(CIDRAP News) – Federal inspectors who conducted a survey to identify gaps in the nation's food traceability system told a House subcommittee yesterday that they managed to trace only 5 of 40 products through the full production and distribution chain and that some food facilities didn't know they needed to keep source contact information.
Mar 26, 2009
(CIDRAP News) A public health policy group today urged the government to put one person in charge of all food safety efforts at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a first step toward preventing the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that have plagued the nation in recent years.
(CIDRAP News) Members of Congress today grilled executives of three food companies about what role producers have in ensuring that their ingredients are safe, after revealing that Nestle did its own audits of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) facilities in 2002 and 2006 and rejected the company as one of its suppliers.
(CIDRAP News) Salmonella infections have been killing more wild birds than usual in the US Southeast this winter, but the increase does not seem related to the nationwide human disease outbreak tied to tainted peanut products, according to federal wildlife scientists.
(CIDRAP News) The case count in the nationwide Salmonella outbreak tied to peanut products has climbed to 691, signaling continued slowing of the outbreak, but a trickle of additional cases is likely to continue for months, federal health officials said today.
(CIDRAP News) – President Barack Obama has promised that his new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Margaret Hamburg, and a new cabinet-level panel will revitalize the federal government's food safety efforts in the wake of a troubling string of foodborne disease outbreaks.
Mar 12, 2009
(CIDRAP News) In passing a huge spending bill this week to cover the next 6 months, Congress approved pandemic preparedness funds that had been proposed by former President Bush and increased appropriations for food safety, according to a health advocacy group.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently granted a conditional license for the nation's first Escherichia coli O157:H7 vaccine for cattle, allowing Epitopix LLC, a Willmar, Minn., company, to immediately offer the vaccine to the beef industry.
