Michelle Smith - Infiltration study

I'm reposting this powerpoint I received back in April after a visit to FDA offices in College Park, Md. Michelle Smith is a scientist with FDA and has done extensive work with previous produce outbreaks. This presentation points to the possibility that salmonella can be spread via wash water. Also check out an audio file of my mid-April interview with her here.

FDA: Roll the borders back

This story speaks to the visit by FDA officials to Mexico and the desire of the agency to set up an office in Latin America. From the story:

Speaking during a weeklong visit to Mexico and Central America, Leavitt said yesterday that inspectors were working with their Mexican counterparts to inspect farms, distribution centers and transportation methods. Investigators are focusing their investigation on tomatoes from three states: Jalisco, Sinaloa and Coahuila. Initially, the Salmonella outbreak halted all tomato imports from Mexico, but regulators have now cleared shipments from most of the country, except those from the three suspect states.

In advocating for the Latin American food safety office, Leavitt cited both the tomato outbreak, and another Salmonella incident earlier this year that stemmed from cantaloupes imported from Honduras. ” We’ve had two incidents in the last month and a half: the Honduran cantaloupe, and now the tomatoes,” Leavitt said. “What it demonstrates is that when these incidents occur, we need a quick response.”

Leavitt said that inspecting produce at the border is no longer sufficient to insure food safety, and said that “rolling the borders back” so that inspectors have access to farms and facilities were foods are produced and packed would be a more efficient strategy.

TK: If the U.S. prevails setting up an office in Latin America, don't think it too far-fetched that Mexican authorities would want a similar accommodation based on "the principle of reciprocity" for U.S. exports to Mexico. In fact, Big Apple here notes that China seeks to establish food safety offices in the U.S. in response to a request by the FDA to set up shop in China.

June 23 CDC: 613 persons in 33 states, DC - April 10 to June 13 onset

TK: The CDC changed their outbreak map, and I have to give props to Jim Prevor over at the Produce Pundit, who had suggested in one of his earlier posts that the FDA revise their maps to make them more representative of the number of victims in each state. From the CDC's June 23 update:


Since April, 613 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 33 states and the District of Columbia. These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization. The marked increase in reported ill persons since the last update is not thought to be due to a large number of new infections. The number of reported ill persons increased mainly because some states improved surveillance for Salmonella in response to this outbreak and because laboratory identification of many previously submitted strains was completed. In particular, one new state, Massachusetts reported ill persons. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Arkansas (3 persons), Arizona (34), California (8), Colorado (4), Connecticut (4), Florida (1), Georgia (14), Idaho (3), Illinois (45), Indiana (9), Kansas (9), Kentucky (1), Maryland (18), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (4), Missouri (12), New Hampshire (1), New Jersey (1), New Mexico (79), New York (18), North Carolina (1), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (17), Oregon (5), Pennsylvania (5), Rhode Island (2), Tennessee (4), Texas (265), Utah (2), Virginia (21), Vermont (1), Washington (1), Wisconsin (5), and the District of Columbia (1). Among the 316 persons with information available, illnesses began between April 10 and June 13, 2008.

SRO while the food and fuel debate rages on

Lately, there has been standing room only on Johnson County buses running in suburban Kansas City, though the route I take from Olathe to 85th and Antioch is perhaps half full. With $4 per gallon gas seemingly here to stay, more and more commuters are hopping on the bus and leaving their SUVs in their driveway.

Many advocates of ethanol argue that gasoline prices would be even higher if not for the expanding production of corn-based ethanol.

However, the Food before Fuel coalition continues to dispute the benefits of ethanol and has called on recently retired USDA chief economist Keith Collins s to do some heavy lifting in opposition to government mandated renewable fuel standards.

With Midwest flooding taking a heavy toll on the nation's corn crop as it is, political pressure is increasing to revise or ditch government targets for ethanol production.

This just slid across the inbox this morning;

Two studies released today show that federal ethanol mandates have placed significant pressure on food prices, while any effect on gasoline prices has been “almost too small to measure.”

Dr. Thomas Elam of FarmEcon LLC, and Keith Collins, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, submitted their new analyses to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Today is the end of EPA’s public comment period on a request from Texas Gov. Rick Perry to partially suspend the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) in light of serious economic harm caused by the current policy.

“The 2008/2009 increase in fuel production made possible by the RFS is almost too small to measure against the global energy market, but the effects on food prices and security are huge,” Elam notes. “The U.S. government should re-examine and reduce the RFS in light of the damage it can do to our food production capacity and the overall welfare of the country.”
Elam’s study concludes that ethanol actually has had little effect on gas prices – only about 4 cents per gallon.

Elam: Maintaining RFS would be “devastating”

Dr. Elam’s study also describes the expected impact of crop shortages on commodity and food prices if congressional food-to-fuel mandates remain at their current levels. The study concludes that maintenance of the current RFS in light of recent flooding in the Midwest would prove “devastating” to livestock and poultry farmers and would increase the burden of food prices for American consumers.
Elam’s study, entitled “Biofuel Support Costs to the U.S. Economy: The Key Role of the RFS in a Feedstock Shortage Scenario,” investigates two distinct scenarios: one in which there is crop damage and the RFS remains in place, and one in which there is crop damage but the RFS mandate is reduced by 50 percent.

“Maintenance of the current RFS schedule in the face of a smaller 2008 corn crop will be devastating to meat, dairy and poultry producers,” Elam wrote. “Consumers will suffer as food and fuel costs rise and supplies of corn-based foods diminish. The overall economy will be damaged from higher inflation and lost jobs in the food production sector.”
A recent Goldman Sachs analysis predicted that 2-4 million acres of corn may be lost in the wake of the Midwest flooding. The USDA is expected to provide a detailed estimate of losses in the coming weeks and has already revised down its expected crop yield data.
Collins: Government support for corn-based ethanol ensures a permanent, significant, and increasing demand for corn

The Collins study, “The Role of Biofuels and Other Factors in Increasing Farm and Food Prices,” indicates that unless the RFS is suspended or revisited, U.S. grain stocks – already pushed to dangerously low levels – will fall even further as ethanol consumes a larger share of the dwindling corn supply.
"Government support for corn-based ethanol ensures a permanent, significant, and increasing demand for corn,” Collins said. “These policies interfere with the normal price rationing function of markets when supplies are short such as in 2008, with production being reduced by flooding and excess moisture. In this short-crop environment, biofuels policy, including mandated use of ethanol, causes even higher corn prices, shifts the demand adjustment burden to non-ethanol users of corn--particularly the livestock sector--and puts continuing pressure on food prices."

Studies: Biofuels “a significant factor” in higher food prices

Elam and Collins also weigh in on ethanol policy’s impact on food prices.

The USDA has argued that biofuels policy has had very little effect on food prices – as little as 2-3 percent. The Collins study contradicts this finding directly and points to potentially serious impacts on consumer prices.

“The increase in retail food prices due to biofuels is estimated to be 23-35 percent above the normal increase in food prices that would occur over 2-3 years,” Collins wrote. “Accordingly, biofuels are now becoming a significant factor in higher food prices.”

The Elam study also warns that reduced crop yields coupled with the RFS and corn prices at $8 per bushel would have an overwhelming effect on food producers and American consumers: “While mid-2008 profitability indicators for meat and poultry production were depressed well below normal levels, production was still generally higher than prior year levels,” the study noted. “Without a reduced RFS, that will all change in the coming months. Meat, poultry and dairy producers will find it necessary to deal with not only higher feed costs, but the sheer availability of feed ingredients at any price. “
Reducing the RFS by half would bring down the price of corn by $2.25 per bushel, Elam argues, saving more than $9 billion in feed and food costs. The average cost of a ton of soybean meal would fall by $150, saving over $5 billion.
Both the Elam and Collins studies can be found at www.foodbeforefuel.org. Elam’s study was made possible by the Balanced Food and Fuel Coalition. Collins prepared his study for Kraft Foods Global, Inc. as supporting material for its comment submission to the EPA on Texas Governor Rick Perry’s request for a waiver of the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Watching The River Flow

Back from taking daughter #2 on a college tour. It should be noted that trying to communicate with the sometimes-obtuse teenager through mood swings during this process is, frankly, not that much of an improvement from what I had left behind with tomatoes and the FDA.

But...things could be worse. In a reprise of the Pretenders' 1980's tune 'My City Was Gone', as a part of checking out colleges we visited daughter #1 in Iowa City & saw the results of the devastating floodwaters. Even though they had receded hundreds of feet in some locations, the damage to campus buildings, the auditoriums, the Union, my old apartment & fraternity house for God's sakes, was almost beyond belief. And although we couldn't get up there, Cedar Rapids, 30 miles to the north, got it worse. Homes & businesses in this region that will never come back put diminished trading from a salmonella outbreak in a new & better perspective, for me anyway.

However, in Iowa I did detect a 'we're going to get through this' attitude that was pervasive throughout. Certainly, it's been reported that FEMA is doing a much better job this time around, learning the tough lessons from Katrina. But indulge me a little Midwest or Hawkeye pride in that these people are definitely the can-do type. One only needs to spend a winter like this last one on the Great Plains to realize that folks around here can take a hit and keep on ticking.

Finally...from the Seven Words Not To Be Uttered In A Blog Department (RIP George Carlin, the best in the biz for many years & inventor of the word 'Molubaday'--the day after tomorrow), take a glance at the expanded FDA page on the tomato/salmonella outbreak, and check out this link, called the 'Traceback Investigation Flow Diagram':

http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/tomatoes_image.pdf

It is labeled a draft, a heartwarming realization to me that the accurate version must be forthcoming. Trying to decipher its meaning makes me do my best Forrest Gump "I am not a smart man...", but I would advise changing the working title of the flowchart to 'Dog Chasing Its Tail'.

Later,

Jay