I got this email this morning – she was commenting on my post over the weekend about putting me out of the beef business:
Good Morning! Hi I am DK, again Thank-You for this long, sad, but truly brilliant blog! As I have written before. I was one of the Jack-in- Box E-Coli victims
I am sitting in my office in Seattle watching the snowfall on this St. Patrick’s Day while working on one of the latest food disasters – Listeria in cantaloupe. I was reminded by the staff at Food Safety News that my “Publisher’s Platform” was due. After spending most of my day reading about the horrible
Thanks to Bettina Siegel, whose blog “The Lunch Tray,” and her online petition on Change.org asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to “put an immediate end to the use of “pink slime” in our children’s school food,” she has now, according to breaking AP news, forced the U.S. Department of Agriculture to offer schools choice in
BPI (without asking) has put out a quote of mine (from a newspaper months ago on a diferent topic):
“BPI has demonstrated a commitment to food safety. I see it as a big step in the right direction.”
I admit, I said it. I said it, however, in the context of BPI’s move to test
The GAO – U.S. Government Accountability Office, an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress, released a report (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-257) this week that calls into question what the USDA/FSIS is doing (not doing) presently to reduce the risk of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in cattle.
The report suggested a number of pre-slaughter interventions
By Blisstree’s Hanna Brooks Olsen:
Based on the cases he’s tried and the amount of blogging he’s done on the subject, it’s amazing that Seattle-based food safety lawyer Bill Marler can eat anything he hasn’t grown or raised himself. But instead of being repulsed by the sheer volume of recalls and outbreaks, the prominent attorney, who was an integral part of the Jack-in-the-Box E. case Coli in 1993, has decided to take the challenge and become one of the most outspoken advocates for consumer protection and food safety in the U.S.
“I spend more than 50% of more of my time giving lectures on food safety topics, testifying before Congress, working on the Food Safety Modernization Act…I probably spend way too much time blogging about food safety,” he says.
It’s unfortunate but true that when it comes to food safety, things usually have to get bad before they get better. Someone has to get sick (or even die) before measures like the Food Safety Modernization Act get passed–which means that someone has to be there to advocate on their behalf. A lot of the time, that person is Marler.
I asked him about sprouts (which Jimmy John’s recently discontinued from all stores due to health concerns), raw milk (which is a polarizing issue, and a microcosm for a lot of bigger “big-government” issues), and why “local” sometimes gives consumers a false sense of security.Continue Reading Food Safety Lawyer Bill Marler On Sprouts, Raw Milk, and Why “Local” Isn’t Always Safer
Over the weekend I penned for Food Safety News, “Excluding Consumers a Bad Idea.” It was based upon reports that the cantaloupe industry was planning a series of meeting across the United States to develop a “new cantaloupe guidance document.” The report also made it clear that the public was not welcome:
The meetings
Special Concerns of the Elderly
The occurrence of bacterial infection is a function of several major variables: (1) the virulence of the bacterial pathogen, that is, its ability to cause severe disease; (2) how the pathogen is transmitted to the “host”—for example, whether it is airborne, foodborne, blood borne, etc.; and (3) host susceptibility—i.e. how
Each of the above died because they ate a listeria-tainted cantaloupe in the United States of America in 2011. And, these are only my clients, not all of the 36 who died.
To the growers, shippers, brokers, auditors and retailers who supplied those cantaloupes in the summer of 2001, shame on you. You will have
We the undersigned are writing to offer another perspective on Michael Taylor, the deputy commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration, and the subject of a petition that SignOn.org, which is sponsored by MoveOn.org, is circulating on the Internet. The petition attacks Taylor based on his former employment at the controversial agricultural biotechnology
