Food safety headlines 8/4

Two Very Different Paths From Farm to Table From The Washington Post: Reports of unsafe food from China have spurred a reexamination of the system, which some say has not caught up with recent increases in food imports, which have doubled in value in the past decade. "Our overall food-safety system needs comprehensive reform. People are losing confidence," said Rep. Rosa DaLauro (D-Conn.), a frequent critic of the FDA's oversight of seafood and produce.
But FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach, in a letter to employees last month after the agency was criticized during a congressional hearing, said, "Although food safety problems still occur in this country, it does not automatically follow that the FDA is asleep at the switch."
Changing the system would require upending huge bureaucracies and long-standing traditions, as well as tackling industry concerns. Congress is considering a piece of legislation that would establish a single food-safety agency and another that would, for the first time, allow the FDA to charge importers a fee.


Kohl seeks improved food safety protection From The Green Bay Press:
Two weeks after Castleberry Food Co. issued a recall of 90 products possibly contaminated with botulism, federal investigators found the goods still on the shelves of 300 stores.
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., has proposed a solution — rapid-response teams. He envisions four to six such regional teams to work with growers, food processors and local and state officials so that recalls go smoothly. The teams would also help find the causes of food contamination outbreaks.Kohl, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, wants to pump an additional $48 million into the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the safety of 80 percent of what Americans eat. The U.S. Agriculture Department is responsible for 20 percent of the food supply.Included are funds for 90 new FDA inspectors to begin replacing the 230 inspectors the agency has lost over the last four years.He and others in Congress are scrutinizing the sprawling network of federal agencies responsible for preventing food contamination and tracking it down once it occurs. The recall of Castleberry products and the discovery of the chemical melamine from China in pet food that sickened or killed cats and dogs are the latest reminders of the importance of food safety.The 2006 death of a Manitowoc woman and the sickening of dozens of other Wisconsinites from U.S.-grown spinach contaminated by E. coli bacteria played a role in Kohl’s efforts to strengthen the FDA.“We’ve seen shoppers terrified not only for their families but for their pets. I think the level of confidence (in U.S. food safety) has gone down,” Kohl said.


Kiwis fret over what we eat From a New Zealand Web site:

A phone survey of 750 people for the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) found salmonella was the worst food fear, with 77 per cent being "very concerned" about it.
Antibiotics in meat (67 per cent) and campylobacter (63 per cent) were next.
But scientist Dr Donald Campbell said people were missing the three biggest threats to life – salt, fat and sugar.

TK: Talking points, perhaps? Industry leaders should continue to reinforce the health benefits of f/v in comparison to other food choices.

Gallup rates consumer confidence

This link, passed on by Doug Powell of K-State's Food Safety Network, summarizes finding of a Gallup study on consumer reaction to food safety stories in the past year. From the story:

Most commonly, a majority of Americans -- 62% -- say they have avoided buying certain brands or types of food within the past year as a direct result of a government food safety advisory or product recall. Four in ten say such advisories or recalls have compelled them to discard food or return it to the store and roughly one-quarter say they worried that something they ate may have been contaminated. Overall, 71% of Americans report having one or more of these experiences in the past year.

TK: Four in ten compelled to discard food or return it to the store is higher than I would have guessed.
Continuing from the Gallup story:

Trend questions updated on this year's Consumption Habits survey suggest Americans have not reached a tipping point with food safety concerns. Most Americans continue to express confidence in the safety of food in the nation's grocery stores and restaurants, as well as in the federal agencies responsible for ensuring the safety of the food supply. However, at present, that confidence tends to be on the low side of the range Gallup has seen over the past decade.
The percentage of Americans saying they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the federal government to ensure the safety of the food supply is currently 71%, significantly lower than the previous low of 76% recorded a year ago as well as the high point of 85% in 2004.

TK: Put another way, the confidence of Americans in the federal government's oversight of food safety is 17% lower than in 2004, a rapid descent by any measure.

At 82%, current confidence in the food available at grocery stores is on the low end of the range of 80% to 89% found since 1999. It was similarly low, at 80% and 81% from 1999-2001, but higher from July 2001 through December 2006.
At 73%, current confidence in the safety of restaurant food is in the middle of the range of 68% to 77% seen for this measure since 1999.

TK: Based on these numbers, supermarkets need to do a better job of selling their food safety diligence to consumers.
Continuing...

Given Americans' self-reported attention to food-related news, Americans neither take the safety of the nation's food supply for granted, nor are they losing sleep over it. Nearly two-thirds of the public indicates paying at least a fair amount of attention to "the food warnings and nutritional recommendations" in the news, but this includes only 28% paying "a lot" of attention.
Public attention to food warnings and recommendations has fluctuated over the years, possibly a reflection of the timing of the polls relative food-related issues in the news. Current attention is a bit lower than a year ago and higher than two years ago, but similar to where it was in 1989.

TK: As with the public, I believe reporters paying fluctuating attention to food safety stories. Food safety alert fatigue may cause some stories to be under reported, to the detriment of the consuming public.