News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture is banning the use of "downer" cattle for human food and taking several other new steps to keep beef products contaminated with the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) out of the food supply, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – The Washington state cow announced by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Dec 23 to be a "presumptive positive" bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) case, was born in April 1997, before the August 1997 Food and Drug Administration ban on feeding ruminant-derived meat and bone meal supplements to cattle went into effect.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials took pains to assure the public today that the risk of contamination in the US beef supply is very low following yesterday's announcement that the nation's first apparent case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, had turned up in Washington state.

(CIDRAP News) – In what appears to be the first case of its kind, a meatpacking plant in Dodge City, Kan., last week recalled about 26,600 pounds of ground beef because it was wrongly labeled as irradiated.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says the rate of Salmonella contamination in raw meat and poultry samples it has tested so far this year is down 16% from last year and 66% lower than the rate 6 years ago.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) last week announced a comprehensive research agenda for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of its food safety programs.

The "unified food safety research agenda" ranges from studying the virulence of major foodborne pathogens to developing effective food-safety training strategies, the department said.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released a 15-page set of guidelines for the public on food safety and security.

Titled "Food Safety and Food Security: What Consumers Need to Know," the booklet covers topics ranging from safe cooking temperatures and product recalls to spotting and reporting possible food tampering.

(CIDRAP News) – In an effort to ensure that sick cattle are kept out of the food supply, the Senate last week approved a measure to bar the Department of Agriculture (USDA) from approving the use of "downed" animals for human consumption.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) plans to hold a meeting Nov 13 to get the public's thoughts on how it analyzes risk.

(CIDRAP News) – A painstaking analysis of the risk of Listeria infections associated with ready-to-eat (RTE) foods shows that proper refrigeration and limiting storage time could reduce the risk by more than 50%, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today.