE @ 4:00 PM
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