Manic House Republicans voted last Thursday to de-fund the implementation of a landmark law, passed just a few months ago, to strengthen Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authority to police tainted food. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), chairman of the House subcommittee that wrote the agriculture appropriations bill, announced on the House floor that the cuts were justified because the nation's food supply was “99.99 percent safe.”
“Do we believe that McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken and Safeway and Kraft Food and any brand name that you think of, that these people aren't concerned about food safety?,” Kingston said. “The food supply in America is very safe because the private sector self-polices, because they have the highest motivation. They don't want to be sued, they don't want to go broke. They want their customers to be healthy and happy.”
Sadly for Kingston, history’s not on his side. And in his case, it’s some fairly local history. In the fall of 2008, a salmonella outbreak in the United States claimed at least nine lives and made about 660 people sick. After considerable sleuthing, scientists traced the outbreak back to a peanut processing plant about 100 miles from Kingston’s congressional district. It turned out that the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) had deliberately shipped peanut paste from its Blakely, Georgia, plant that it knew had been found in tests to have salmonella. The paste was used in hundreds of products made by other food manufacturers. When the FBI and FDA investigators converged on the plant, they found a slew of outright safety violations including a leaking roof, mold growing on ceilings and walls, rodent infestation, filthy nut processing receptacles, and feathers and feces in the air filtration system. The outbreak cost the peanut industry alone more than $1 billion, more than enough to provide the $995 million that President Obama requested to fund the FDA’s food safety initiatives for the next fiscal year.
Full textFor the last two decades, scientists have amassed evidence that bisphenol A (BPA) poses a threat to human health. BPA is a chemical used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastic, can liners for food and beverages, and thermal paper used for register receipts. It is used in so many applications that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found traces of BPA in 93 percent of people it tested. Although scientists have targeted BPA as a public health concern, plastics industry lobbyists have attempted to thwart the efforts of federal, state, and local authorities to reduce exposure to BPA.
The industry arguments can confuse the public because the way BPA acts on the body is counter-intuitive. Contrary to the old toxicology axiom that “the dose makes the poison,” smaller amounts of BPA are linked to a host of negative health effects. BPA is an endocrine disruptor, a chemical that interferes with the body’s system of hormones. The endocrine system is very sensitive, so just a small amount of BPA at the wrong time can have major health consequences. That’s why scientists and parents alike are so concerned about BPA.
Infants and small children are the most vulnerable, and they are also the most highly exposed to BPA. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) should coordinate their efforts to regulate BPA. And Congress should improve the federal approach to toxics regulation by affirmatively empowering agencies like the EPA, FDA, CPSC and OSHA to regulate endocrine-disrupting compounds.
Full textIn an impressive effort to demonstrate that crafting bad environmental legislation knows no partisan boundaries, Democratic Senator John Tester of Montana – who recently spearheaded a successful effort to remove wolves from the endangered species list through a budget maneuver – last month introduced legislation to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating lead ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Several environmental organizations last year petitioned EPA to mandate the use of non-lead bullets and shot, noting that traditional bullets used by hunters spread lead fragments throughout the environment, poisoning a wide variety of non-target birds and other wildlife, including critically imperiled species such as California condors.
Tester claims that his legislation would protect hunters when “Washington DC’s rules get in the way of common sense.” But it’s actually the status quo that’s a nonsensical health hazard for hunters and their friends and families, particularly children who eat game shot with lead-laden ammunition. It’s not as simple as removing the bullet from the carcass, because bullets fragment, contaminating the animal meat with lead. Believed by historians to have contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire – which effectively poisoned itself with lead in plumbing and food containers -- the metal causes a wide variety of harm to people, including decreased IQ in children, nervous system impairment, impacts to hearing and sight, and kidney disease. In one study demonstrating the extent of human exposure from lead bullets, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention tested 736 people, mostly adults, in six North Dakota cities and found that those who ate wild game had 50 percent more lead in their blood than those who did not eat it.
Birds are particularly susceptible to lead poisoning, with millions of them injured or killed each year as a result of lead exposure. California condors, rescued from the brink of extinction 30 years ago and reintroduced into portions of their former range in California and Arizona, are often killed or injured due to high lead poisoning because they feed exclusively on carrion, often animals killed – but either discarded or not retrieved – by sport hunters or landowners and professional hunters controlling feral pigs or other invasive species. While the state of California has banned most uses of lead ammunition within condors’ range, the birds continue to suffer from lead poisoning, likely due to inadequate implementation and enforcement of these state restrictions. Arizona encourages hunters to use non-lead ammunition within condor habitat, but the voluntary program has made little headway in protecting the birds.
Full textToday's announcement by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that EPA will move toward regulating perchlorate, reversing a decision by the George W. Bush Administration, is bittersweet. It’s great that EPA has recognized the need to regulate, but the agency has adopted such a leisurely timeline that the entire effort could end up being undercut.
The agency said: "EPA intends to publish the proposed regulation and analyses for public review and comment within 24 months. EPA will consider the public comments and expects to promulgate a final regulation within 18 months of the proposal."
The Bush Administration had shut down EPA efforts to deal with this hazard, despite ample evidence of the danger. So it's obviously welcome news that the Obama EPA has made confronting the problem its official policy. But today's announcement is quite limited. EPA is actually saying that a regulation wouldn't be finalized until after 2012, and that gives scant comfort.
I can find no excuse for the long trajectory of behind-the-scenes consultations and hand-wringing that sets the stage for such long delay on this crucial issue.
Regulating perchlorate should not be seen as a long-term, we’ll-get-around-to-it goal, but an urgent public health priority. Perchlorate inhibits the uptake of iodide into the thyroid, causing the malfunction of the endocrine system that modulates normal neurological development. Babies in utero don’t have any iodide in their system, and must get it from their mothers. If their mothers also have iodide deficiencies, and then are exposed to perchlorate in drinking water or such foods as lettuce, babies can get into real trouble, suffering irreversible neurological damage. About 15 percent of women of childbearing age, have iodide deficiencies that could harm the normal development of their unborn children. Perchlorate contamination of drinking water makes that potential damage far more likely, and as many as 20 million people may well have unacceptable levels of the chemical in their drinking water.
Full textAccording to the egg industry, the thousands of people sickened by eggs contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis have only themselves to blame. As USA Today reported:
"Consumers that were sickened reportedly all ate eggs that were not properly or thoroughly cooked. Eggs need to be cooked so that the whites and yolks are firm (not runny) which should kill any bacteria," says Mitch Head, spokesperson for the United Egg Producers.
"Some people may not think of an egg as you would ground beef, but they need to start," says Krista Eberle of the United Egg Producers' Egg Safety Center. "It may sound harsh and I don't mean it to sound that way. But all the responsibility cannot be placed on the farmer. Somewhere along the line consumers have to be responsible for what they put in their bodies."
With more than 500 million eggs to date subject to recall for contamination, this effort to shift the focus to consumers’ behavior deserves scrutiny. Implicit in this shift is an attempt to absolve producers – and the government agencies charged with overseeing these producers and ensuring the health of our food supply – of responsibility. But there are many good reasons for our government to ensure the safety and security of the food we eat. Indeed, Congress has assigned this task to protector agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration precisely because most Americans want to go to their local grocery stores and know that the food sold there will be fit for human consumption.
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On July 9, 2010, following more than 10 years of interference and delay, the Food and Drug Administration’s rule to prevent salmonella contamination in eggs finally went into effect. FDA officials have argued that this rule—which, among other things, requires farms to test eggs and facilities for salmonella, protect feed and water from contamination, and buy chicks and young hens from suppliers that monitor for salmonella—would have likely prevented the massive salmonella outbreak that has sickened 1,470 individuals and resulted in one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history, with more than half a billion eggs being pulled off stores’ shelves. It’s hard to know whether this is necessarily true or not, but if adequately enforced, the rule certainly would have driven very significant changes to the facilities we've learned about in the past weeks. Tragically, the salmonella outbreak stretches back to at least May, just a few months before the salmonella rule’s effective date.
What accounts for this policy “near miss”? By all accounts, this rule was recognized as a necessary step for closing a big gap in our food safety system—namely, ensuring the safety of eggs. So, why did it take more than 10 years—10 years!!—for the rule to be developed and finalized?
Unsurprisingly, it looks like the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)—a bureau in the White House Office of Management and Budget that through Democratic and Republican administrations alike has assumed the role of squashing or diluting needed environmental, health, and safety regulations—played a role in delaying the FDA’s rule, back in 2008. It appears that without OIRA’s interference, the rule could have been in effect by at least the end of 2009—well before the massive salmonella outbreak began.
Full textIn June, the Food and Drug Administration issued Draft Guidance on the Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobials in Food-Producing Animals. The FDA recognizes in the guidance that the “overall weight of evidence available… supports the conclusion that using medically important antimicrobial drugs for production or growth enhancing purposes… in food-producing animals is not in the interest of protecting and promoting the public health.” The public health concern arises where bacteria in these animals develop resistance to the drugs and then are transmitted to food workers and consumers, who then introduce the drug-resistant bacteria into their communities.
In a new book, Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, journalist Maryn McKenna details the emergence of one of the most common and increasingly prevalent drug-resistant bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). While MRSA was once primarily found in hospitals, McKenna traces the emergence of community-based strains of the bug that evolved independently to also cause serious infections in people with no connection to the hospital or other traditional environments with MRSA. Her book also examines the ability of MRSA to use domestic pets as hosts and then infect their human owners, as well as the impact of antibiotic use in the food production sector (there's a great book interview from Fresh Air).
MRSA is part of the Staphylococcus genus, which includes a variety of ancient bacteria that are, as McKenna says, “probably one of mankind’s oldest evolutionary companions.” Staphylococcus aureus, or S. aureus, is mostly benign and at any given moment is present in nearly one-third of the population. Humans and our bacteria live in an intimate balance, but when that balance with S. aureus is toppled, the bacteria may turn extremely virulent and even deadly. S. aureus can attack the human body with rapid and devastating consequences, ranging from simple skin abscesses to muscle and bone infections, toxic shock, and pneumonia.
Full textSorry to link to the Daily Show again, but I swear it's relevant. On last night's show, Lewis Black covered recent food safety and consumer product safety news.
Full text"But knowingly selling us broken cars, poisoned medicines -- if I didn't know any better, I'd think these companies were just in for the money!"
The Albany Times Union had a nifty, if depressing, scoop over the weekend in "Paterson bottling up mercury ban at plant":
Efforts by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to ban mercury-tainted coal fly ash used by a Ravena cement plant have been bottled up for more than 19 months in a special regulations review office of Gov. David Paterson.
The DEC request to yank permission from Lafarge North America for ash use at its Route 9W plant has been sitting in the Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform since October 2008, according to records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act by the Times Union.
This isn't the first time we've heard about questionable regulatory review maneuvers in the Paterson administration; last August, the governor issued an executive order seeking to "eliminate unnecessary regulatory requirements" by "removing needless and excessive rules." Here in this space, Rebecca Bratspies laid out how that move was a big win for industry, and Sidney Shapiro compared the announcement to Ronald Reagan's Task Force for Regulatory Relief.
Full textThe tagline that the producers of Food, Inc. are using to promote their Academy Award-winning documentary is “You’ll never look at dinner the same way.” They’re quite right. The film airs on many PBS stations this evening (and on others throughout the course of the next week). See for yourself.
I came to it expecting that I’d end up feeling guilty about being part of the industry-consumer web that subjects farm animals to “nasty, brutish and short” lives, before slaughtering them for hamburger. I did feel guilty, and still do, days later. But more than that, you come away from Food, Inc. convinced that in the interest of maximizing profits for the food industry, we’ve introduced hazards into the food we eat, created an obesity problem, and allowed mega-corporations to run roughshod over family farmers.
I won’t spoil the story, but the surprising element for the lay viewer like me is the extent to which agribusiness’s fixation with corn figures into the tale. Not only do we sweeten our sodas with corn syrup, we ship corn great distances to feed it to cattle whose wiring is geared toward grass. But corn gets the cattle fatter faster, so out with grazing in the grass, in with eating corn in filthy stall. But more than that, corn also makes cattle susceptible to illnesses that we treat with antibiotics, driving a variety of problems. In addition, the corn has led to new strains of E. coli. The story of one victim of such E. coli is told in the film, in heartbreaking fashion.
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