CDC Believes That Risks Associated with Leafy Greens Have Been on the Rise
Following the high-profile leafy greens E. coli outbreaks in 2006, CDC started studying the trends. It concluded that “during 1996 2005 leafy green consumption increased 9% and leafy green-associated outbreaks increased 39%,” according to a recent article on ScienceDaily. Therefore even taking into account the increase in leafy greens consumption, associated food-borne outbreaks are on the rise. This is consistent with general trends, as indicated in my recent magazine article in Cooperative Grocers.
Although there is no way to eliminate risk, grocers, restaurants, and produce suppliers should conduct ongoing reviews of their food safety, audit, supplier, and insurance programs to ensure that everything that can be done is being done to mitigate or shift risk.
Importance of Experts At Outset of Outbreak
A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation at a CLE seminar about how to use and challenge expert witnesses in a food case. One of the interesting discussions that occurred during my talk was about the importance of retention of experts at an early stage, even before health department officials finalize their findings.
Given the limited resources of most state and local health departments, I have always believed there is little to lose by offering the assistance of credible and known epidemiologists, microbiologists, etc. Additional resources in an outbreak investigation (and, therefore, additional investigation) can mean the difference between the health department pointing at your client and the health department pointing at another source. Several other defense lawyers, and, surprisingly, state health department officials, agreed. Examples of successful early intervention were elicited.
FSIS to Start Posting Plant Testing Data
I wrote earlier about Dr. David Goldman's talk at the ACI Food-Borne Illness Litigation conference and his comments regarding supermarkets. Another significant issue concerns posting by FSIS of microbiological testing results from meat and poultry plants on its Web site.
Continue Reading...Mitigating Supermarket Liability
Last week I had the privilege of attending and speaking at the American Conference Institute’s foodborne illness conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. One of the other speakers was David Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Administrator of the Office of Public Health Science, Food Safety and Inspection Service (“FSIS”), United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”). Dr. Goldman provided some interesting information about foodborne contamination from supermarkets.
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