(CIDRAP News) The distribution of more than $5 billion in federal funds since 2001 has greatly improved states' preparedness to deal with disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and other public health emergencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in a first-of-its-kind assessment.
(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) The US Department of Agriculture is proposing a big increase in spending to protect the US food and agriculture system from terrorist threats and other disasters in fiscal year 2009, while seeking somewhat less money for avian influenza.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently signaled that a Canadian company is in a good position to secure the conditional license it needs to market an Escherichia coli O157:H7 vaccine for cattle that could reduce contamination levels in food.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it is preparing to begin publishing the names of poultry and meat plants that have trouble controlling Salmonella, as the agency extends a set of policy changes designed to reduce the prevalence of the pathogen in meat.
(CIDRAP News) Recent studies suggest that an ethanol production byproduct that is widely fed to cattle may make cattle more likely to shed deadly Escherichia coli O157, possibly contributing to the surge in beef contamination cases in 2007.
(CIDRAP News) Safety inspectors still write their reports by hand, food processing plants are inspected once every 10 years at best, only two people work full-time on pet-food safety, and critical information is locked up in piles of warehoused paper documents.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it is returning its inspections and testing of Canadian meat and poultry products to normal levels after finding no problems during expanded monitoring over the past 2½ weeks.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has modified its program of increased testing and inspection of Canadian meat, after finding no problems in the first week or so, a USDA official said today.
(CIDRAP News) Starting tomorrow, US inspection and testing of imported Canadian meat and poultry products will roughly double and will include a category of beef products that has not previously been subject to testing, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said today.
