The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has announced the 2010 Food Safety Education Conference. The conference will be held in Atlanta from March 23 through 26, 2010. Although the agenda is still a work in progress, you can expect sessions on foodborne illnesses, outreach to the medical community, food safety education initiatives, social … Continue Reading
Last week, members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce released a discussion draft of the “Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.” The draft proposes beefing up the FDA registry of “all food facilities serving American consumers” and charging every facility $1,000 per year to fund FDA food safety activities. … Continue Reading
More and more, it is becoming true that nothing drives detection and prevention of food-borne illness than technology (and, of course, with advancements in detection come potential increases in exposure to legal liability). No technological advancement may be more significant than Next Generation Sequencing ("Next Gen Sequencing"). I’ve recently had the opportunity to spend time learning about Next Gen Sequencing with Dr. Andrew Benson, a genetic microbiologist at the … Continue Reading
Happy New Year. Thank you for your support, readership and feedback for this site. Since we launched the blog in late February of 2008, the growth in readership has been extraordinary. I’m overwhelmed at the response. My hope is that the blog has provided some measure of assistance to those in the food industry. As always, I … Continue Reading