Regular readers know to “watch this space” for behind the scenes information about Food Safety News.

With just over 30 days before 2010 is history, it is time again for some of our popular year-end features.  We are inviting readers to make their nominations known to us over the next week or so.

We are accepting nominations for our annual Naughty or Nice Lists, Top Food Safety News Stories of 2010, Food Safety Resolutions for 2011, Emerging Food Safety Issues for 2011.

In looking at what we did last year, I was struck by how some things that we thought were imminent last year at this time are still among those things still keeping us waiting.

We are still waiting on a federal food safety bill, still waiting for USDA to declare those other shiga toxin-producing serotypes of E. coli as adulterants, and we are still waiting for the U.S. District Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia to indict former peanut king Stewart Parnell.

This year has had no shortage of drama and we need to go back and put that in perspective.   Gulf seafood and eggs got a lot of our attention due to events that we could not have predicted.

Nor has 2010 yet given up all of its drama.  The food safety bill is on the floor of the Senate, and if it makes it out of the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” it will have to make a mad-dash through a House-Senate conference committee before returning to both bodies for final votes.  

 

This could get messy, and luckily we have Helena Bottemiller, our Washington D.C. bureau chief there to cover it for you.

So, help us think about all 12 months of 2010, and think ahead about what 2011 holds for food safety.

Send me your nominations and/or advice, either by using the comment section or by sending me an email at dflynn@foodsafetynews.com