News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday announced that it awarded 17 food and feed safety grants totaling $5.2 million to state and local regulatory agencies.

(CIDRAP News) – Following up on a May announcement, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today published a proposed rule to ban any use of disabled cattle for food.

(CIDRAP News) – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report examining the results several developed nations and the European Union achieved when they consolidated oversight of food safety in a single agency, a step often advocated in the United State for solving some of the problems linked to contaminated imported and domestic food.

(CIDRAP News) – To help consumers figure out whether they have bought potentially contaminated food, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today it will name retail stores that received meat and poultry products involved in high-risk product recalls.

(CIDRAP News) – In a move to bolster consumer confidence in the safety of US beef and prevent mistreatment of cattle, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer yesterday announced plans to close a regulatory loophole that permits some disabled cattle to be used for food.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday announced a ban on certain cattle materials from all animal feed starting next year, an action designed to protect animals and humans against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced interim measures to verify and assess humane handling procedures at federally inspected slaughtering facilities as it continues investigating charges of animal cruelty involving "downer" cattle at a California company.

(CIDRAP News) – A California meatpacking company has issued the largest meat recall in US history—143.4 million pounds—after revelations that the firm mistreated cattle and violated the federal ban on putting disabled or "downer" cattle into the human food supply.

(CIDRAP News) – A British woman who died of a brain disease suggestive of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) had a genetic marker not seen in any previous vCJD patients, raising the possibility that her illness represented a new form of the disease that could signal a new wave of infections, according to a recent research report.