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Health Law

Food Safety News

Daily online newspaper dedicated to reporting on issues surrounding food safety.
By Dan Flynn and Suzanna Schreck

Post Frequency: 31.2/day

Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 06:59:07

HVP Recall List Tops 100 Products

Posted on March 09, 2010
The nation's lesson on food ingredients has continued since late last Thursday. That was when top food safety officials appeared together at a Washington D.C. press conference to announce that a North Las Vegas food processor had turned out hydrolyzed vegetable protein contaminated with a strain of Salmonella Tennessee...

FDA Changes Course on Food Labeling

Posted on March 09, 2010
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released 17 warning letters to food manufacturers, accusing the companies of violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic act with false product labeling. The action follows an October 2009 "dear industry letter" from FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg advising food companies to provide consumers with more accurate information on food packages...

GAO: FDA Oversight on Additives Lacking

Posted on March 09, 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not exercise adequate oversight over certain widely used food additives, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last week.The GAO, the investigative research arm of Congress, found that FDA's oversight process simply "does not help ensure the safety" of new additives deemed "generally regarded as safe" (GRAS) by food companies...

Wisconsin Bans BPA in Bottles, Sippy Cups

Posted on March 08, 2010
Wisconsin has joined a growing list of state governments taking BPA regulation into their own hands. Governor Jim Doyle signed a bill into law Wednesday that bans the chemical from being used in plastic bottles and cups intended for children three years and younger...

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Foodborne Illness By The Numbers

Posted on March 08, 2010
Robert L. Scharff, with the help of funding from the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University, recently published a study analyzing the financial impact of foodborne illness in the United States. Employing the same methods used by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) economists, Scharff estimates that the total cost of foodborne illness in the United States is a staggering $152 billion per year...

Canada: Is Unsafe Meat Crossing Lax Border?

Posted on March 08, 2010
Canadians are wondering if meat from the United States is safe after learning 70 truckloads have evaded border inspections since January. That's how many truckloads the Windsor Star newspaper said had risked fines to cross the border before inspectors from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) showed up for their new 8 a...

No Ruling Yet in GM Sugar Beet Case

Posted on March 08, 2010
Farmers are going to have to wait a little while longer before they know whether they'll be able to plant this year's crop of genetically modified sugar beets. ??Federal District Judge Jeffrey White accepted arguments Friday morning in San Francisco from both sides in the case which has pitted organic sugar beet seed producers against farmers throughout the country who have been planting their fields with genetically modified Roundup Ready sugar beets developed by Monsanto...

Boiling Shrimp May Reduce Allergens

Posted on March 07, 2010
A new study published in the Journal of Food Science shows that boiling shrimp for ten minutes may reduce its allergenic properties when compared to those of raw shrimp.According to the study's authors, extracts were taken from Litopenaeus vannamei, the most widely cultured shrimp species in the world...

Letter From The Editor: GM Crops

Posted on March 07, 2010
The tasks assigned to the media in America are pretty simple, and have not changed much. We are here to tell you who is ahead, and give our opinions with various degrees of bias, whenever there has been a foul or error called along the way...

Grant Awarded for E. coli Research at WSU

Posted on March 07, 2010
This month Tom Besser, professor of veterinary microbiology at Washington State University, received $1 million from the Federal Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. This money will be used to evaluate whether previous research done on stopping E...

Slim Fast Was Recalled for Bacillus Cereus

Posted on March 06, 2010
The Enforcement Report for March 3 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was pretty short when it came to the Class 1 Food Recalls and Enforcement Actions that we usually present here.So, we got to looking at the less dangerous Class II Food Recalls and Enforcement Actions and found those contained all the interesting details on last December's worldwide recall buy Englewood, NJ-based Unilever United States Inc...

Dip Added To HVP Recall

Posted on March 06, 2010
Brockton MA-based Concord Foods Inc Friday joined the nationwide recall of products made with hydrolyzed vegetable protein made by Basic Food Flavors.The hydrolyzed vegetable protein may be contaminated with Salmonella. Concord added its 1.5 oz. Home-style Vegetable Dip Seasoning with a Best Buy date of 07/27/12...

More Pepper Recalled in Salmonella Outbreak

Posted on March 06, 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is throwing its nets over more pepper suspected as the cause of a nationwide outbreak of Salmonella Montevideo that has infected 245 people in 44 states and the District of Columbia.FDA has been investigating the supply chain of black and red pepper supplied to Rhode Island-based Daniele Inc...

Food Industry Focuses on Economy, Demand

Posted on March 06, 2010
The Consumer Goods Forum (TCGF) released its latest Top of the Mind Survey results Thursday. The survey reveals the priorities of over 345 key decision makers in the global retail and consumer goods companies across 46 countries.Conducted on a biannual basis, the most recent Top of the Mind found that while the economic environment and consumer spending patterns remain the number one focus of over half the respondents, corporate responsibility has moved up the overall rankings from third to second place in 2010...

Shigella Outbreak Closes Subway in IL

Posted on March 06, 2010
WGN Local News in Lombard, Illinois reported Thursday that a Subway restaurant has been closed by the DuPage County Health Department after several customers contracted Shigellosis, a gastrointestinal illness. The Health Department said 8 confirmed cases had been reported, and of those 8 victims, 4 were hospitalized...

HVP Recall Widens, More Call on Senate to Act

Posted on March 06, 2010
As the list of products recalled for containing Salmonella-contaminated hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP)--a little-known, but widely-used flavoring ingredient--continues to grow, more politicians and public health experts are calling on the Senate to pass stalled food safety legislation...

Tortilla Maker Cited for Violations

Posted on March 05, 2010
La Mexicana Inc, a Seattle-based manufacturer and distributor of Mexican food, has some food safety problems.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent investigators to the food processing facility for four days last October and they concluded La Mexicana has "documented serious deviations" from manufacturing regulations...

Feed Company Violated BSE Controls

Posted on March 05, 2010
A provider of animal feed to nine states is violating federal regulations that prohibit animal proteins in ruminant feed to control the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).The prohibitions were put in place to prevent BSE, or Mad Cow Disease...

Recall Basics for Consumers

Posted on March 05, 2010
On Wednesday, the Partnership for Food Safety Education (PFSE) launched it's Recall Basics for Consumers campaign. The campaign's aim is to educate consumers on the need to pay attention to recalls and encourage them to take action to identify recalled products in their homes...

Hot Dog Safety Questioned

Posted on March 05, 2010
Despite years of rumors about the quality of their meat, the hot dog industry is facing new and very different safety concerns, namely the choking hazard that its products pose to young children if swallowed improperly.In a paper published in the February 22 edition of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics called for labels to be placed on all of the nation's hot dog and sausage packages to warn parents of their potential as a choking hazard...

Protein Recall Expands to 56 Products

Posted on March 05, 2010
Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) is now taking its place beside peanuts, pistachios, and powdered milk as a food ingredient causing recalls of many, many individual products.The nation's top food safety officials appeared at press conference late Thursday to detail how they came to find Salmonella contamination at a North Las Vegas food processing plant that makes hydrolyzed vegetable protein for customers around the world...

Living with ESRD

Posted on March 05, 2010
What It Is Like To Live With End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD)?In honor of March's official designation as National Kidney Month, fellow Food Safety News contributing writer Dave Babcock recently published an article, National Kidney Month Kicks Off. In his article, Babcock discusses the connection between long-term kidney health and food safety, a connection which most commonly flows from the development of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) caused by toxins from foodborne bacteria like shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (E...

Poll: Food Makes 4 in 10 Americans Sick

Posted on March 05, 2010
Four in every ten Americans suffered through foodborne illnesses sometime during the last two years, according to a national poll conducted Jan. 13-15, 2010.The Harris Poll by Harris Interactive, which surveyed 2,010 adults over the internet, found that 42 percent of the respondents were victims of foodborne illnesses during the past two years...

Chicken Soup Goes on Recall List

Posted on March 04, 2010
The recall of Salmonella-contaminated hydrolyzed vegetable protein has now struck one of the staples of people trying to recover from winter illnesses--chicken soup.Las Vegas-based Basic Food Flavors Inc. has a nationwide recall out for its vegetable protein, and that's caused Castella Imports of Hauppauge, NY to in turn recall its Castella Chicken Soup Base...

Oysters Recalled in Oregon

Posted on March 04, 2010
Two seafood companies, OM Seafood and Oregon Oyster Farms Inc., have issued recalls of oyster products harvested in Yaquina Bay, Oregon, between February 1 and 24 due to potential norovirus contamination. The first recall, issued by Oregon Oyster Farms in late February, occurred after eight people in the Newport, OR area developed gastrointestinal symptoms consistent with norovirus...

Tim's Cascade Recalls Sweet Maui Chips

Posted on March 04, 2010
Late Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed that Tim's Cascade Snacks, a potato chips and popcorn manufacturer based in Algona, WA, voluntarily recalled its Sweet Maui Onion Hawaiian Style potato chips and onion rings for potential Salmonella contamination...

Big Win for GM Crops in Europe

Posted on March 04, 2010
As spring comes to Germany, the Czech Republic, and Sweden, farmers will be planting Amflora, a genetically modified potato, on at least 620 acres.Produced by BASF SE of Germany, Amflora is the first genetically modified organism (GMO) to win approval from the European Union since 1998...

Harkin: S. 510 Could Be Signed by May

Posted on March 04, 2010
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) predicted Tuesday that, if all goes well, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 510, will be "on the President's desk by May."As chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)--which unanimously approved the Senate's version of the food safety legislation in November, Harkin tends to stay in the loop on food safety issues in the Senate...

Update: Food Policy on Capitol Hill This Week

Posted on March 02, 2010
Updated with witness lists and Senate hearing detailsIt is going to be a busy week for food and health issues in the Capital. President Obama is expected to announce the way forward for health care reform and there are a number of food policy events on Capitol Hill, including a briefing on antibiotics in agriculture, the first congressional hearings on the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization, and Senate lobby days for the pending FDA food safety reform bill...

Q&A: Food Protection Training Institute

Posted on March 02, 2010
PART II of our conversation with Jerry Wojtala, executive director of the International Food Protection Training InstituteThe President's 2011 federal budget was recently amended to include an $8 million request to fund the International Food Protection Training Institute (IFPTI), a non-profit organization dedicated to career-spanning food protection training for state and local food protection professionals, located in Battle Creek, Michigan...

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