News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will continue to test meat for Salmonella to confirm that meat processors' food safety systems are adequate, despite a court ruling that Salmonella tests can't be used to shut down a plant, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced this week.

(CIDRAP News) – A federal appeals court has ruled that the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Salmonella performance standard for meat packers is illegal, depriving USDA of authority to shut down packing plants for producing meat with Salmonella levels exceeding the standard.

(CIDRAP News) – Contaminated alfalfa and clover sprouts caused 600 confirmed cases of illness and probably triggered thousands of unreported cases in California and neighboring states from 1996 through 1998, according to a recent report in Annals of Internal Medicine. In view of their findings, the authors say sprouts at present are an “inherently dangerous food.”