In the "blog-o-sphere" a lot of heat, but not much light is generated in the "foodie space" talking passionately about these issues. Here are several articles that have been posted on Marler Blog over the last year. I hope they are helpful in a lighter debate.
Grass-Fed vs Grain-Fed Beef and the Holy Grail: A Literature Review
Our food supply seems so challenged, that it was hard to narrow it down to only 10.
1. Globalization: More international recalls and outbreaks due to expanding globalalization of the food supply and the challenges of oversight/infrastructure in developing countries. International challenges probably deserve a list of their own, but in the mean time, this wide umbrella includes the possibility of bioterrorism and/or “economic/chemical terrorism” (intentional adulterations with a profit motive, like melamine).
2. Local Food: Outbreaks linked to local food and/or farmer's markets. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups and food co-ops need to demonstrate knowledge and practice of food safety, and be inspected. In addition to produce and meats/fish, prepared items are currently unsupervised in some, but not all locations.
3. Non-O157 STEC (Shiga Toxic producing E. coli) illnesses and outbreaks (both beef and produce): E. coli O157:H7 is listed as an adulterant, is tested for, and is still a terrible problem. E. coli strains that are non-O157 (but are equally as deadly) have not been evaluated or listed, and are not regularly tested for.
4. Animal to Human contamination: More contamination events involving the whole food chain (from animal feed to animals to humans). Whether it’s dioxin in Irish hogs or melamine in Chinese egg-laying hens, it’s clear that what goes into animals eventually goes into us. As the market for animals-as-food grows, so does the price to feed those animals and then the impetus to cut corners.
5. Having to do more with less: Public funding for food safety research, surveillance, and education is down, but the work load (and its importance) continues to grow.
6. 21st Century communication: In addition to improving communication between each other, food safety agencies need to improve communication with consumers. Outbreaks will move through the population with increasing speed, and agencies need to streamline their processes (and embrace social media like twitter and Facebook) in order to keep up.
7. Balancing food protection and environmental health: How to balance on-farm food safety practices with the protection of water quality, the prevention of soil erosion & dust, and the protection of wildlife and their habitats.
8. Zoonotic diseases: The rise of grain prices and starvation in other parts of the world will have many consequences, including the possibility that as people hunt wild animals for food, they may become exposed to new diseases, triggering a zoonotic virus jumping into humans. (A zoonotic virus is one that originates in animals and crosses to humans, like avian influenza.)
9. Consumers and food safety: How do consumers sort through the cacophony of information on food? What’s “safe”? What does “organic” mean anymore? How is it that “USDA inspected and passed” doesn’t guarantee pathogen-free meat? Who does the consumer believe/trust? Included in this category are the raw milk controversy, food irradiation, and even the new labeling laws like COOL (Country Of Origin Label). Will we get closer to farm to fork tracking of all fruits and vegetables this year?
10. Pet food ills: Pet food testing is increasing, so the level of contamination will become more apparent, and we should expect more recalls. Supervision of the pet food industry as a whole needs improvement, with clarity in ingredients and calorie counts.
You might recall a blog post I did from January of 2008 where I discussed testing retail ground beef for Non-O157:H7 Pathogenic Shiga Toxin Producing E. coli (STEC). We have completed a portion of the first year’s tests and are in the process of compiling the data. We hope to publish the results in the next month. (See Abstract)
.jpg)
Non-O157 STEC are capable of causing the same debilitating triad of diseases as E. coli O157:H7, including hemorrhagic colitis, hemolytic uremic syndrome, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Infection with the non-O157 STEC can result in death in children, the elderly and the immunocompromised. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of reported cases of illnesses caused by this group of pathogenic E. coli has been steadily increasing over the past several years. Despite this, Non-O157:H7 STEC is not considered an adulterant under current law in the U.S. That needs to change.
Non-O157:H7 STEC are also known to occur in imported beef from several trading partners, yet the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has not required that imported beef be free of these pathogens. The Agency has also failed to devise steps to measure and control the presence of these pathogens in domestic beef production and the ground beef supply, at the slaughterhouse or the grocery store.
In April 2007, Rick Perlstein penned a piece entitled “E. Coli Conservatism.” His bottom line was the “Conservatism has been killing Americans. The recent food safety crisis is only one case study.” Perhaps he is in part right. However, whatever the political reasons for the “food safety crisis,” it has been long in coming and the system needs to be fixed.
E. coli is a powerful and deadly bacterium. You cannot see it, taste it, or smell it. 250,000 E. coli bacteria will fit on the head of a pin. Ten to 50 will kill your child or your grandmother. Most likely due the expertise of Children’s Hospitals, and other top medical centers around the country, deaths at times are avoided, however, often not before Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) nearly kills. HUS, a complication from an E. coli infection, can cause severe damage to kidneys, intestines, liver and pancreas. Falling into a coma and suffering further from cognitive impairment are all too common.
I have seen the inside of too many of those Intensive Care Units with families who are scared senseless as they watch their child or mother shutdown. For 16 years, this has been my world. When I was an undergraduate, I read Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle. That book took the American public on a tour of the contaminated underbelly of the meat industry and they were sickened. It led to the Pure Food & Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act, versions of which are still in place today.
Until 1993, I thought—because of those laws—that the United States had a safe and secure food supply. But, then came the Jack-in-the-Box E. coli outbreak. It killed four, and sickened hundreds, including many who were gravely ill with HUS and related complications. Many of those victims became my clients. Once again, there was a public outcry for safe meat. The Food Safety & Inspection Service responded by creating and aggressively enforcing the Mandatory Risk Management System. Based on research and practices of the U.S. Space Program, the risk management system established checkpoints at every phase of meat processing.
Although, the presence of some E. coli in hamburger was defined as an adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, I continued to sue “Big Meat” as most of my clients up to 2002 were children who were made sick by eating E. coli contaminated meat. I recovered over $350 million during this period from the meat industry and the restaurants they supplied in verdicts and settlements on behalf of those clients. In 2003 recalls of meat laced with E. coli began to decline. After 24 million pounds of contaminated beef were recalled in 34 separate incidents in 2002, recalls dropped off to just over a million pounds a year for the next three years, and then to just 181,900 pounds in 2006. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention saw E. coli – related illnesses drop 48% between 2002 and 2006.
But then came Spring 2007. E. coli, which begins its life in the hindgut of a cow, mounted a surge on its home court. And, it came back with a vengeance. Forty-four million pounds of beef have been recalled in 25 incidents. All over the country, slaughterhouses, packing and distribution centers, retail outlets, and restaurants were once again testing positive for E. coli and people-mostly children-were getting seriously sick. The American meat supply, which had again been touted as safest in the world, tumbled back into disarray. But, why?
As with any unexplained mystery, theories abound. Could it really just be meat industry complacency? Did everyone respond to the good numbers in 2006 by taking a long nap? Did meat processors slack off—consciously or unconsciously—and relax their testing procedures? Did government regulators take a few years off?
Or could it be better reporting? Doctors are more aware of E. coli now, and perhaps when patients present symptoms of food poisoning; tests are more likely to be ordered. When the presence of E coli is found and reported, a recall is triggered.
There’s always global warming. Seriously though – very smart people have posited that droughts in the southeast and southwest have launched more fecal dust into the air, which then finds its way into beef slaughtering plants. It has also been suggested that the rainfall in other areas created muddy pens—an ideal environment for E. coli.
Why not blame high oil prices? High prices have fueled the growth of ethanol plants. These plants are often built next to feedlots, and a byproduct of the ethanol production process—distiller’s grains—is considered an excellent and cheap alternative to corn for cattle feed. Unfortunately, research associates the use of distiller’s grains as feed with an increase in the incidence of E. coli in the hindguts of cattle.
Another controversial issue may affect the meat supply. The New York Times reported that immigration officials began a crackdown at slaughterhouses across the country in the fall of 2006. Experienced—albeit undocumented—workers have been cleared out and replaced with unskilled, inexperienced labor.
And then there’s Darwin. Another theory holds that interventions have caused the wily E. coli microbes to adapt, selecting pathogens that are more resistant to detection or intervention. E. coli back in our meat cannot be tolerated. Summer has always been kind to the E. coli bug. More than 5.6 million pounds of E. coli contaminated beef has been recalled so far in 2008, most supplied by Nebraska Beef Ltd., via the Kroger Grocery chain. All of which was responsible for a multi-state outbreak of E. coli that again is filling up the ICU’s in Hospitals in the seven states.
What is being done? Honestly, not much. Congress has held some hearings, but the only new reform is that the names of retail stores that received meat and poultry involved in recalls with high health risk will be made public. Good as far as it goes.
However, despite 76,000,000 American’s being sickened, 325,000 hospitalized and 5,000 deaths each year, food safety did not make it as a Presidential campaign issue. Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have about run out its clock. But E. coli is back in our meat and we better care.
Solutions? Improve surveillance of bacterial and viral diseases. First responders - ER physicians and local doctors - need to be encouraged to test for pathogens and report findings directly to local and state health departments and the CDC promptly. Right now, for every person counted in an outbreak there are some 20 to 40 times those that are sick but never tested. The more we test, the quicker we know we have an outbreak and the quicker it can be stopped.
These same governmental departments, whether local, state or federal, need to learn to “play well together.” Turf battles need to take a back seat to stopping an outbreak and tracking it to its source. That means resources need to be provided and coordination encouraged so illnesses can be promptly stopped and the offending producer - not an entire industry - are brought to heal.
Require real training and certification of food handlers at restaurants and grocery stores. There also should be incentives for ill employees not to come to work when ill. We should impose fines and penalties on employers who do not cooperate.
Stiffen license requirements for large farm, retail and wholesale food outlets, so that nobody gets a license until they and their employees have shown they understand the hazards and how to avoid them.
Increase food inspections. While domestic production has continued to be a problem, imports pose an increasing risk, especially if terrorists were to get into the act. Points of export and entry are a logical place to step up monitoring. We need more inspectors - domestically and abroad - and we need to require that they receive the training in how to identify and control hazards.
Reorganize federal, state and local food safety agencies to increase cooperation and reduce wasteful overlap and conflicts. Reform federal, state and local agencies to make them more proactive, and less reactive. This too requires financial resources and accountability. We also need to modernize food safety statutes by replacing the existing collection of often conflicting laws and regulation with one uniform food safety law of the highest standard.
There are too few legal consequences for sickening or killing customers by selling contaminated food. We should impose stiff fines, and even prison sentences for violators, and even stiffer penalties for repeat violators.
We need to use our technology to make food more traceable so that when an outbreak occurs authorities can quickly identify the source and limit the spread of the contamination and stop the disruption to the economy. When I buy a book on line I can track it all the way to my mailbox. We must be able to do the same with our food.
Promote university research to develop better technologies to make food safe and for testing foods for contamination. Provide tax breaks for companies that push food safety interventions and employee training. Greatly expand irradiation of raw hamburger and other high-risk products.
Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness. Foster a popular campaign similar to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which uses consumer power to promote a no-tolerance policy toward growers and companies that produce tainted food.
The time has come to act and not continue simply to react. Consumers, Farmers, Suppliers, Manufacturers, Retailers, Regulators and Politicians need to work together to make our food supply safe, profitable and sustainable. When a quarter of our population is sickened yearly by contaminated food, when thousands die, we do not have the “safest food supply in the world. We should, must and can do better.
News outlets report that the toll of Chinese children ill from toxic milk formula may have nearly doubled since the Health Ministry's last public count. That number now may be over 94,000 children sickened. Beijing is now struggling with the political, business and moral fallout from the adulteration of milk with the industrial chemical melamine.
.jpg)
Like the alcoholic, China needs at least several of Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve-Step Program’s guiding principles for "recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems." Dr. Bob - one of AA’s co-founders - has characterized the process of twelve-step recovery as "trust God, clean house, help others".
OK, so God may not be a moving force in China, but it really is time to “clean house and help others.” As summarized by the American Psychological Association, and adapted by me, China’s process must involve at least the following:
* Admitting that the Chinese government cannot control its addiction or compulsion for money and power;
* Recognizing a greater power that can give strength – The Party leaders need to go back and read and understand Confucius, Mao and Sun Tzu;
* Examining past errors with the help of a sponsor - I’m available;
* Making amends for these errors – It is time to take care of the children that you have allowed to be poisoned;
* Learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior – it is time for a free press and a functioning civil legal system;
* Helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions – Every country can do better – China, that has developed so much over a proud history, can help us all. It just needs to first admit that it has a problem.
I am catching up on both sleep and US News reports. This morning I read the New York Times summary of the events so far in the Sanlu Fonterra Melamine Baby Formula Disaster – “Despite Warnings, China’s Regulators Failed to Stop Milk,” and the Washington Posts summary – “China's Tainted-Milk Crisis Grows Despite Official Claims.”
Since I left China, the recalls have mounted. Now, not only is powdered milk being recalled, but various other products, including White Rabbit candy, are being pulled from store shelves throughout the world. More than 50,000 children, most aged under three, have fallen ill after drinking China's top-selling infant formula, made by the Sanlu Group, a joint venture with New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra. At least four children have died and almost 13,000 are still in the hospital, at least 100 of them in critical condition from kidney failure. After spending a week in China, my guess is that those numbers are grossly under reported. Here are some more startling facts:
December 2007 - Sanlu Fonterra had first received complaints about its powdered baby formula.
March 2008 - Sanlu Fonterra had hired private companies to test its milk powder for contaminants. Sanlu Fonterra never issued any public warnings and never stopped promoting its products.
May 18 - After the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, the Sanlu Fonterra made a much-publicized donation of $1.25 million worth of baby formula for infants orphaned or displaced by the catastrophe.
June 30 - A mother in Hunan Province had written a detailed letter pleading for help from the food quality agency, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (organization that sponsored the Food Safety Conference I attended). The letter, posted on the agency’s Web site, described rising numbers of infants at a local children’s hospital who were suffering from kidney stones after drinking powdered formula made by Sanlu Fonterra. The watchdog agency's director, Li Changjiang, and several Communist Party officials in Hebei province, where Sanlu Fonterra is based, lost their jobs.
August 2 - Sanlu Fonterra officials informed the board about the melamine problem.
September - The New Zealand government, after discussions with Fonterra executives, contacted authorities in Beijing. Beijing officials say they knew nothing about the scandal until September, though a Fonterra company spokesman said the company believed the central government knew in August.
September 9 – Recall announced.
Chinese Premier Wen Jerboa (did not meet him while I was there, but I did tour the “Hall of the People.”) yesterday reassured the world that China was serious about bettering its food safety record:
"We plan not only to revitalize the food industry and the milk powder industry, we will try to ensure that all China-made products are safe for consumers and consumers can buy with assurance."
Empty words? Likely. Here are the real problem and until there are changes, “Made in China,” still will mean, “Buyer Beware."
A free press and the right to legal advice is a must to keep corporations like Sanlu Fonterra and the Chinese Government honest. Frankly, that is true whatever country you are in. The world's media and legal associations, especially in the US, need to speak out in support of our chinese collegues. Until there is a free press and a functioning legal system in China, expect to see more outbreaks, illnesses and cover-ups.
For a bit more information on the Chinese legal system (or lack thereof) see "What China's Tainted Milk May Not Bring - Lawsuits" and a very good early analysis in "China Says 432 Infants Have Kidney Stones From Sanlu Formula" of why the outbreak happened in the first place.
What if the great 2008 Tomato, right Pepper, Salmonella Outbreak actually happened this way?
At 10:00 PM last May 30th, on the same day New Mexico asked for help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) with a growing outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul, a foreign Network begin airing a video taken inside a fresh produce distribution center showing workers treating peppers with an unknown liquid. There is a claim that this is a terrorist act.
In the next 15 minutes, every network news operation is playing the video. The broadcast networks break into regular programming to air it, and the cable news stations go nonstop with the video while talking heads dissect it.
Coming on a Friday afternoon on the East Coast, the food terrorism story catches the mainstream Media completely off guard. Other than to say the video is being analyzed by CIA experts, and is presumed to be authentic, there isn’t much coming out of the government.
Far-fetched? Don’t count on it. I have been saying for years that a foodborne illness outbreak will look just like the terrorist act described above, but without the video on FOX News. Far-fetched?
Tell that to the 751 people in Wasco County, Oregon—including 45 who required hospital stays---who in 1984 ate at any one of ten salad bars in town and were poisoned with Salmonella by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The goal was to make people who were not followers of the cult too sick to vote in county elections.
Tell that to Chile, where in 1989, a shipment of grapes bound for the United States was found laced with cyanide, bringing trade suspension that cost the South American country $200 million. It was very much like a 1970s plot by Palestinian terrorists to inject Israel’s Jaffa oranges with mercury.
Tell that to the 111 people, including 40 children, sickened in May 2003 when a Michigan supermarket employee intentionally tainted 200 pounds of ground beef with an insecticide containing nicotine.
Tell that to Mr. Litvenenko, the Russian spy poisoned in the UK with polonium-laced food.
Tell that to Stanford University researchers who modeled a nightmare scenario where a mere 4 grams of botulinum toxin dropped into a milk production facility could cause serious illness and even death to 400,000 people in the United States.
The reason I bring this up is not only because we are about to mark the seventh anniversary of 9/11, but because I wonder if food terrorism really had been the cause of this year’s Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, would it have made any difference in our government’s ability to figure out there was an outbreak, to figure out the cause, and to stop it before it sickened so many.
Would the fact of terrorists operating from inside a fresh produce distribution center somewhere inside the United States or Mexico brought more or effective resources to the search for the source of the Salmonella Saintpaul? If credit-taking terrorists were putting poison on our peppers, could we be certain Uncle Sam’s response would have been more robust or effective then if it was just a “regular” food illness outbreak?
After 9/11, Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said: “Public health is a national security issue. It must be treated as such. Therefore, we must not only make sure we can respond to a crisis, but we must make sure that we are secure in defending our stockpiles, our institutions and our products.”
Before Thompson’s early exit from the Bush Administration, he did get published the “Risk Assessment for Food Terrorism and Other Food Safety Concerns.” That document, now 5-years old, let the American public know that there is a “high likelihood” of food terrorism. It said the “possible agents for food terrorism” are:
• Biological and chemical agents
• Naturally occurring, antibiotic-resistant, and genetically engineered substances
• Deadly agents and those tending to cause gastrointestinal discomfort
• Highly infectious agents and those that are not communicable
• Substances readily available to any individual and those more difficult to acquire, and
• Agents that must be weaponized and those accessible in a use able form.
After 9/11, Secretary Thompson said more inspectors and more traceability are keys to our food defense and safety. To date, we’ve made no movement to ensure this.
So would the fact of a terrorist group operating from a produce distribution center inside the United States or Mexico have brought more or effective resources to the search for the source of Salmonella Saintpaul? If credit-taking terrorists were putting poison on our peppers, could we be certain that Uncle Sam’s response would be more robust, more effective than if it was just a “regular” food illness outbreak?
Absolutely not! The CDC publicly admits that it manages to count and track only one of every forty foodborne illness victims, and that its inspectors miss key evidence as outbreaks begin. The FDA is on record as referring to themselves as overburdened, underfunded, understaffed, and in possession of no real power to make a difference during recalls, because even Class 1 recalls are “voluntary.” If you are a food manufacturer, packer, or distributor, you are more likely to be hit by lightening than be inspected by the FDA. You are perfectly free to continue to sell and distribute your poisoned product, whether it has been poisoned accidentally or intentionally.
The reality is that the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak is a brutal object lesson in the significant gaps in our ability to track and protect our food supply. We are ill prepared for a crisis, regardless of who poisons us.
Somewhere between the farm and your table, our Uncle Sam got lost.
Guest Blog by Denis W. Stearns:
On October 3, 2002 I submitted a petition to the USDA in which I asked the agency to explicitly clarify whether a USDA policy that appeared to allow the deadly pathogen E. coli O157:H7 on so-called “intact meat” applied to meat sold to retail outlets like grocery stores and restaurants. Even now it is a near-universal practice for retail outlets to use this meat—commonly called “boxed beef” because the cuts of meat are individually shrink-wrapped and then boxed—to make ground beef. Sometimes the meat is directly used to make ground beef, and sometimes only trimmings are used—that is, the pieces left over after roasts and steak are cut and trimmed. Either way, there has never been any doubt that tens of thousands of grocery stores and restaurants use tons of intact meat every day to make ground beef. To my mind it makes absolutely no sense that the USDA would allow meat companies to sell intact meat contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Why allow a loophole so large that it essentially moots USDA policy on this deadly pathogen?
Interestingly, the USDA responded to my petition with a letter from Philip Derfler, Deputy Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service. In the letter, Mr. Derfler acknowledged that USDA policy was unclear, and stated that my petition would be treated as a public comment and referred to the Regulations and Directives Development Staff. That was six years ago, and USDA policy is less clear today than it was back then, and just as indefensible.
We are now in the midst of yet another outbreak of heartbreaking illnesses and likely deaths caused by contaminated meat that the beef industry claims the USDA authorizes it to sell. This claim is hardly new either. In 2004, the American Meat Institute and other meat industry trade groups fought all the way to the United States Supreme Court trying to overturn a Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision. The decision held that USDA policy on intact meat did not immunize meat companies from lawsuits based on allegations that E. coli-contaminated meat was unreasonably dangerous as a matter of state law. In other words, the meat industry was fighting for the right to sell E. coli-contaminated meat, claiming that USDA policy said that it could. It lost, but that did not prompt the USDA to change or clarify its policy.
Putting legal arguments aside, common sense alone clearly demonstrates why an exception for intact meat makes no sense. While the meat industry can cleverly argue that its intact meat is not intended for ground beef, and that cooking always makes it safe, neither statement is true. As the recent Nebraska Beef outbreaks make tragically clear, most intact meat does not reach consumers still intact. Furthermore, if each shrink-wrapped cut of meat had “DO NOT USE FOR GROUND BEEF; E. COLI O157:H7 PRESENT” printed in bold letters on it, there is not a grocery store in the country that would buy it. Indeed, commenting on the current outbreak, a representative of Whole Foods explained that it was using intact meat to make its own ground beef “in an attempt to assure quality and safety.” I guess the joke was on them then.
The current USDA policy on E. coli and intact meat is indefensible because it protects the interests of the meat industry instead of the public health. A policy that is based on the demonstrably false assumption that intact meat is not being used to make ground beef at a retail level is a policy that has no basis in fact or reason. It also entirely ignores the incredible risk of cross-contamination, which is what caused the 2000 outbreak at a Milwaukee-area Sizzler restaurant that killed one child and sickened scores of others. The Sizzler outbreak also recently resulted in a $7.1 million verdict against the same meat company that fought to the Supreme Court (with industry trade groups) for the right to sell the deadly stuff. Meanwhile, all these years later, the USDA says it is continuing to consider its options. Well, I have a suggestion: How about putting the interests of the public first for a change and sticking to a real zero-tolerance policy for this deadly pathogen?
In just a year and a half, the American meat industry has experienced a whiplash of beef recalls. 40 million pounds of meat tainted with highly toxic E. coli O157:H7 has been publicly recalled, up by a staggering factor of two hundred from the 2006 amount of only 181,900 pounds.
“This is beyond the ‘wheels coming off’ of the meat supply system,” said food borne illness attorney William Marler. “It’s the entire train in a tangled heap. And the people caught in the train wreck are you and me and all of our neighbors. When reports say that there is a one in 400 chance that the package of ground beef you pick up at the supermarket will be tainted with a lethal bacterium, the food safety system is no longer functioning, and immediate, radical steps must be taken.”
In more than thirty recalls ranging from a few hundred to millions of pounds, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has deemed E. coli contaminated meat a class I (one) health hazard to consumers. (A class I recall involves a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death.)
“There are many theories as to why there has been such an unprecedented jump in E. coli,” said Marler. “It could be regulatory complacency, better reporting, or immigration sweeps that have left slaughterhouses empty of skilled workers. Global warming may be spreading fecal dust. High oil prices may have led to an E. coli-producing diet for cattle. The microbe itself may even be evolving to elude capture. Another possibility is that the higher costs of slaughterhouse inputs (beef cattle) have collided with retailer’s low price pressures on outputs (hamburger) from those same slaughterhouses. These ideas need investigation and research, so that real change can begin.”
To advance that change, Marler reached out to the food safety community and asked for ideas from experts, scientists, regulators, and food agency brass. He distilled the volumes of submitted suggestions into ten action items:
1. Improve surveillance and reporting of bacterial and viral diseases.
2. Require real training and certification of food handlers at restaurants and grocery stores.
3. Stiffen license requirements for large farm, retail, and wholesale food outlets.
4. Increase food inspections.
5. Reorganize federal, state, and local food safety agencies to increase cooperation and reduce wasteful overlap and conflicts.
6. Establish tax credits for companies with good food safety records, and greater legal consequences for sickening or killing customers with tainted food.
7. Use our technology to make food more traceable
8. Promote university research
9. Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness
10. Provide Presidential leadership on a topic that impacts every single one of us.
“There are a lot of very smart, very dedicated professionals in the food safety community,” Marler concluded. “They have spent their careers working toward a better food supply, and that collective knowledge is available to design and implement change. We need our leaders to get on board, and get the food safety train back on track.”
Here is a letter that I sent to all members of the US Senate and House Agriculture Committees
RE: Food Safety in the United States
Dear U.S. Congress Member:
I am writing to you because the American people are losing confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to keep our food supply safe.
As you know, there is presently an outbreak of a Salmonella strain known as Saintpaul that has made more than 1,250 people sick in forty-three states, put 228 in hospitals, and contributed to the deaths of two elderly men. It is the largest fresh produce outbreak in two decades. The source of the outbreak remains, in part, a mystery. A two-month-long federal investigation has been able to tell us only that jalapeño peppers (and possibly tomatoes and cilantro) are causing part of the outbreak.
However, the present multi-state E. coli O157:H7 outbreak is even more dangerous and demands the Agriculture Committee’s full attention. Omaha’s Nebraska Beef Ltd. has spread E. coli contaminated beef across the country to its various suppliers, all under the guise that existing USDA policy supposedly states that it is all right to sell tainted meat as long as it was ‘intact’ when it left the plant. So far, there are nearly sixty ill in Michigan, Utah, Georgia, New York, Indiana and Ohio. Some women in Georgia and Michigan have been in the hospital for over a month. 5.3 million pounds of meat has been recalled.
From 2003 until 2007, E. coli illnesses from fresh produce - spinach, lettuce, and sprouts - dominated my practice. After ConAgra recalled 19.3 million pounds of hamburger in 2002, I thought that E. coli in beef had been brought under control. In 2006, federal recalls involved just 181,000 pounds of meat, down from 23 million pounds in 2002. However, since the spring of 2007, we’ve seen an explosion of nearly 40 million pounds of beef recalled because it was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. That’s nearly twenty thousand tons. Hundreds have been sickened and I am back in the beef business.
I fear we are at a tipping point. If this situation is allowed to further deteriorate, the public harm is going to be immeasurable – both in terms of lives damaged and businesses lost.
After the 1993 Jack-in-the-Box outbreak that killed four children and sickened nearly 700 in several states, the Food Safety & Inspection Service responded by creating and aggressively enforcing the Mandatory Risk Management System. Based on the research and practices of the U. S. space program, the new risk management system established check points at every phase of meat processing. And more importantly, the presence of E. coli was defined as an adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act. It took years for those changes to be adopted and accepted, but progress - significant progress - was made. Until the spring of 2007, E. coli-related illnesses were falling and recalls became a rarity.
We need immediate and aggressive Congressional oversight and support of the Food Safety & Inspection Service of USDA, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control. Here are my suggestions for where Congress should focus its efforts:
Improve disease-surveillance so that we can better identify and trace what foods are making people sick. The frontlines of the medical community need to be encouraged to routinely test for foodborne pathogens and promptly report findings to local and state health departments and the CDC.
Government agencies, at all levels, need to learn to “play well together.” Turf battles like those we see between state health departments and the USDA need to stop so we can track illness to its source. Without effective traceback, companies are not held responsible, and thus have no incentive to stop selling tainted food.
Increase inspections. While domestic production remains a problem, imports pose an increasing risk, especially if terrorists get into the act. Food must be inspected before it enters our country, and we need more inspectors, better technology, and better training to do this effectively.
Reform federal, state and local agencies to be more proactive, and less reactive. This will require agencies to be properly funded, and also held accountable.
Modernize food safety statutes by replacing the present conflicting laws and regulations with one uniform food safety law that puts public safety first.
Increase legal consequences for causing foodborne illness and death. We don’t need to impose the death penalty, as China did recently. But we should impose serious consequences for companies who don’t do enough to keep their products safe, especially if they are repeat-offenders.
Use advanced technology to make food traceable from farm-to-table. Then, when an outbreak occurs, authorities can quickly identify the source, limit the numbers of people injured or killed, and stop the disruption to our economy.
Promote university research to develop better technologies to make food safe, and for testing foods for contamination.
Provide economic incentives, like tax breaks, to companies that push food safety, and invest in research and training.
Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness.
I hope that you will act upon these recommendations. The 76 million Americans who suffer from food-borne illnesses annually—including 325,000 who require hospitalization, and the families of the 5,000 who die—would all be grateful.
Sincerely,
William D. Marler
Food safety advocate and attorney William Marler is calling on the Meat Industry and the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) to make the inspection reports from meat processing facilities visible and easily available to the public so that consumers—in including grocery stores and restaurants—can make informed choices on which products they want to purchase.
.jpg)
“During the last decade, the number of city and state health departments that post restaurant inspection results online has increased significantly, said Marler from his office in Seattle. “Moreover, in places like Los Angeles County, all restaurants regularly receive either a letter-grade or inspection-score, and these must be prominently posted near the entrance to the restaurant. The primary goal of these efforts is to motivate restaurants to improve sanitation and food-handling practices so that fewer people get sick. The more customers know about the relative safety of a restaurant’s operation, the better informed their choice to dine at a given place can be. When faced with a choice between dining at a restaurant that received a C-grade versus an A-grade, it is pretty much a no-brainer that people are going to be more inclined to spend money at a restaurant with a higher grade!
“But if making this kind of information easily available online is such a no-brainer, why then does the FSIS make it so difficult for the public to find out the results of thousands of inspections it performs everyday in meat plants across the country? In 2005, FSIS employed over 7,600 inspection program personnel in about 6,000 federally inspected establishments nationwide with an annual cost of $815.1 million. That is a lot of money to spend on inspections given that the public does not currently have any way by which to gain easy and timely access.
“Right now, for all meat products made in a USDA-inspected plant, the plant’s establishment number must appear on the label with the mark of inspection. But if a consumer trying to decide what brand of frozen hamburgers to buy wants to compare one plant’s inspection records with another, the only way copies of the inspection reports (called Noncompliance Records, or NR’s) can be obtained is by making a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (Here are some examples). These FOIA requests can, however, take years to be processed. And so usually it is only after there has been a big outbreak and recall—like the recent ones involving Topps or Nebraska Beef—that the public learns about how many times a plant has failed an inspection, or been found to be in violation of safety regulations.
“Consumers should know the record of the company responsible for any meat they purchase,” sums up Marler. “We’ve paid for the inspections—we’re owed that much, at least.”
Over the last few days I have had several interviews with the media - here are a few:
Food Litigation Lawyer Bill Marler Is Careful about What He Eats News
“It is only companies that don’t stay focused on food safety, that I get repeat business from.”
More suits to come
“It’s frustrating to me to be getting all of this business,” Marler said. “We thought we were out of the E. coli business in 2002. Congress needs to get into the middle of this.”
It is time politicians take notice – a recent poll found:
.gif)
Well at least “The Haphazard Gourmet Girls” are paying attention: "Bill Marler: The Avenging Angel Of The Chowpocalypse:"
Once again, Bill Marler, the leading genius watchdog of the Food Industrial Complex and an incredibly even-handed analyst, parses the where, how & why of contamination outbreaks with an excellent summation of E. coli issues.
And, the “Food Law Guy:” Improving Food Safety: Insights from Intensive Care
Paraphrasing Tom Sawyer, a person who takes a bull by the tail once, learns sixty or seventy times more than a person who hasn’t. Perhaps no one has seen the inside of as many intensive care units for foodborne illness as Bill Marler. Gain some of Marler’s insight on improving food safety by reading his latest commentary, “E. coli O157:H7 is a powerful and deadly bacterium.”
“You cannot see it, taste it, or smell it. 250,000 E. coli O157:H7 (E. coli) bacteria will fit on the head of a pin. Ten to 50 will kill your child or your grandmother."
.jpg)
And, the “Food Snark:” Bill Marler, Food Czar, Cries Out (Again)
Some lawyers want better BMWs, food poisoning lawyer Bill Marler wants to see fewer kids die from E. coli O157:H7. He does everything he can to raise awareness of the powerful deadly bacteria in hope to see fewer kids lose their kidneys, even when that means driving around in an ugly VW bug with ECOLI on his license plates and taking shit from Tort Deformists who have dubbed him an ambulance chaser.
I’ve called Bill Marler “Batman” for a while now, partially because he could use a bat-plane for all the traveling he does, but also because he truly is a superhero to the children whose lives would be lost without him. However, I think it’s about time to upgrade him to Food Czar, because he’s already king of the industry, and he’d look good in a crown.
Honestly, Bill Marler is the only lawyer I know who works so hard every day to try to put himself out of business.
.jpg)
And, Jane Genova of “Law and More:”
... I don't hear a peep from presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain about making sure what children wind up putting in their mouths is safe - whether that's food, milk, or a toy imported from China. Is it true, as the article in FORTUNE by Marc Gunther claims, that government is increasingly less in the loop on consumer safety issues? Replacing it, documents Gunther, are the new watchdogs: Industry, plaintiff lawyers, and citizen activists....
I envision a cabinet-level position. We can call its head The Food Safety Czar. Right now the best-qualified pro in that field seems to be Bill Marler of Marler Clark. Google his name and you'll see what I mean. Or you can read some of the testimony he delivered on Capitol Hill - Download Testimony here.
And, the Food Law Prof Blog, “Food Czar Bill Marler on E. coli and Food Safety”
And, the Fanatic Cook, "For His Work In Food Safety, Bill Marler Deserves A Spot In The Next Administration"
There are times when a man would do well to win a certain job. And there are times when a job would do well to win a certain man.
The job of Food Safety Czar in this country would do well to win Bill Marler.
This country does not currently have a Food Safety Czar. It needs one. Someone to cut through the muck that swaddles numerous, discrete food-related government agencies. Someone with a history of going to bat for consumers, a successful history. Someone with a tireless passion for this work.
To the next President: If you intend to make food safety a priority, you'll want Bill Marler in your cabinet.
Efoodalert weighs in: I propose that the next President form an independent Food Safety Commission. The Commission should be non-political (as opposed to by-partisan), and should receive testimony, briefs and proposals from industry, academia, consumers and regulators. The mandate should include:
1. Determine a current estimate of food-borne disease in the United States;
2. Recommend improvements to the current methods for reporting illnesses and detecting incipient outbreaks;
3. Review the present US food safety regulatory structure and compare its effectiveness with food safety regulatory structures adopted by other countries; and
4. Propose a new US food safety regulatory structure designed to respond more effectively to the current state of the US domestic and imported food supply.
It is vital that such a Commission be headed by an individual who does not owe loyalty to industry, regulators, or lobbying organizations. An individual who has no political axe to grind. An individual whose primary goal is to do whatever it takes to improve the safety of the country's food supply.
Bill Marler, are you listening?
Loud and clear.
.jpg)
You cannot see it, taste it, or smell it. 250,000 E. coli O157:H7 (E. coli) bacteria will fit on the head of a pin. Ten to 50 will kill your child or your grandmother.
More likely due the expertise of Children’s Hospitals, and other top medical centers around the country, deaths at times are avoided, however, often not before Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) nearly kills. HUS, a complication from an E. coli infection, can cause severe damage to kidneys, intestines, and pancreas. Falling into a coma and suffering further from cognitive impairment are all too common.
I’ve seen the inside of too many of those Intensive Care Units with families who are scared senseless as they watch their children or mother shutdown. For 15 years, this has been my world. When I was an undergraduate, I read Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle. That book took the American public on a tour of the contaminated underbelly of the meat industry and they were sickened. It led to the Pure Food & Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act, versions of which are still in place today.
Until 1993, I thought—because of those laws—that the United States had a safe and secure food supply. But, then came the Jack-in-the-Box E. coli outbreak. It killed four, and sickened hundreds, including many who were gravely ill with HUS and related complications. Many of those victims became my clients.
Once again, there was a public outcry for safe meat. The Food Safety & Inspection Service responded by creating and aggressively enforcing the Mandatory Risk Management System. Based on research and practices of the U.S. Space Program, the risk management system established checkpoints at every phase of meat processing.
The presence of E. coli was defined as an adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act. I continued to sue “Big Meat” as most of my clients up to 2002 were children who were made sick by eating E. coli contaminated meat. I recovered over $350 million during this period from the meat industry and the restaurants they supplied in verdicts and settlements on behalf of those clients. In 2003 recalls of meat laced with E. coli began to decline. After 24 million pounds of contaminated beef were recalled in 34 separate incidents in 2002, recalls dropped off to just over a million pounds a year for the next three years, and then to just 181,900 pounds in 2006. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention saw E. coli – related illnesses drop 48%.
But then came Spring 2007. E. coli, which begins its life in the hindgut of a cow, mounted a surge on its home court. And, it came back with a vengeance. Thirty-three million pounds of beef would be recalled in 22 incidents. All over the country, slaughterhouses, packing and distribution centers, retail outlets, and restaurants were once again testing positive for E. coli and people-mostly children-were getting seriously sick.
The American meat supply, which had again been touted as safest in the world, tumbled back into disarray. But, why?
As with any unexplained mystery, theories abound. Could it really just be meat industry complacency? Did everyone respond to the good numbers in 2006 by taking a long nap? Did meat processors slack off—consciously or unconsciously—and relax their testing procedures?
Or could it be better reporting? Doctors are more aware of E. coli now, and perhaps when patients present symptoms of food poisoning; tests are more likely to be ordered. When the presence of E coli is found and reported, a recall is triggered.
There’s always global warming. Seriously though – very smart people have posited that droughts in the southeast and southwest have launched more fecal dust into the air, which then finds its way into beef slaughtering plants. It has also been suggested that the deluging rainfall in other areas created muddy pens—an ideal environment for E. coli.
While we’re at it, why not blame high oil prices? High gas prices have fueled (sorry) the growth of ethanol plants. These plants are often built next to feedlots, and a byproduct of the ethanol production process—distiller’s grains—is considered an excellent (and cheap) alternative to corn for cattle feed. Unfortunately, research at Kansas State University associates the use of distiller’s grains as feed with an increase in the incidence of E. coli in the hindguts of cattle.
Another controversial issue may affect the meat supply. The New York Times reported that immigration officials began a crackdown at slaughterhouses across the country in the fall of 2006. Experienced—albeit undocumented—workers have been cleared out and replaced with unskilled, inexperienced labor.
And then there’s Darwin. Another theory holds that interventions have caused the wily E. coli microbes to adapt, selecting pathogens that are more resistant to detection or intervention. E. coli back in our meat cannot be tolerated. We’ve got a lot of summer of 2008 left. Summer has always been kind to the E. coli bug. More than 5.6 million pounds of E. coli contaminated beef has been recalled so far in 2008, most supplied by Nebraska Beef Ltd., via the Kroger Grocery chain. All of which is responsible for a multi-state outbreak of E. coli that again is filling up the ICU’s in Hospitals in the seven states.
What is being done? Not much.
Congress has held some hearings, but the only new reform is that the names of retail stores that received meat and poultry involved in recalls with high health risk will be made public. Good as far as it goes.
However, despite 76,000,000 American’s being sickened, 325,000 hospitalized and 5,000 deaths each year, food safety has not made it as a Presidential campaign issue. Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have about run out its clock. But E. coli is back in our meat and we better care.
Solutions?
Might I suggest:
* Improve surveillance of bacterial and viral diseases. First responders - ER physicians and local doctors - need to be encouraged to test for pathogens and report findings directly to local and state health departments and the CDC promptly. Right now, for every person counted in an outbreak there are some 20 to 40 times those that are sick but never tested. The more we test, the quicker we know we have an outbreak and the quicker it can be stopped.
* These same governmental departments, whether local, state or federal, need to learn to “play well together.” Turf battles need to take a back seat to stopping an outbreak and tracking it to its source. That means resources need to be provided and coordination encouraged so illnesses can be promptly stopped and the offending producer - not an entire industry - are brought to heal.
* Require real training and certification of food handlers at restaurants and grocery stores. There also should be incentives for ill employees not to come to work when ill. We should impose fines and penalties on employers who do not cooperate.
* Stiffen license requirements for large farm, retail and wholesale food outlets, so that nobody gets a license until they and their employees have shown they understand the hazards and how to avoid them.
* Increase food inspections. While domestic production has continued to be a problem, imports pose an increasing risk, especially if terrorists were to get into the act. Points of export and entry are a logical place to step up monitoring. We need more inspectors - domestically and abroad - and we need to require that they receive the training in how to identify and control hazards.
* Reorganize federal, state and local food safety agencies to increase cooperation and reduce wasteful overlap and conflicts. Reform federal, state and local agencies to make them more proactive, and less reactive. This too requires financial resources and accountability. We also need to modernize food safety statutes by replacing the existing collection of often conflicting laws and regulation with one uniform food safety law of the highest standard.
* There are too few legal consequences for sickening or killing customers by selling contaminated food. We should impose stiff fines, and even prison sentences for violators, and even stiffer penalties for repeat violators.
* We need to use our technology to make food more traceable so that when an outbreak occurs authorities can quickly identify the source and limit the spread of the contamination and stop the disruption to the economy. When I buy a book on line I can track it all the way to my mailbox. However, we have yet to find the source of a tomato (or salsa) outbreak after months of sickening hundreds.
* Promote university research to develop better technologies to make food safe and for testing foods for contamination. Provide tax breaks for companies that push food safety research and employee training. Greatly expand irradiation of raw hamburger and other high-risk products.
* Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness. Foster a popular campaign similar to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which uses consumer power to promote a no-tolerance policy toward growers and companies that produce tainted food.
* Provide Presidential leadership on a topic that impacts every single one of us.
September was “Food Safety Month.” During September and the ensuing two months there have been at least four reported bacterial outbreaks tied to produce. The bacteria have been the deadly E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. The produce: spinach, tomatoes and now green onions. First it was announced that over 200 people were sickened, many with acute kidney failure, and four people died after eating Dole spinach grown in the Salinas Valley. Then the announcements came that not one, but two Salmonella outbreaks had been traced to contaminated tomatoes grown in the Southeast and served in restaurants, sickening nearly 400.
As if the events of the last three months were not enough to warrant action, it must be recognized that the produce and restaurant industries have had plenty of notice of continuing problems through a sad litany of similar outbreaks. In 2000, Taco Bell food was again to blame for a hepatitis A outbreak involving green onions. In 2003, green onions were yet again implicated in a Pennsylvania outbreak that left over 600 sick with hepatitis A, causing at least four deaths and one liver transplant. In 2004, salmonella-tainted tomatoes, again grown in the Southeast, sickened 450 people who had eaten at convenience stores in the Northeast. And in 2005, Dole lettuce caused dozens more E. coli illnesses, including one young girl who suffered acute kidney failure. The 2005 Dole outbreak was the nineteenth E. coli O157:H7 outbreak tied to spinach or lettuce since 1995. In those previous outbreaks, nearly 500 were sickened and two elderly women died.
One would think that with thousands of Americans poisoned by produce, hundreds hospitalized, many with severe, life-long complications or deaths, that Congress would have asked growers, producers, manufacturers, restaurants, grocers, and consumers to the table to talk about these ongoing outbreaks and how to prevent them in the future. But, Congress has been all too absent, all too willing to sit by and watch consumers become sickened or die from eating produce. Perhaps even more surprising is that Congress has not helped the multi-million and billion dollar corporate growers, producers, manufacturers, restaurants and grocers, help themselves by enacting food safety rules to avoid poisoned produce and sick customers in the future.
Congress needs to act now. What needs to be discussed:
- A thorough, scientifically-based discussion on how these recent outbreaks actually happened and what can be done to prevent or limit the next one.
- Increased funding for university-based research, health department epidemiological surveillance, and prevention of bacterial and viral contamination.
- Consideration of pre-consumption bacterial and viral testing of raw food products, especially those where no “kill step” is expected.
- A discussion of making mandatory good agricultural and food handling practices.
- A review of the proposal to create a single federal agency charged with ensuring the nation’s food safety, whether the food is grown within the United States or in foreign countries.
It is time for Congress to accept a leadership role and call hearings, not only to explore the reasons for the past months’ outbreaks, but also to help prevent the next one. Congress must reach out to all facets of the produce industry, from “farm to fork,” to consumers who bear the burden of illnesses, and to academics and regulators to find reasonable, workable solutions to prevent produce-related illnesses. More regulation may not help. Testing all products may not be feasible. More funding for enforcement for the FDA, CDC and USDA may not work. And, more funding for university research may also not be the answer. However, getting all to the same table is a start. Congress, you need to do the inviting.
Bill Marler is managing partner at the Marler Clark law firm in Seattle.
Enter keywords:
Botulism BlogCampylobacter BlogCryptosporidium BlogCyclospora BlogE. coli BlogEnterobacter Sakazakii BlogFood Poison BlogHepatitis A BlogListeria BlogMad Cow BlogNorovirus BlogSalmonella BlogShigella Blog
