Stacy Finz of the San Francisco Chronicle weighed in on FSMA:
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed wide-ranging rules to prevent the spread of food-borne illnesses like the 2006 E. coli outbreak caused by contaminated California spinach that killed at least three people and sickened as many as 205.
My Take – Enormous impact:
“These rules are amplification of what has been talked about since the mid-’90s,” said William Marler, a leading lawyer on food-borne illnesses who represented 105 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Dole, Mission Organics and Natural Selection Food in the 2006 E. coli case, which was settled for tens of millions of dollars.
“They’re going to have an enormous and positive impact on the leafy green and fruit and vegetable industry in which California is a world leader,” he said. “It should in the long run not only be good for the consumer, but for the industry. When one of these big outbreaks happens, it costs hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits, lost business and bad publicity.”
Here also is the perspective of some whom were injured or died from eating spinach:
On A Day That Others Are Walking the Halls of Congress for Food Safety, Ruby is There in Spirit.
E. coli O157:H7, Spinach and Children Do Not Mix – Well
Another E. coli O157:H7 Death Caused by Tainted Spinach
Yet Another Reason E. coli O157:H7 Has No Place in Our Food
Another E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak and Even More Victims
E. coli O157:H7 Impacts Your Friends, Neighbors, the Young and Old