News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A federal study of preslaughter interventions for reducing Escherichia coli in cattle identified several possibilities but found that only a few companies have submitted applications for products that target the pathogen at this processing stage.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a plan today to spend less time visually inspecting poultry carcasses and more time checking other safety variables, saying this will simultaneously improve food safety and save money for taxpayers and poultry companies.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials today released a progress report on the work of President Barack Obama's Food Safety Working Group, which has been buoyed by legislation passed earlier this year but faces challenges in implementing the law.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government needs to collect much more data on antibiotic use in food animals and resistant bacteria in animals and retail meat to clarify the possible links between them, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released this week.

(CIDRAP News) – Although no successful attacks on the US agriculture and food system have been reported in the past decade, the nation's efforts to defend the system came in for a barrage of criticism yesterday about a lack of coordination and various other shortcomings.

(CIDRAP News) – Although the Food Safety Working Group (FSWG) appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009 has been a good first step to boost food safety collaboration among government agencies, it lacks results-oriented goals and performance benchmarks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report.

(CIDRAP News) – In the first of an expected annual series of reports to Congress on duplication in federal government goals and activities, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) cites problems in three areas of public health: food safety, biodefense, and communications.