Jim Prevor's Traceability Answers
We recently asked for comments on Jim Prevor's story about traceability. While there was a loud silence in our comments in box (still happy to take them), today we got a long response from Jim himself in his latest Perishable Pundit. I commend it to you. And feel free to comment to Jim directly or, of course, right here.
A Traceability Story: Request for Comments
Jim Prevor has an intriguing story in one of his latest Perishable Pundits, updated here and here, that frankly has me wondering. According to Jim, Freshway Foods discovered E.Coil 0145 in some romaine and, using tracking numbers, was able to trace it to a specific lot supplied by a grower in Yuma, Arizona. It then issued a recall limited to that specific lot.
But the FDA decided to be more cautious and to advise Freshways to recall all the romaine from Yuma, not just the identified lot. And the buyers of the product decided to pull anything they had on their shelves from Freshways, whether it was from Arizona, and whether, apparently, it was romaine or not.
This raises a number of questions and I am not going to purport to answer them. Rather, I'd really like to solicit comments from our very knowledgeable and resourceful readership. This is the age of Web 2.0 and beyond. We'd love to hear from you.
- Is the implication of Jim's article right, that spending money on good tracing systems may be futile because consumers and regulators will never trust the system?
- What kind of public education might work to improve the acceptance of traceability?
- As a legal matter, it's unlikely that the buyer of the non-recalled products has any recourse against the seller; in the real world, however, is the seller likely to make good in order to assure future sales?
- Ken recently wrote about a similar insurance issue; is there any kind of insurance for something taken off the shelves because of an abundance of caution when the supplier says only to recall specific items?
- In his updates, Jim suggests that the real issue is that perhaps we are providing more traceability than the market demands and others suggest that the issue is that upon discovery of an outbreak, the FDA doesn't either adequately communicate the perceived cause of the outbreak or ever issue an "all clear" after it is over. Is either step either (a) practical when things are moving in real time, or (b) really the FDA's responsiblity or even power under current laws and regulations?
In case you should come across some romaine tainted with E Coli 0145, the answer is to heat it, not wash it. Salon.com has a recipe.
The Great HVP Recall of 2010: A Review of Lessons Already Taught
As Ken noted last week, there has been a widespread recall of products containing hydrolized vegetable protein (HVP), a flavor enhancer, after salmonella Tennessee was discovered in product manufactured by Basic Food Flavors of North Las Vegas, Nevada. Consumers, who may have been unaware of the existence of HVP, are starting to learn how pervasive an ingredient it is in packaged and processed foods. The FDA has a handy list of products so far affected by the recall. There's a widget, too.
So far, no one has been reported to have been made sick or died as a result of this outbreak.
The FDA warns consumers "Remember to follow cooking instructions on all foods", except that many of the foods that contain HVP are not ones consumers cook. Included are salad dressings, ready to eat meal products, sauce and marinade mixes and snacks. I don't think there's a way for a consumer to cook a pretzel.
This outbreak is a good excuse to reiterate some of our advice from prior outbreaks, like the 2008 tomato outbreak and the 2009 peanut and pistachio outbreaks.
- Have a crisis management plan in place.
- Know what you will do when the investigators knock.
- Double check the language in your insurance policy to ensure that it covers the particular facts of a recall. In 2008, Ken blogged about this issue after the tomato outbreak and in 2009 after the peanut recall.
- If you know your products are not affected by the outbreak, publicize this appropriately and ask your trade organization to help with that as well.
- If your products are involved, consider getting criminal law advice as well as advice about civil law responsibilities.
- Reconsider how you choose your suppliers, and what you do to qualify them.
- Publicize whatever is happening on your web page; consumers who hear about your product being recalled may check your web page and don't want to see a sales pitch for the very product subject to recall.
- Review your supply contracts to ensure that you have recourse against someone selling you tainted product, but remember that such entities are unlikely to have adequate resources to make you whole; that is what insurance is for, and also what prevention is for.
- Consider how to publicize the situation to consumers who use different languages.
As Professor Moody would say, "Constant vigilance."
Where to Eat in Dodgy Places: Advice from a Real World Traveller
Joel Putnam is a world traveller in his early 20's. He recently reached Africa, his seventh continent in his travels around the world. As is typical of his generation (he is, in the interests of full disclosure, a friend of my son), he is blogging about it. His blog is very well-written, and the captions on his photographs are always witty and often downright hilarious.
Joel has apparently been reflecting more broadly on his experiences, and he penned an entry entitled "Travel Tip: Street Food Primer" that includes some excellent advice on how to select a place to eat anywhere in the world.
Here are some excerpts:
- Lesson number one: In the developing world, street food is often safer than restaurant food. Yes, you read that correctly. Street food. The food that has made me the most sick while traveling has almost all come from restaurants. The reason why, is that with street food, you see it get cooked right in front of you, and you see who is cooking it. In restaurants, you see neither.
This is an important insight, although as readers of this blog know, you can get sick at the most sanitary of street stalls, or in the best restaurant on earth.
- Lesson number two: usually, if the tap water isn't safe, neither is the ice. This is seems obvious when written, but it's one a lot of of people forget in practice. There are a few countries, mostly in Asia, where ice is actually factory made from safe water. But please take the extra step and check that that's the kind of ice floating in your drink.
- Lesson number three: what's safe for the locals isn't necessarily safe for you, yet. . . . We all have little local beneficial bacteria running around our digestive tracts that helps us handle the local food. This differs from place to place. So take it easy for the first few days in a new place to develop your own. Legend has it local yogurt helps with this (though beware, yogurt that hasn't been refrigerated properly or that has expired is a fast way to making you sick). After you've been eating tame food (like vegetarian dishes) in a place for a bit, then try moving on to the more interesting stuff.
- Lesson number four (this one is important): if the place is crowded, the food is probably good, and it's almost definitely being cooked fresh. This is an excellent way to pick street food vendors and restaurants. We'll call it the sheep method. The reason is that deserted restaurants and vendors are much more likely to leave things like meat lying around in temperatures that let nasty things start growing in it. Then when you order it, it'll get quickly reheated and served. Popular vendors, on the other hand, are having to constantly cook fresh batches to meet demand. And if it's in that much demand from the locals, it's probably because the food is especially good.
From the introduction to his blog entry, I might add a lesson number five: avoid hubris. He recounts the tale where he bragged to some fellow travellers that he had eaten so many different things in China that he should have no trouble in Mongolia. The natural result of that was that he had 12 hours of indigestion from his first Mongolian street food. But fortune follows the brave, since one of those fellow travellers from Wales was a doctor.
Joel's common sense advice can be used anywhere. We all have internal sensors that tell us when it's good to eat or drink something--our eyes, our noses, our taste buds, our ears. This is good supplementary information for how to deploy them in unfamiliar places.
I commend Joel's blog to you and not just for the travel insights. If you care to do so, vote for his blog as Travel Blog of the Year in the Blogger's Choice Awards. I also thank him for the delicious photograph accompanying this entry. I think we may safely assume he didn't get sick from that meal.
FDA's Searchable Widget for Fraudulent H1N1 (Swine) Flu Products
Ken has previously blogged about liability issues relating to H1N1 flu, also known as swine flu. Today, the FDA has issued a widget to allow employers, consumers and others to browse and search fraudulent H1N1 influenza products and report suspected fraud. The widget can be copied onto any other Web site or blog. The FDA had previously issued a similar widget for the peanut butter recall. Additional information can be obtained from the FDA's swine flu page or flu.gov.
This is the widget:
Jim Prevor Deconstructs CSPI's List of "Ten Riskiest Foods"
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has released its list of "Ten Riskiest Foods Regulated by the FDA." The list has gotten a lot of publicity, particularly because some unexpected foods like potatoes made the list.
Our friend Jim Prevor, the Perishable Pundit, has written a Special Edition of his newsletter that pretty much says everything about the list that we would say, so I'm just linking to his article. The only thing I'd add is that Stoel Rives were co-sponsors of the conference he mentions in the article, along with Bill Marler. Otherwise, thanks for doing the good work, Jim.
UPDATE: Being the total gentleman that he is, within hours of Friday's post Jim emailed me that he would add a credit to Stoel Rives on his entry. And of course he did.
Tool For Food Companies and Litigators - New Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response
Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (“CIFOR”) has published new guidelines designed to help local, state and federal agencies to improve their response to outbreaks. I became aware of this (again) through Ricardo Carvajal, who was a reviewer for the guidelines, and his firm’s FDA Law Blog. I agree with Ricardo that while the guidelines are designed for public agencies they have value for food businesses.
According to CIFOR, “[t]he guidelines are intended to give all agencies a common foundation from which to work and to provide examples of the key activities that should occur during the response to outbreaks of foodborne disease.”
Anticipating how the public health agency will behave will not only assist in crisis management, but it may also prevent the crisis. As discussed previously in this blog, one of the benefits of good crisis management is the ability to reach out and offer assistance to the investigating public health agencies. Keeping current on protocols that we can expect agencies to follow is a good practice.
The guidelines are also of some value to litigators. In the face of an outbreak investigation, they provide tools to assess the merits of the agency investigation. While it is always difficult to challenge a public health agency’s findings (no matter how flawed), the guidelines may help.
Video From Governor's Conference on Ensuring Food Safety
University of Nebraska has posted video on its website from the entire three days of the 2009 Governor’s Conference on Ensuring Food Safety. You can view my presentation on Defending Liability in Foodborne Illness Outbreaks. More important, you view the presentations of Dr. Andrew Benson and the other scientists who offer fascinating insights into the latest developments driving the science of food safety.
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Tort Damages Not the Only Exposure from Food-Borne Illness Outbreaks
For lawyers and insurance adjustors, compartmentalizing food-borne illness claims is easy. They often see their jobs solely as minimizing the tort liability and legal fees. In my experience, attorneys and adjustors often fail to appreciate how outbreaks can affect a client’s (or even a whole industry’s) business going forward. Often, the long-term business losses of a food-borne illness outbreak, recall, or government alert are not insured.
There is no better example of how a nationally reported food-borne illness outbreak can affect an entire industry (or even an entire category of food products) than the 2006 E. coli spinach outbreak. Two new studies published by the Agriculture & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) in its Choices magazine analyze consumer information and studies in the wake of the spinach outbreak.
Among the highlights from the first study, “Public Response to Large-Scale Produce Contamination” by Carra Cuite and William K. Hallman, were findings that Americans were more aware of advisories beginning than ending. For example, 87% of spinach consumers knew about the outbreak, but more than six weeks after the FDA had lifted its spinach warnings “almost half (45%) of people who were aware of the spinach recall were not confident that the recall had ended.”
A second study entitled “E. coli Outbreaks Affect Demand for Salad Vegetables” was authored by Faysal Fahs, Ron C. Mittelhammer, and Jill J. McCluskey. It examines the cumulative effects that sequential outbreaks can have on consumer demand and concludes that “the empirical results suggest that the subsequent outbreaks had a greater impact on the consumption of salad vegetables than the first.”
For food companies the lesson is this:
A lawyer’s role in responding to a food product crisis is important. But the roles of others, such as public relations experts, may be as important or more important in preserving the business. Make sure your lawyer (and your insurer) understands that the world may not revolve around simply resolving the tort claims as economically as possible.
The Fuller Monty and Lady Godiva: More on the Plainview Problem
As I predicted last week, more and more companies are discovering that they had incorporated products from Plainview Milk Products Cooperative into what they sold. The full FDA database, which is constantly being updated, is here.
While there have now been recalls of products as widely different as frosting and diet mixes, I was most struck by Godiva's recall. As others have noted, as of the time of this post this doesn't appear anywhere in the Godiva website, either.
Godiva's recall related to a special collection that was available only for Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. The "consume by" date for the Valentine's Day candy has passed and the "consume by" date for the Mother's Day collection has nearly passed. Exactly one candy in the box, a praline crunch, included product from Plainview. No one has complained of any symptoms from eating this candy. So, if you, your mom, your grandma, your spouse or your sweetheart (a) got this box for Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, (b) haven't finished it yet, even though it has a short "consume by" window that has more likely passed; and (c) didn't eat that praline crunch, then you are supposed to discard the product and call 1-800-9GODIVA for a refund.
The Godiva recall is being taken as a superabundance of caution, given the unlikelihood anyone meets all those criteria. However, it does indicate that not all Plainview products were shelf-stable. This may go on for awhile.
Monty Python and the Food Recalls
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One of Monty Python's most imitated sketches was "The Four Yorkshiremen." Even if you've never seen it, it will be instantly recognizable to you. It's the one where four men sit around talking about how tough they had it as kids, compared to how kids have it today. One starts by complaining about how small his house was, and another exclaims, "You had a house?" Eventually, the last one claims to have been roused from bed half an hour before he went to bed, worked 27 hours a day and paid for the privilege and then was murdered every night when he got home.
I was thinking about this sketch as I was contemplating how different from the last food recall about which I blogged, involving tuna in New England, was from the painfully slow recalls involving the salmonella finding that has led Plainview Milk Products Cooperative to recall the last two years of its products. As you might recall, the last recall involved fresh tuna steaks sold to three New England supermarket chains over four days before the problems were identified. By this time, most of the food subject to the recall had probably been consumed and the recall required only publicity in a limited area for those who might have frozen the steaks rather than eaten them fresh. Without denying the difficulties that North Coast Sea-Foods might have encountered in that recall, or the suffering of anyone who got scombroid poisoning, as a recall goes, they, in the words of Monty Python, had it easy.
The Plainview Milk Products Cooperative and everyone who bought from them, on the other hand, have it anything but easy, and the fact that almost every day new products are added to the recalled list demonstrates this.
Continue Reading...Another Recall From a Company That Does the Right Thing
The FDA announced a recall of fresh tuna steaks distributed to Shaw's, Star Market and Big Y grocery stores by North Coast Sea-Foods Corp. of Boston and New Bedford. The alleged problem was increased levels of histamine that might cause scombroid poisoning. The tuna was removed from sale on June 24, but consumers who might have frozen the steaks were told to return them to the stores for a full refund. We again assume that North Coast (and its insurers) will be funding the refunds.
What made me write about this recall was a rather silly poll in DailyKos. The question was whether the increase in recalls was due to the food supply becoming less safe or that the FDA was getting better. Like many online polls, this so oversimplified the situation that I thought I should write about it, and the North Coast tuna recall seemed as good a vehicle as any.
The three reported cases of scombroid poisoning associated with this tuna would presumably have been reported to local public health officials in New England, not the FDA. Or they might have been reported to the markets, which in turn would have easily been able to identify the source of the tuna and reported to North Coast (scombroid poisoning occurs almost immediately, so there isn't the usual problem of figuring out what food might have caused a delayed reaction). Both the markets and North Coast will have significant food safety programs. Some of this will be the result of government action, and some of it the result of simply caring about their customers. There is no indication that this outbreak was the result of anyone's inattention or failure.
It took me awhile to identify that I had the right North Coast Sea-Foods Corp., because their name is spelled differently in the release. In doing my research, I discovered some nice things about them, such as that they had argued strenuously against a Department of Defense initiative to buy cheaper, and potentially more hazardous fish for our troops, on the grounds of food safety. Another thing I learned was that they had installed solar power at their Boston facility, and considered wind power at their New Bedford facility. We at Stoel are not just committed to renewable energy, we literally wrote the book on it. So, similar to the Fat Duck and Nestle, even those committed to doing the right thing can sometimes be the subject of a food recall.
Why Are Food-borne Organisms Associated with Beef?
USDA’s Be Food Safe Twitter Feed circulated its Fact Sheet titled “Beef . . . from Farm to Table.” First published a few years ago, this might be of interest to businesses involved in the sale, marketing, labeling, and/or packaging of beef. The article is a helpful primer on the history of beef, current industry practices, USDA’s role in inspection, consumer trends, cooking times, storage times, and food-borne illnesses associated with beef.
Tracking the Food Safety Working Group - More or Less Legal Exposure For Food Sellers?
This week the Obama administration announced the launch of a new website for the recently formed food safety working group. Obama announced the formation of this group in March in the wake of the high-profile food safety issues surrounding PCA peanut products.
This website will assist in tracking the efforts of the working group. As discussed previously on this blog, this group is expected to make recommendations aimed at detection, awareness and government reorganization. Possible examples include increasing funding to states to monitor food-borne illness, combining FDA and USDA food safety efforts, reexamining mandatory recall authority, increasing retail enforcement and implementing more aggressive consumer warnings.
What is not clear is whether the working group will look beyond just detection, awareness and reorganization to bolder initiatives that may result in less consumer illness and less legal exposure for food sellers. Bolder initiatives could include funding for irradiation, consumer food safety education, and fast-track development and implementation of technology that can sample food products for whole colonies of microorganisms.
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How Not to Feed Airport Guards
An Interesting news item out of Kathmandu: 40 airport guards were taken sick with what appears to be dysentery all at the same time. The cause appears to be eating the same tainted food in the same employee cafeteria. According to the Malaysian national news agency:
All the police personnel used to share a cafeteria. Probably, they had eaten pumpkin curry and pickle of radish and potato unfit for human consumption which caused them food poisoning,
35 of the guards had been released from the hospital, and the airport, the only international airport in Nepal, employs 323 guards, but the question remains: can you allow all the guards on a single shift to eat the same food at the same time without knowing that it is absolutely, positively, safe? Otherwise, you're taking the risk that the bad pickle of radish can lead to more dire consequences.
We've all, I presume, seen Airplane! You'll be hoping that someone picked the right day to give up pumpkin curry.
Secretary of Agriculture Emphasizes Safety of U.S. Pork
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack issued a statement today emphasizing that U.S. pork products are safe and that there is no evidence that U.S. swine have been infected with the swine flu virus.
Calling trade restrictions on pork or pork products unnecessary, Vilsack said any such restrictions would be inconsistent with World Organization for Animal Health guidelines. “[I]t is not necessary to introduce specific measures for international trade in swine or their products, nor are consumers of pork products at risk of infection,” Vilsack said. The complete statement is available here.
A report in The New York Times notes that pork producers are questioning whether it is appropriate to call the virus “swine flu” given that there is no evidence of swine infection. The report states that officials in Thailand, one of the world’s largest meat exporters, have started calling the virus “Mexican flu.” An Israeli deputy health minister reportedly said Israel would follow suit to keep Jews from having to say the word “swine.”
FDA and CDC Warn of Salmonella in Raw Sprouts
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are recommending against eating raw alfalfa sprouts because of potential salmonella contamination.
According to the FDA, the salmonella contamination appears to be in seeds for alfalfa sprouts. As of yesterday, 31 cases of illness with Salmonella Saintpaul have been reported to the CDC. The reported cases are in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia. The FDA cautions that the number of infected people may rise because some illnesses have not yet been confirmed with laboratory testing.
The FDA believes this outbreak may be linked to an outbreak from earlier this year. Its initial investigation traces the contaminated raw alfalfa sprouts to multiple sprout growers in multiple states. Additional details are available here.
Update on the Rojak Case
The rojak-related outbreak in Singapore happened only on April 3, but the Singapore health officials have already issued their official report.
The report links the illnesses to Vibrio parahaemolyticus, which in turn got into the rojak by having raw cuttlefish on an upper shelf of a refrigerator, which dripped into the gravy on the lower shelf of the refrigerator. Needless to say, this is a poor food handling practice. The stall remains closed and prosecution is likely.
The question that has not been answered is why the deaths occurred. According to the FDA, cases linked to vibrio are usually "mild or moderate" and only in rare cases even require hospitalization. Here, there were not only significant numbers of hospitalizations, but two deaths and an apparent miscarriage. The Singapore officials await the coroner's report on the deaths to find out why Ordinarily, vibrio causes death (about 7 a year in the US) only when there are other medical conditions present.
Food-Borne Illness: Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full?
The Centers for Disease Control has issued a study of the incidence of food-borne illness in ten states. The study, by the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, known as "FoodNet", in general concludes that food-borne illness has not significantly either increased or decreased in the United States since 2004, after substantial gains in food safety from 1996 to 2004.
The Associated Press article on this, by Mike Stobbe, is entitled, "CDC: US food poisoning cases held steady in 2008." This is an appropriately neutral headline. What is interesting is how different media outlets have dealt with the story
Reuters, in an article by Julie Steenhuysen, uses the headline, "U.S. making little progress on food safety." She emphasizes in the lede the use in the study of the word "plateaued." Lyndsey Layton's Washington Post article is headed, "CDC Study Finds Some Food-Borne Illnesses Rising in U.S." The article's lede actually says that the rate has "remained stagnant", and nowhere in the article is any mention made of any specific diseases whose rates have risen (the article instead clumps together some where rates have either risen or remained constant, without distinguishing which are which). The UPI headline is "Little Progress in U.S. food safety", similar to the New York Times's "U.S. Food Safety No Longer Improving, Data Show".
On the rosier side, the Wall Street Journal's Jacob Goldstein blogged with the headline, "Reality Check on Foodborne Illness Rate." Goldstein takes the position that the lack of an increase given the wide publicity to certain outbreaks is an indication that things are doing well. It is not clear, however, whether Goldstein understood, as the Washington Post article reported,
The data did not include the ongoing national outbreak of salmonella illness linked to peanut products that began in late 2008 but peaked in the early months of 2009, with nearly 700 people sickened and nine killed.
So what does the report actually say?
Continue Reading...
The High Cost of Loving Rojak
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Rojak is an important Singaporean dish. To the Indonesian rudjek, basically a salad, is added (for the Indian version most popular in Singapore) yu tiao, sort of a doughnut; ju her, a cuttlefish salad; taupok, which are tofu puffs; or pei tan, which are preserved duck eggs. What is usually not added is something--still unidentified--that has sickened over a hundred Singaporeans, may have caused a spontaneous miscarriage by a 38-year old pregnant woman and killed at least two people. Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened at Sheik Allaudin Mohideen's stall at the Geyland Serai temporary market in Singapore.
When we think of Singapore, we think of clean. We also think of an amazing health care system, which costs one-third the per capita cost of U.S. healthcare.
So when food poisoning occurs in Singapore, you get a Singaporean response. Emergency rooms in three Singapore hospitals began filling overnight Friday with people vomiting who had all eaten food from the stall. Mr. Allaudin, whose stand has been in business for over 20 years, arrived at his stand at 8am Saturday morning to find health officials who shut the stand down. The remaining stands were inspected and found clean and allowed to open.
One possible cause: Vibrio parahaemolyticus. Its presence has been confirmed in two cases, but it has not been positively identified as the cause of the illnesses and deaths.
There is one lesson to be learned already, and it comes, unfortunately, from the sad story of the woman who miscarried, who was excited to be carrying a child by her new, second husband. She had had a yearning for rojak, and her husband had brought her some on Friday from her favorite stand. According to a report in Channel NewsAsia, "She noticed the Rojak smelled unusual [but] carried on eating it."
I suspect she won't do that again. And I imagine she wishes she had followed the basic advice not to eat food that smells off.
(The image is provided by the Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/)
A Bad Week for Grapefruit
The Lancet reported last week that a "constellation of potential risk factors" had almost cost a woman in Olympia, Washington her leg. Dr. Lucinda Grande reported that the woman had started a "grapefruit diet", while taking birth control pills and having a previously undiagnosed genetic condition, while remaining immobile in her car for an extended period. The result of this "perfect storm" of bad facts was a blood clot that eventually turned her left leg purple. Not just an ordinary blood clot, according to the BBC:
When doctors examined her, an ultrasound scan confirmed the woman had a large blood clot within the veins of her left leg, which stretched from her hip down to her calf and she was deemed to be at risk of losing her leg because of gangrene.
The culprit, according to the Lancet article, is apparently the grapefruit. The woman had not previously eaten much grapefruit, but had eaten about a half pound a day for three days. Whatever the weight-loss advantages of the grapefruit diet, one of the effects of eating a lot of grapefruit is that is changes the effects of certain drugs. In this case, it may have stopped a key enzyme from breaking down the estrogen from her birth control pills. Combined with her genetic predisposition, the clot may have resulted.
It has been reported previously that grapefruit or grapefruit juice has an effect on other drugs. It apparently enhances the effects of some, like certain antihistamines, and diminshes the effects of others, like Viagra. The Mayo Clinic has a specific list: Other studies have indicated no effect despite indications from others, such as with caffeine. The evidence in many cases is inconsequential and subject to interpretation.
I happen to love grapefruit and have drunk grapefruit juice for breakfast for years. I don't drink caffeine with breakfast, but I do take over-the-counter antihistamines. My doctor has told me not to worry about any side effects. She did warn that if I took statins, we might have to rethink this. Grapefruit is a good source of Vitamin C.
Grapefruit growers should not have to worry about liability from the natural effects of grapefruit or the interactions between it and drugs. This is quite similar to the naturally occurring mercury in tuna; courts are not eager to find liability for someone growing or selling an unadulterated, legal product in a safe manner.
In other news, a horse named The Pamplemousse was scratched from the Santa Anita Derby over the weekend. He won't be competing in the Kentucky Derby, either. What does "Pamplemousse" mean in French? Grapefruit.
California Lawmakers Announce Proposed Food-Safety Reforms in Wake of Pistachio Recalls
As pistachio recalls continue to be announced in the wake of salmonella-tainted pistachios from Setton Farms, two California lawmakers this week announced legislation that is expected to strengthen food-safety standards in that state.
The bill to be introduced in the California State Assembly by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Assemblyman Mike Feuer is expected to require detailed safety plans from food processors, periodic testing of food at California food processing facilities, and requirements for food processors to report to state authorities any positive tests for a dangerous contaminant within 24 hours.
A video of Assemblyman Mike Feuer’s announcement is available below. Meanwhile, the FDA continues to update its list of recalled products.
The Pistachio Recall: More Salmonella
The FDA and the California Department of Public Health announced on March 30 the recall of pistachios from Setton Farms, which have been linked to a discovery of salmonella originally identified by Kraft Foods in Back to Nature Trail Mix. The FDA has a list of recalled products, but that may grow.
Obviously, we have been through this drill before. It is interesting to note the reactions of different involved parties.
Continue Reading...Nestle's Makes the Very Best Peanut Decision
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On Thursday, March 19, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee held another hearing on Peanut Corporation of America and the Salmonella outbreak. A focus of the hearing was the different choices made by Nestle USA, which had refused to buy PCA peanuts, and the companies testifying at the hearing, including Kellogg and King Nut, which had.
Nestle, when considering buying peanuts from PCA, had sent its own inspectors to PCA's plants. They found, according to a report of the hearing in the Washington Post, some rather damaging items:
rat droppings, live beetles, dead insects and the potential for microbial contamination
Nestle, not surprisingly, declined to buy from PCA.
At the hearing, witnesses from Kellogg and King Nut were questioned as to why they had not done their own inspections, instead relying on inspections by AIB, the American Institute of Baking, which were paid for by PCA, and which apparently tipped PCA about when it was coming.
The question nobody seemed to ask--and no one from Nestle was at the hearing--was why Nestle could not have made the results of its inspection public at the time? If there are "rodent droppings in the break room cabinets", and the company is selling peanuts to other members of the general public, just not through Nestle, isn't this something that should be made known to someone?
One answer lies in the fear of the various torts that come under the heading of "trade libel." Nestle is a big company, and even though it presumably trusts its inspectors (and makes important business decisions based on their reports), it must recognize that it is a potential "deep pocket" for lawsuits. Thus, to report publicly what its inspectors found, or even to make that information avaiable to others in the food industry, is to risk a major lawsuit.
The flip side should also be considered. If you are PCA, and someone broadcasts to the world that you have rat droppings in your break room cabinets, you are likely to experience significant losses, regardless of whether the report is true, and whether the presence of rat droppings in your cabinets affects the actual safety of your food. What we do know is that in 2008 PCA began shipping peanuts that killed people. The rat droppings found in the 2002 Nestle inspection presumably had nothing to do with those deaths, nor are we aware of any deaths or illnesses from PCA peanuts in the interim. Finally, we do not of course know whether there are other suppliers Nestle or others who conducted their own inspections rejected, and what they did with the news of rejection. Nestle, for instance, didn't write off PCA when it rejected it in 2002; it checked out another PCA facility in 2006 (and came to similar conclusions).
Then there is the question of what contractual rights and obligations existed between PCA and Nestle. Did PCA require Nestle to sign a non-disclosure agreement when it allowed it into the plants? Any well-advised company would require such an agreement at the very least to protect proprietary technology. Thus, Nestle may have been contractually bound not to reveal the results of its inspections.
As food safety legislation is being considered, the issue of tort liability and the right to use contracts to silence someone who knows about your dirty facility should be faced. It is not as simple as "all inspections should be public", but it is also unlikely to remain as business as usual. We publicize the results of government restaurant inspections without putting all restaurants that fail to pass inspection out of business.
Georgia House Unanimously Passes Food Safety Bill; Kellogg CEO Calls for Food Safety Reforms
Update to today’s earlier post: the Georgia House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill today that would strengthen food safety laws in Georgia. The Georgia House and Senate now will resolve minor differences in the proposed legislation and send a final version to Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue for his signature.
Also today, the AP reports that the chief executive of Kellogg Co. is urging food safety reforms, including written safety plans for all food companies and annual inspections of facilities that make “high-risk foods.” The AP article notes Kellogg lost $70 million worth of peanut products in the recent salmonella outbreak linked to Peanut Corporation of America.
Maple Leaf Foods: A Case Study in the Persistence of Memory
Maple Leaf Foods is Canada's largest food processor, and as the name implies, it traces its history a long way with our neighbor to the north. It has always prided itself on its food safety procedures.
Last year, as was widely reported, more than 20 people all across Canada died from listeriosis traced to one of Maple Leaf's processing plants in Toronto. A huge recall of Maple Leaf products was ordered. Recently, the company settled class action cases for a reported $27 million.
Perhaps Maple Leaf thought that put it all behind them. Hardly. A Thomson-Reuters article described how Maple Leaf considers itself well-placed in the current economic environment. The story is 11 paragraphs long. Five of the paragraphs tell the company's story. Six of the paragraphs, including the lead paragraph and the final five, are concerned in whole or in part with the listeriosis outbreak, plus a new recall of frankfurters and hot dogs.
People have long memories. The article in today's Wall Street Journal that peanut butter sales in the four weeks ending February 21 dropped 13.3% compared to the same period last year is just another indication of that.
The Best Restaurant on Earth Closed Due to Food Poisoning
The Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal's three-Michelin star restaurant which was once named the best restaurant in the world (it is currently second), was closed temporarily because of reports of food poisoning. Nothing has been found in a thorough search, leading to speculation that there may have been some form of sabotage, or simply a non-specific virus passed along not by the food but by a contagious member of the staff.
In an interview in the Guardian, Blumenthal detailed all the efforts that had been made to isolate the problems, which appeared as stomach ailments in customers, which--unusually for food poisoning--appeared four to five days after diners ate at the restauarant. The closure was voluntary and he plans to reopen Wednesday and compensate not only those who were affected with free meals, but give those whose bookings were cancelled something special upon their return.
UPDATE: It appears now more and more that the cause of the customers' illnesses was an unspecified airborne virus, and neither sabotage nor food poisoning. Restaurants are, after all, gathering places, and the lessons of winter viruses apply as much to a restaurant, for all the efforts a place like the Fat Duck may take to remain clean, as to any other indoor place.
Two Stories from China on the Same Day (with an update)
The curious juxtaposition of these two stories from China on the same day is striking.
In the first story, two men were sentenced to death for purposely poisoning the food in a snack bar in Shenzhen City with sodium nitrite. It appears that a deal to develop a skating rink was contingent on removing a popular marketplace, and the ringleaders decided the best way to do that was to poison people at the marketplace, which they did in February 2008. Two people died and 61 others were poisoned. Those sentenced to die were the ones who administered the poison. The manager who masterminded the plan was sentenced to life in prison and the developer of the skating rink was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Meanwhile, just yesterday, in Harbin, 57 people at a shopping center got food poisoning from eating a popular Chinese snack food called malatang. The verdict: poisoning from nitrite. It makes you wonder if someone wanted to put a skating rink in there, too.
UPDATE 2/26/09: Make that three stories. Today CNN is reporting that 14 people in Guangzhou were poisoned from a dish of stir-fried pig's liver.
FDA's Searchable Widget for Peanut Product Recall
UPDATE to the Salmonella-driven peanut product recall: as the number of peanut products recalled continues to rise, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has created a Web widget that allows users to search for peanut-containing product recalls (see below). The FDA updates the list as it receives new information from companies that have recalled products. As discussed in an earlier article, a list of products that are unaffected by the recall is also available.
Developing A Strategy For Crisis Management
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An upcoming panel discussion at the Nutritional Law Symposium in Utah and a call from a reporter about the Maple Leaf Foods issue in Canada have me thinking a lot about crisis management. How a business responds at the outset of an alleged food-borne outbreak determines its fate in many ways.
Implementing a strategy from the start is a must to minimize the impact of a crisis. Yet the million- or billion-dollar question is, how do you develop the right save-the-business strategy when events are overwhelming and occurring at light speed? You need to bring together quality assurance, legal and food safety personnel (epidemiologists, microbiologists and other food safety experts) who can respond immediately to find the source of the outbreak and work with public health officials. A business must ascertain at the earliest possible moment the source and scope of the crisis. Once a business understands whether an outbreak is limited to a particular outlet or product line, and how many people might be affected, it can formulate a public relations, recall and legal strategy to limit exposure.
The key is execution. Everyone on the crisis management team must work in sync and understand their roles. And the secret to execution is preparation. Long before a crisis, a team (usually a combination of personnel from outside and inside the business) should be in place, rehearsed and ready. History is full of lessons: Some businesses executed crisis management well and emerged from dire crises stronger than before; others were unprepared, and their brands have long been forgotten.
