House hearing - The panelists

A long hort subcommittee hearing today chaired by Rep. Cardoza today, one in which the industry made a number of strong points. Still, Acheson may have trumped everything else that was said with news of the farm in Mexico where the salmonella Saintpaul pathogen was found. David Mitchell developing for The Packer....

A Whole Lot Of Words

Let the games begin. May they prove fruitful for all concerned.

You’ve read Tom Karst’s report of Tony DiMare’s opening statement at the House hearings this afternoon. Besides this document, I’ve briefly glanced at the ones by Dr. Acheson of the FDA and Dr. Osterholm of the University of Minnesota. Nothing earth-shattering there---they say what you’d expect them to say---Acheson dancing & ‘CYA’-ing, and Osterholm interestingly scaling somewhat back in his vitriol towards the process. Check ‘em out yourself at Tom’s link provided above.

But…so far, the star of the show for me is Tom Stenzel of the United Fresh Produce Association. He’s comes as close as anyone at pointing the finger at FDA’s methodology, which is at the crux of the matter:


Despite some hurdles which I will address later, FDA in fact was able to trace tomatoes eaten by sick consumers back to the farm. The only problem was those tracebacks kept pointing to different farms. Rather than complaining about the complexity of the tomato industry and so-called false leads sending the search to myriad farms across two countries, the evidence was staring government in the face. There was no common point where all of these tomatoes could have been contaminated, whether at the farm or in repacking at the wholesale level. Traceback worked; it just didn’t confirm the hypothesis that the Centers for Disease Control had advanced, and that we now know was most likely wrong.


And, due no doubt to repeated calls from membership up and down the tomato distribution chain, Stenzel pleads for compensation, sympathetically but shrewdly:


If I may Mr. Chairman, let me conclude with a brief comment about compensation. We all know the error in CDC’s initial assessment that fresh tomatoes were the sole cause of this outbreak. While CDC has not yet stepped away from its suspicion that tomatoes might have caused some of the earlier illnesses, this is neither a likely nor plausible position without some real evidence. The fact that consumers didn’t know that they had eaten jalapenos chopped up in salsas, garnishes, or other foods is no reason for CDC to cling to the accuracy of their initial food surveys just out of pride. Even good scientists can make a mistake, and there’s no shame in admitting that consumers apparently were just unaware of this hidden ingredient in their foods.

There can be no doubt that this has been a disaster for the tomato industry, and we support Congressman Mahoney’s HR 6581 as a step toward providing disaster assistance to our agricultural sector just as vital as any hurricane or flood. It’s also a fact that this disaster struck every company in the tomato supply chain whether they had to discard full warehouses of perfectly healthy tomatoes, haul product to the dump, watch fruit rot on the vine, or plow fields under. I know well that this is the Agriculture Committee, but I ask you to think about both the growers we represent, and also our growers’ customers who had already paid for their produce, but were forced to discard millions of dollars of product.


More comments later, but I’ll need a whole pitcher of iced tea to decipher some of this stuff, and the ulterior motives attached.

Later,

Jay

Opening statements are up

Here is the link to the opening statements from today's hearing in the House by the subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture on the technological capacity for full traceability in fresh produce.


Here is what Tony DiMare's opening statement says about the outbreak:



Our industry was shaken to the core in June when the CDC announced that tomatoes were a suspected source of the salmonella outbreak, and the FDA issued a broad advisory for all consumers to avoid eating certain types of tomatoes.

Shipment ground to a halt. Tomatoes were left in the fields, in the packinghouses and on trucks that were turned away by our customers. More than a week went by before the FDA cleared 19 Florida counties to ship tomatoes. By then, however, consumers were too confused and were reluctant to resume buying tomatoes. Severe losses were incurred all along the distribution chain. Early on, our sales were down as much as 60 percent, and business has been slow to pick up. Today, our repack operations are still off by about 20 percent.

Adding to our frustration during the trace-back was the FDA and CDC’s reluctance to turn to industry for help understanding and identifying distribution channels – knowledge they clearly lacked. Tapping into industry expertise early on would have gone a long way in speeding up the trace-back. More cooperation is clearly needed in the future.


Conclusion
Even though the FDA has announced that all tomatoes are safe to eat and has focused its attention on other produce, we urge both the FDA and CDC to completely clear Florida tomatoes as a potential source of the outbreak.

In addition, we are calling on these agencies and others to sit down with industry to determine how the investigation and trace-back process can be improved. Hard questions need to be asked, and lessons must be learned from this outbreak so that a similar situation never happens again.

Looking ahead, we don’t know how long it will take for consumer confidence in fresh tomatoes to rebound. What has transpired over the past two months is sure to affect our business into next season. As an industry, we are strongly committed to taking whatever proactive steps are necessary to ensure Americans know they are consuming the safest, healthiest and most nutritious fresh produce possible.

Pesticides to blame for 'buzz kill?'

Packer managing editor Fred Wilkinson here with the latest chapter in a disturbing mystery that wallops many fruit growers in the wallet: the increasing disappearance of honeybee colonies in the past few years.

From the Los Angeles Times:

There is increasing reason to believe that Gaucho and other members of a family of highly toxic chemicals -- neonicotinoids -- may be responsible for he deaths of billions of honeybees worldwide. Some scientists believe that these pesticides, which are applied to seeds, travel systemically through the plant and leave residues that contaminate the pollen, resulting in bee death or paralysis. The French refer to the effect as "mad bee disease" and in 1999 were the first to ban the use of these chemicals, which are currently only marketed by Bayer (the aspirin people) under the trade names Gaucho and Poncho. Germany followed suit this year, and its agricultural research institute said it concluded that the poisoning of the bees was because of the rub-off of the pesticide clothianidin (that's Pancho) from corn seeds.

The Op-Ed piece's author -- Al Meyerhoff, is described in the article's tagline as "an environmental attorney in Los Angeles" and "a former director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's public health program." He details what's at stake for growers and lays some blame for bees' woes on the ag industry for its agricultural practices:

Something is killing the bees, though. Some scientists suspect a virus; others mites, even cellphones. (Bees are not known to use phones, though, having their own communications system -- a dance called the "waggle.") Here in the U.S., the bee kill is a big problem. Domesticated bees were brought to the U.S. on the Mayflower. Today, they contribute at least $15 billion to the nation's agricultural economy. For example, California's $2-billion-a-year almond crop is completely dependent on honeybees from about 1.5 million hives for pollination. This year, more than 2.4 million bee colonies -- 36% of the total -- were lost in the U.S., according to the Apiary Inspectors of America. Some colonies collapsed in two days. Part of the problem is how we farm. Rather than rotating crops, farmers grow the same one each year. This "monoculture" creates a breeding ground for pests. Farmers then use chemicals that kill not only the target organism but other life forms as well -- like honeybees.

The USDA weighed in on the topic in May here. Their take? Researchers aren't sure if the problem is related to disease (such as the varroa mite), ag chemicals or or even a mix of those two and possibly other environmental factors.

Drawing distinctions: FAA and FDA

I was reading the Perishable Pundit today and one particular subset of today's report caught my eye. Jim compared the risk of airline accidents and car safety ratings to the incidence of foodborne illness. He made a case that the FDA should revise its policy of issuing food advisories, drawing on the example of the Federal Aviation Administration:

What the FAA does not do is go around issuing recommendations as to whether .018 fatal accidents per 100,000 departures is something an individual should accept or not.

A serious foodborne illness caused by fresh produce is an exceedingly rare event. This means that it is very difficult to increase an individual’s personal safety through a consumption restriction on fresh produce. Look at the numbers for this very large and serious outbreak related to Salmonella Saintpaul.

TK: I suggest you check out Jim's reasoning further if you would like. Here, he speaks to the crux of the matter:

As such, FDA should abandon this policy of making these broad recommendations not to consume. Instead, as with the NHTSA, FDA should publicize what information it has, being careful, of course, to put it in perspective.

There are two separate problems that Congress will be dealing with: The first is how to improve food safety on fresh produce — for that we have recommended a certification program to ensure farms operate to a gold standard. The second is how FDA should conduct itself to enhance public health without bankrupting industries so they can’t afford to invest in food safety.

The answer is for Congress to direct FDA to function in an educational fashion on foodborne illness outbreaks unless there is a particular reason to fear high numbers of fatalities or permanent damage.

This preserves the interests public health authorities have in disseminating important information, it helps avoid panic among consumers by putting information in perspective, and it avoids a disastrous impact on food producers by preserving consumer freedom.

TK: While Jim's argument is well-founded, I think his point is off base here. "The answer for Congress is to direct the FDA to function in an educational fashion on foodborne illness outbreaks unless there is a particular reason to fear high numbers of fatalities or permanent damage."

How can the FDA act in an "educational fashion"? Weaken advisories to "suggestions"? As it is, consumers have the free will to do what they will do, no matter what the government says.

If the FDA has information that might protect the public health, it needs to have the freedom to speak freely. The idea that Congress should "direct the FDA" to protect commerce above consumers would seem to me to have a chilling effect on agency vigilance and would be surely dispiriting to professionals dedicated to the protection of public health.

Yes, the outbreak has weakened the faith of the industry in the FDA. Better performance must be expected in future investigations. But the industry cannot callously accept outbreaks unless they bring "high numbers of fatalities or permanent damage."

At a time like this, we must remember the spinach outbreak and these words that Bryan Silbermann spoke: "Never again. Never, ever again."

By the way, here is a link to an interesting Web page about the origin and history of food regulations and the FDA.

First up - House Subcommittee on Horticulture

Here is the only Congressional hearing today. Rep. Rosa DeLauro's oversight hearing on the appropriations subcommittee - previously scheduled for today - has been postponed until after the August work period.


Wednesday, July 30th – 1:00 p.m.1300 Longworth House Office Building
Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture — Public Hearing.RE: To review legal and technological capacity for full traceability in fresh produce.
WITNESS LIST
Panel I
The Honorable Diana DeGette, Member of Congress from the First Congressional District of Colorado
Honorable Adam Putnam, Member of Congress from the Twelfth Congressional District of Florida
Panel II
Dr. David W.K. Acheson, M.D., Associate Commissioner for Food Protection, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland
Dr. Lonnie J. King, Director, DVM, National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (ZVED), Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia
Panel III
Mr. Anthony J. DiMare, Vice President, DiMare Homestead Inc., DiMare Ruskin Inc., and DiMare Johns Island Inc., Ruskin, Florida
Mr. Henry L. Giclas, Vice President, Strategic Planning, Science and Technology, Western Growers Association, Irvine, California
Mr. Brian Silberman, President, Produce Marketing Association, Newark, Delaware
Mr. Thomas E. Stenzel, President and CEO, United Fresh Produce Association, Washington, DC
Panel IV
Dr. James R. Gorny, Ph.D., Executive Director, Postharvest Technology Research and Information Center, University of California, Davis, California
Ms. Jean Halloran, Director, Food Policy Initiatives, Consumers Union, Yonkers, New York
Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota


TK: Here is the link to the witness list of tomorrow's hearing at the House Energy and Commerce Committee, oversignts and investigations subcommittee.

Impossible criteria?

In the Food Safe message board, I recently posted the column co-written by Tom Stenzel and Bryan Silbermann that was published in The Packer. The column brought this reaction I'm posting here from one message board member. It speaks to an important question; how can FDA and lawmakers regulate according to risk when there is insufficient data to meet that criteria? What is the solution to that?


Quoting from Stenzel and Silbermann...
"These measures must be risk-based and commodity-specific to address the greatest areas of risk as identified by government. They must also be science-based, to ensure they are proven effective at improving food safety"
while i would certainly appreciate hearing other perspectives, my sense is that at the moment the science is not in place that would make it possible to fulfill these two criteria . . . my sense is that although considerable research is currently in process on risk attribution in foodborne illness (pathogen, vehicle, source), the kinds of definitive results that would meet the silbermann-stenzel criteria are not yet available . . . in part this is because the database for the analysis of these questions is so weak (only a small percentage of foodborne illness outbreaks are ever traced to a vehicle, and outbreaks themselves represent only a small percentage of foodborne illness in the u.s.) . . .
if that description of the current situation is accurate, do the silbermann-stenzel criteria present a reasonable effort to move forward on food safety, or a hurdle that cannot be overcome in the forseeable future . . .
cheers,

craig
craig k harris
department of sociology
michigan agricultural experiment station
national food safety and toxicology center
institute for food and agricultural standards
food safety policy center
michigan state university http://www.msu.edu/~harrisc/