What FDA knew and when they knew it

This UPI story highlights a strange reality that occasionally occurs in newspapering. News that isn't the news, presumed scandal when none exists. This story follows on a story in The Washington Post earlier, covered in this blog post, headlined "FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food" with a tagline that "Outbreaks Were Not Preventable, Officials Say"

Here is the lede of the UPI piece:

The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.

TK: Of course the FDA wasis aware of food safety concerns. It has been communicating steadily with the industry over the past few years about the need for commodity specific guidance.

The FDA sent a letter to California growers in 2005 expressing "serious concern" about foodborne illness outbreaks from lettuce and spinach crops in the state, which at the time had totaled 19 since 1995, CBS News reported Tuesday.

TK: The way this is written makes it sound as if the existence of this letter is recent news. Not so. I was at FDA's headquarters in December 2005 and had asked Brackett about the letter, which was posted on the FDA's Web site.

However, no action was taken and the FDA instead urged the industry to take "the appropriate measures to provide a safe product." The E.coli outbreak a year after the warning left three people dead and more than 200 sickened.

"Sadly, today this great Food and Drug Administration, when it comes to food safety, has become the weakest link," Sen. Richard Durban, D-Ill., said. Officials said the FDA, which is responsible for 80 percent of the nation's grown foods -- compared to 20 percent under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- has far fewer inspectors than the other agency.
"If products are regulated by FDA, like seafood and produce and grains, they might only see an inspector once every five or 10 years," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

TK: Protestations to the contrary, these stories state FDA "took no action" after previous outbreaks. While the industry leaders like Bryan Silbermann and Tom Stenzel have called for more consultations before the FDA makes public statements about foodborne illness outbreak, stories like these increase pressure on the agency to shout from the rooftops any scrap of information they have.

GAO testimony

Here is the link to a GAO testimony on food safety yesterday before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.
Some highlights:

For example, the majority of federal expenditures for food safety inspection were directed toward USDA’s programs for ensuring the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products; however, USDA is responsible for regulating only about 20 percent of the food supply. In contrast, FDA, which is responsible for regulating about 80 percent of the food supply, accounted for only about 24 percent of expenditures.

We have proposed that Congress consider legislation that would require companies to alert USDA or FDA when they discover they have distributed potentially unsafe food and that would give both agencies mandatory food recall authority. Congress has not enacted legislation granting agencies general mandatory recall authority. We have also recommended that USDA and FDA better track and manage food recalls, achieve more prompt and complete recalls, and determine if additional ways are needed to alert consumers about recalled food that they may have in their homes.

The recent outbreaks of E. coli in spinach and Salmonella in peanut butter, along with outbreaks of contaminated pet food, underscore the need of a broad-based transformation of the federal oversight of food safety to achieve greater economy, efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and sustainability. GAO’s high-risk designation raises the priority and visibility of this necessary transformation and thus can bring needed attention to address the weaknesses caused by a fragmented system. Among the reasons we designated the federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area is that USDA and FDA have limited recall authority.

TK: An expression goes that 20% of the people do 80% of the work in a church or any organization. The FDA is taking that a step further; it receives 20% of food safety dollars and is responsible for 80% of the food. Beyond more bucks for FDA, the GAO favors a unified food safety agency and expanded FDA authority.

Ask the expert

I visited the http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/ Web site today and find that the page with Ask the Expert questions was fairly much bursting with activity. That's good to see it being used extensively. Here is the link to the page.

One thing I noticed is that moms who come to the Web site may have a certain edge to their passion about fruits and veggies. For example, one mom wanted to know what "slow carb" produce could be recommended. One mom complained that there was nothing on the importance of organic or sustainable agriculture. She (we presume) wrote "Any chance of that chance of such a thing happening when all the sponsors are huge loveless corporations?"

Another wondered if two of the same kind of fruit or veggie counted as one or two servings. One question asked what fruits and veggies are great for potassium, and another post asked about weight loss and why it wasn't happening with her fruit and veggie-rich diet.

All in all, the Ask the Expert site is very authentic, with misspellings littering the posts like blueberries in the morning cereal bowl. The expert who answers all these questions is Elizabeth Pivonka, and she has to be encouraged with the interaction so far.

However, it is interesting to note the one email expressing some reservations about the the middle of the road aspect of the PBH message. Perhaps the most passionate GenX moms may believe most in organic produce and sustainable farming. Is there any way to drill deeper and create more than one Web site that caters to different demographics within the GenX mom category?

See the graph at the bottom of the blog for how one Web company has measured the site's traffic.

Maureen's moment

Maureen Torrey Marshall, chair of the United Fresh Produce Association, presented testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday. here are The link to her full remarks is here.

Some excerpts:

As the policy discussion for the 2007 Farm Bill takes shape, we look forward to working with you to develop new programs and enhance existing programs that will improve the competitiveness of the specialty crop industry. Over the past two years, the coalition has been working with members of Congress to develop specific legislative language consistent with our priorities. The culmination of that work came last week, when Senators Debbie Stabenow and Larry Craig, along with 17 co-sponsors, introduced the Specialty Crops Competition Act of 2007, S. 1160. We believe this legislation is a comprehensive farm bill package providing the necessary framework to enhance the competitiveness of the specialty crop industry. We expect this legislation to begin a constructive discussion of specialty crop farm policy and allow our industry to play a significant role in the farm bill debate.

Later....

Many of the provisions of S.1160 address these concerns. I would like to highlight today nine (9) key areas of S.1160, which we believe Congress should incorporate into the 2007 Farm Bill because they will enhance the foundation of policy tools available to this important segment of U.S. agriculture.
1. Prohibition of Planting Fruits and Vegetables on Contract Acres As referenced in S. 1160, the Alliance strongly supports maintaining or strengthening the current U.S. planting policy, which restricts producers from growing fruits and vegetables on acres receiving program payments.
2. Nutrition Policy . The Dietary Guidelines for Americans call for the consumption of 5 to 13 servings a day of fruits and vegetables as a cornerstone of good health. Yet, on any given day 45 percent of children eat no fruit at all, and 20 percent eat less than one serving of vegetables.
3. State Block Grants The Alliance also supports continued expansion of the State Block Grant Program for Specialty Crops that was authorized in the 2004 Specialty Crops Competitiveness Act
4. Research Policy Federal investment in agricultural research dedicated to improving the competitiveness of the U.S. specialty crop industry has been shrinking in real terms and is not adequate to meet the needs of the industry. s.
5. Conservation Policy Because of these factors, the industry supports expanding cost share and incentive programs such and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Security Program that encourages producers to invest in natural resource protection measures they might not have been able to afford without such assistance.
6. International Trade Policy . Farm bill programs that have worked well increasing access to foreign markets for domestically produced fruits and vegetables are the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops and the Market Access Program. These programs should be continued and expanded in the next Farm Bill.
7. Disaster Assistance Policy The current $80,000 payment limit on disaster payments is not equitable for specialty crop producers.The Alliance believes that cost of production and crop value should be used to index disaster assistance payments to allow specialty crop producers to receive more equitable disaster payments.
8. Invasive Pests and Disease The Alliance supports enhancing the structure and resources of APHIS to better identify and prioritize foreign pest threats, provide timely adequate compensation to producers impacted by emergency eradication programs, and create an export division to more quickly process export petitions from U.S. specialty crop growers.
9. Labor Needs As Congress continues to debate immigration reform the produce industry urges Congress to support comprehensive immigration reform which includes a strong temporary worker program that will match a willing foreign employee with a willing employer when no U.S. workers are available.

TK: The first point Maureen brings up is the planting prohibition on farm program acres. How long the industry can hang on to this bargaining chip - and how much it will ultimately be worth - is one of the key questions of the 2007 farm bill debate.

Hearing coverage

Coverage of yesterday's House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigation subcommittee on food safety is extensive on the Web, but mainly based on a single reporter, Andrew Bridges of the Associated Press.

From the AP:
From the story:

Families victimized by tainted spinach and peanut butter put a human face on recent high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness Tuesday, urging lawmakers to strengthen federal oversight of the nation's food supply.

``I can't protect them from spinach - only you guys can,'' said Michael Armstrong, as he and his wife, Elizabeth, cradled daughters Ashley, 2, and Isabella, 5.
The two girls fell ill - Ashley gravely so - in September after eating a salad made with a bag of the leafy greens contaminated by E. coli.


TK: The families of those sickened were effective witnesses, though perhaps lawmakers' penchant for asking leading questions made them appear to be just props at times. This version of the story focused entirely on the testimony of the victims and the reaction of lawmakers, though some longer versions include reference to Natural Selection's testing program.