Meatingplace – where all information about Food Safety and Inspection Service seems to be leaked, reported this evening that Food Safety and Inspection Service Administrator (FSIS) Al Almanza was named deputy under secretary for food safety.

According to Meatingplace , Almanza, a 36-year FSIS veteran, will work alongside Brian Ronholm, who will also have the title of deputy undersecretary (a.k.a. – a “twofer”).  Ronholm has been serving as the acting undersecretary since Elisabeth Hagen left the post in December 2013. The undersecretary office remains vacant – well, sort of.

Meatingplace reported that sources said Almanza had been considered for the top job but had to withdraw his name in exchange for finalizing new poultry inspection rules.

An email forwarded to Meatingplace and apparently authored by Almanza addressing colleagues also states, “… I have been named by the Secretary as Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety.

Also tonight – it seems they have their work cut out for them:

Caviness Beef Packers, a Hereford, Texas establishment, is recalling approximately 23,100 pounds of Beef Trimmings products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The Beef Trimmings products were produced on August 14, 2014 and August 20, 2014. The following products are subject to recall:

Combo bins containing “Beef Trimmings, BNLS, 90 L”
Combo bins containing “Beef Trimmings, BNLS, 84 L”

The products subject to recall bear the establishment number “EST. 675” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These products were sent to establishments for further processing and will likely not bear the establishment number “EST. 675” on products available for direct consumer purchase. These products were shipped to fast food restaurants and retail distribution locations in Texas.

The problem was discovered during a food safety assessment. The products subject to recall are lots that tested negative, however were produced consecutive to the positive lots and were subsequently processed into raw ground products and distributed to retailers.

E. coli O157:H7 is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause dehydration, bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps 2–8 days (3–4 days, on average) after exposure the organism. While most people recover within a week, some develop a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). This condition can occur among persons of any age but is most common in children under 5-years old and older adults. It is marked by easy bruising, pallor, and decreased urine output. Persons who experience these symptoms should seek emergency medical care immediately.

FSIS and the company are concerned that some product may be frozen and in consumers’ freezers.

Foster Farms, a Farmerville, La., establishment, is recalling approximately 39,747  pounds of frozen pre-cooked chicken products due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The frozen Chicken Breast Grilled Strips product was produced on August 5, 2014, and then shipped to retail warehouse locations in California, Texas, Utah, and Washington state. The following product is subject to recall:

  • 3.5-lb. Plastic resealable bags containing frozen “Chicken Breast Grilled Strips.”

The affected product packaging will bear the establishment number “P-33901” as well as a Best by Date of 08-05-15.

The problem was discovered during the company’s routine in-plant inspection.  While some of the product was set aside and held, the product subject to this recall was inadvertently shipped.  FSIS and the company have received no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of these products.

Consumption of food contaminated with L. monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects older adults, persons with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women and their newborns. Less commonly, persons outside these risk groups are affected.

Listeriosis can cause fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms. An invasive infection spreads beyond the gastrointestinal tract. In pregnant women, the infection can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn. In addition, serious and sometimes fatal infections in older adults and persons with weakened immune systems. Listeriosis is treated with antibiotics. Persons in the higher-risk categories who experience flu-like symptoms within two months after eating contaminated food should seek medical care and tell the health care provider about eating the contaminated food.

The Durand School District reported today that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene have confirmed that the outbreak of gastrointestinal illness occurring in Pepin County, Wisconsin, was caused by Campylobacter. To date, Campylobacter has been detected in specimens from 9 ill individuals. Not all of the ill individuals were tested. Eight Durand students are hospitalized and dozens of others are sick with a gastrointestinal illness.

Most of the sickened students are on the football team. Five of the eight football coaches are also ill.  Therefore, the Durand vs. Amery football game scheduled on Saturday has been postponed to a later date.  The event is postponed due to the large number of ill football players.

School officials say about 150 middle and high school students were absent Wednesday with many staying home as a precaution against contracting the illness.

Food Safety News reported that it was the pan-seared breast of Chicken Marsala served by the Baltimore Convention Center’s exclusive caterer was the food item most commonly consumed by the 216 attendees sickened by the lunch served last April 9 at the Food Safety Summit’s annual conference. It was likely contaminated with Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens), a spore-forming gram-positive bacterium commonly found on raw meat and poultry.  Attendees at the popular conference were from 42 states, Canada, Mauritius and Costa Rica. The local health department learned of the illnesses not from the organizers of the event, the convention center, or the caterer, but from calls by attendees to the city’s 311 service.

According to the report being released today by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the illnesses experienced at the 2014 Food Safety Summit in Baltimore were attributed to C. perfringens. Those sickened experienced symptoms of diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, headaches, chills, vomiting and fever between April 8-12, 2014.

About two-thirds of those sickened experienced the symptoms after eating the chicken lunch that was served by the Baltimore Convention Center’s catering company called Centerplate, according to the final report of the investigation that used epidemiological, environmental and laboratory methods to reach its conclusions.

165 people were confirmed to have become ill from hepatitis A after eating ‘Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend’ in 10 states: Arizona (24), California (80), Colorado (29), Hawaii (8), New Hampshire (1), New Jersey (1), New Mexico (11), Nevada (6), Utah (3), and Wisconsin (2). [Note: The cases reported from Wisconsin resulted from exposure to the product in California, the cases reported from New Hampshire reported fruit exposure during travel to Nevada, and the case reported in New Jersey was a household contact of a confirmed case from Colorado.] Eight of the confirmed cases were household contacts of confirmed cases (secondary cases).

The major outbreak strain of hepatitis A virus, belonging to genotype 1B, was found in clinical specimens of 117 ill persons. This genotype is rarely seen in the Americas but circulates in North Africa and the Middle East.

By combining information gained from FDA’s traceback and traceforward investigations and the CDC’s epidemiological investigation, FDA and CDC have determined that the most likely vehicle for the hepatitis A virus appears to be a common shipment of pomegranate seeds from a company in Turkey, Goknur Foodstuffs Import Export Trading.

FDA has detained all shipments of pomegranate seeds from Goknur when they are offered for import into the United States.

These pomegranate seeds were used by Townsend Farms to make the Townsend Farms and Harris Teeter Organic Antioxidant Blends and by Scenic Fruit Company to make the Woodstock Frozen Organic Pomegranate Kernels.

On June 4, 2013, Townsend Farms, Inc. of Fairview, Oregon voluntarily recalled certain lots of its frozen Organic Antioxidant Blend because of potential hepatitis A virus contamination.

On June 28, 2013, Townsend Farms, Inc. of Fairview, Oregon, expanded its voluntary limited lot recall of frozen Organic Antioxidant Blend, 3 lb. because of potential hepatitis A virus contamination.

On June 26, 2013, Scenic Fruit Company of Gresham, Oregon recalled specific lots of Woodstock Frozen Organic Pomegranate Kernels because of potential hepatitis A virus contamination.

Additional information regarding these recalls was updated regularly at: FDA Investigates Multistate Outbreak of Hepatitis A Illnesses Associated with Pomegranate seeds from Turkish Importer.

Glaser Organic Farms has been notified by its supplier of a recall of Organic Carob Powder due to possible health risks related to Salmonella contamination. Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometime fatal infections in young children, frail, or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis, and arthritis.

Glaser Organic Farms has taken immediate action to recall Organic Carob Powder in order to ensure the safety of its consumers.

Products were distributed from May 7, 2014 thru July 23, 2014

RAW CAROB POWDER 8 ounces Lot# 0507081456 I UPC Code 83291005567

and

CAROB FUDGY BROWNIE 5.5 ounces Lot# 0207211406 I UPC Code 832910002061

Gold Star Smoked Fish Corp., located at 570 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231, is recalling Cold Smoked Steelhead in Vacuum Pack with blue and gold label due to contamination or possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.

The recall was initiated after sampling by New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets Food Inspectors and subsequent analysis of the product by Food Laboratory personnel revealed the presence of Listeria monocytogenes in a sample of the product being recalled. Gold Star Smoked Fish Corp. is recalling the product as a precaution.

The recalled product is packaged in clear plastic vacuum bag for food service distribution and has a white label with a code 244 affixed on the back of the bag. The UPC Number on the front label is 021 143140026. The subject product was sold in the States of New York, New Jersey and Florida as a food service item to be weighed at point of sale.

Listeria monocytogenes can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy persons may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this problem.

Thankfully we still have a few reporters, like Michael Doyle, paying attention to news that is important.  He reported yesterday in the Fresno Bee that the Federal Court of Claims has rejected claims of Florida tomato growers who say they lost business because of Food and Drug Administration warnings following FDA food safety warnings in 2008 that proved erroneous.

The growers that filed the original lawsuit, including High Hope Farms and Juniper Tomato Growers, both of Quincy, Fla., called the FDA’s warning a “regulatory taking.” Other companies, including DiMare Fresh, later joined the lawsuit.  The suit was built around the Fifth Amendment, which states that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.  The Court slammed the door on that argument:

“Advisory pronouncements, even those with significant financial impact on the marketplace, are not enough to effect a taking of property under the Fifth Amendment,” U.S. Court of Federal Claims Senior Judge Lynn J. Bush stated.

As I wrote in 2011 following the CDC/FDA post-mortem in the New England Journal of Medicine, if there ever was a reason (in addition to the risk of bio-terrorism) to apply more resources to national, state and local surveillance of bacterial outbreaks, the 2008 Salmonella outbreak that sickened 1500 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada is one that I hear (from consumers and industry) most often.  The goal should be to jump on illnesses early and then to correctly get the offending product out of the market as quickly as possible.

According to the journal article, the results of multiple investigations (in 2008) indicated that jalapeño peppers were the major vehicle for transmission, and serrano peppers were also a vehicle. These findings include epidemiologic associations between illness and consumption of hot peppers, the convergence of tracebacks to a single farm in Mexico that grew both types of peppers but not tomatoes, and isolation of the outbreak strain from agricultural water and serrano peppers collected on that farm.

Recall, however, that early in the outbreak, raw tomatoes were thought to be a vehicle because there was a strong association between illness and consumption of raw tomatoes. Tomatoes had been implicated in many Salmonella outbreaks. The initial finding that tomatoes were a source was supported by the observation that the number of new cases decreased shortly after the national tomato alert.  However, the decline in cases shortly after the nationwide tomato advisory could be explained if avoidance of raw tomatoes indirectly reduced exposure to contaminated hot peppers.

Bottom line, local, state and federal authorities got it wrong, but did so facing the balancing act of alerting the public to a possible risk or waiting until more facts were know, therefore possibly increasing the numbers that become sick.

714 sickened and 9 dead from Salmonella peanut butter

Former Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell, his brother and one-time peanut broker, Michael Parnell, and Mary Wilkerson, former quality control manager at the company’s Blakely, Georgia, plant, were all found guilty today by a federal jury in Albany, Georgia.

The 12-member jury found Stewart Parnell guilty on 67 federal felony counts, Michael Parnell was found guilty on 30 counts, and Wilkerson was found guilty of one of the two counts of obstruction of justice charged against her. Two other PCA employees earlier pled guilty.  Download Verdict Form PDF.

Stewart, you are going to jail for a long, long time.

In talking to AP, CNN and the Wall Street Journal:

AP:  The case has been closely followed by the food industry and could rattle some executives, said Bill Marler, an attorney who has represented victims of food-borne illnesses for two decades, including many who got sick after eating Peanut Corporation’s food.

“I think the fact that these guys were charged with felonies and have now been convicted of felonies and obviously are going to face some substantial potential for jail time and fines, I think, sends a pretty strong message to the food industry that U.S. attorneys are willing to charge people with crimes,” Marler said.

Marler said he hopes Friday’s verdict will send a message to corporations that they cannot get away with this kind of behavior.

CNN:  The prosecution was unprecedented, Marler said, because the Department of Justice charged the Parnell brothers with felonies. Prior cases involved misdemeanors.

“Prosecutors took a risk and fortunately, the jury believed them,” Marler said. “The jury saw this for what it was. The emails and documents told a story of a company that was more interested in shipping out products than products that were safe.”

Wall Street Journal:  The conviction represents one of the first times that a corporate executive has been found guilty on criminal counts under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, legal experts said, and comes amid an intensified focus by federal prosecutors on food-safety cases. The Justice Department earlier this year brought charges against the owners of an Iowa egg company linked to a 2010 salmonella outbreak. Last year, the owners of a Colorado cantaloupe farm pleaded guilty to federal misdemeanor charges related to a 2011 listeria outbreak.

“What this tells us is that U.S. attorneys are now more willing to charge people for food crimes than they have been in the past,” said Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer who represents victims of food-borne illnesses, including some in the Peanut Corp. case. “For companies, it argues for paying a lot more attention to food safety than you’ve had to in the past.”

What I said to the press before the trial:

“These charges will make other food executives take notice.”

“In 20 years, this is the first time I’ve seen a criminal indictment of this magnitude, however, I have also been contacted by federal law-enforcement officials investigating a 2010 salmonella outbreak linked to eggs from Iowa and a 2011 Colorado listeria outbreak linked to cantaloupes.”

“These indictments will have a far reaching impact on the food industry.”

“Corporate executives and directors of food safety will need to think hard about the safety of their product when it enters the stream of commerce. Felony counts like this one are rare, but misdemeanor charges that can include fines and jail time can and should happen.”

“If I were an executive of a company, today I’d be asking my lawyers, how does this not happen to me?”