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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Law hamstrings ability to trace salmonella source
  • Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:38:03 -0600



"But Dr. David Kessler, the FDA commissioner under the elder George Bush and
Bill Clinton, said the agency has the authority to require the industry to
trace produce as it travels from "farm to table" but has lacked "the impetus"
to do so."


Last updated July 9, 2008 8:47 p.m. PT
Law hamstrings ability to trace salmonella source
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/370205_fdafoodsupply10.html
By BINA VENKATARAMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES

More than 1,000 people in 41 states and the District of Columbia have now
been sickened in the nation's salmonella outbreak, in what officials said
Wednesday was the largest food-borne outbreak in the past decade. And some
food safety experts this week tied problems in tracing the source of the
contamination to what they say are shortcomings in the Bioterrorism Act of
2002.

Federal investigators have now linked at least some of the outbreak to fresh
jalapenos, Dr. Robert Tauxe of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said, though they have not ruled out tomatoes.

But officials have still not pinpointed the source of the contamination. Nor
do they know the country or state where the tainted produce was grown,
despite a rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration under the
bioterrorism law that was intended to give federal officials a way to respond
immediately to threats to the nation's food supply.

The rule requires importers, processors and distributors to keep track of
where they buy produce and where it goes. A major hurdle facing investigators
in this outbreak, however, is that processors frequently repack boxes of
tomatoes to meet a buyer's demands. In doing so, officials said, they are not
required to record the tomatoes' farm, state or even country of origin.

"The purpose of the recordkeeping provision of the Bioterrorism Act was to
support going back to the origin of food after people have gotten sick when
you are trying to find out how the biological agent got there," said Michael
Taylor, a professor at George Washington University and a former FDA
official. "But the provisions are of little or no value with respect to
trace-backs of fresh produce because of the amount of shoe leather and time
it would take."

The rule requires only that produce handlers keep track of food one step back
and one step forward in the supply chain and does not apply to retailers or
growers. Because the rule does not specify the format for records,
investigators are sifting through a hodgepodge of paper trails to identify
the source of the contaminated produce.

"It's clear that the FDA is not equipped to deal with a trace-back of the
magnitude that they are dealing with right now," said Mike Doyle, director of
the center for food safety at the University of Georgia.

Several lawmakers and consumer advocates are calling for a system that
requires the industry to track the entire history of food products.

Dr. David Acheson, the agency's associate commissioner for foods, said in a
telephone interview on Monday that the FDA lacked authority to require full
trace-back capability.

But Dr. David Kessler, the FDA commissioner under the elder George Bush and
Bill Clinton, said the agency has the authority to require the industry to
trace produce as it travels from "farm to table" but has lacked "the impetus"
to do so.






  • [Livingontheland] Law hamstrings ability to trace salmonella source, Tradingpost, 07/15/2008

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