You just might think Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, the under secretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was on a debutante tour last fall and winter, when in reality she likes to hole up in her office without meeting with anyone outside the federal government.
After taking over USDA’s top food safety job, first with a recess appointment by President Obama and then through confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Hagen appeared to be embracing the role of meeting with the Food Safely and Inspection Service’s (FSIS’s) far-flung constituency.
Hagen, who is a physician, clearly started out on an outreach offensive. In her first seven full months in office, she logged at least 87 meetings with groups and individuals from outside the often insular federal government.
She met with consumer advocates and meat industry executives in groups and as individuals. She also hit the road, traveling to the interior valley of California and to the Texas panhandle to tour some of the plants she is responsible for regulating.
During those first seven months, Hagen was also taking the monthly meeting FSIS has separately with industry and consumer groups. She was also working Congress and finding time to forge relationships with foreign food safety agencies and make some campus appearances.
Her meetings, which were sometimes labeled as a “meet and greets” and at other times had more formal food safety agendas, were running the gamut of the many who want to build a connection with the agency.
But now, if the FSIS public calendar is to be believed, Hagen did not have one outside meeting between April 1 and June 30.
According to a July 15 update to public calendar on the FSIS website, only FSIS administrator Al Almanza met with industry and consumer representatives, foreign governments, and with some specific groups like the American Meat Institute during the second quarter. Missing are any meetings with anyone outside the federal government for either Hagen or Brian Ronholm, the deputy under secretary for food safety.
What does all this mean?
First, it is too early to order the milk cartons for Dr. Hagen. Food Safety News has learned the under secretary has actually continued her meetings with real people and that the FSIS public calendar will reflect that — eventually.
To understand all this, it may be important to understand where the public calendar came from to begin with. About 10 years ago, one of those pesky consumer groups got suspicious about who FSIS officials were meeting with outside government.
Specifically, consumer advocates suspected then under-secretary Dr. Elsa Murano and administrator Dr. Garry McKee were too industry friendly and thought it would be wise to see their calendars to find out how many meetings they had with meat companies and why.
FSIS was hit with a Freedom of Information Act request for calendars, which the agency was successfully resisting when Dr. Richard Raymond came along as under secretary.
When asked by consumer advocates how secret his schedule was going to be, Raymond had his administrative assistant copy all his calendars to date and hand them over, to the dismay of some at FSIS.
Raymond, Nebraska’s former chief medical officer, said he did not want to defend “stupid prior decisions.”
For several years after that, public calendars published by FSIS were relatively specific.
Under Raymond’s tenure, the specific purpose of the meeting was usually labeled, such as “irradiation” or the “Hallmark recall,” and not just given the sweeping broad brush of ‘food safety.”
For now, the official/unofficial word about the FSIS public calendar is that it currently is in a state of anomaly. Hard-working people at FSIS will soon get it up to date, and we will then know more about what Dr. Hagen has been doing since April 1.
Those who’ve been watching the public schedules at FSIS longer than Food Safety News say it’s great the new under secretary started out meeting with so many, and now she needs to be more specific about those meetings. Until that update occurs, here’s what we do know:
Under Secretary Hagen’s Appointments to Date:
September – December, 2010
Carol Foreman, Consumer Federation of America
Safe Food Coalition Meeting
Monthly Industry Meeting
Richard Raymond
Bill Marler
John Munsell
Nancy Donley
Pat Buck, Center for Foodborne Illness
Barbara Kowalcyk, Center for Foodborne Illness
Congressman Colin Peterson
Scott Gultry, American Meat Institute
Tracie Letterman, Humane Society
Mimi Brody, Humane Society
Dr. Craig Reed, VA Tech Polytechnic Institute
Robin Schoen, VA Tech Polytechnic Institute
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Mike Robach, Cargill
Dennis Johnson
Frank Olsson
Terman Weeda
Matz Bode, PC
National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection
Senator Mike Enzi
Joey Lowery, Catfish Farmers of America
Ben Noble, Catfish Farmers of America
Hunter Moorhead, Catfish Farmers of America
Bo Reagan, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
Barry Carpenter, National Meat Association.
J. Patrick Boyle, American Meat Institute
Jim Hodges, American Meat Institute
Michael Jacobson, Center for Science in the Public Interest
Julie Greenstein, Center for Science in the Public Interest
Bruce Silverglade, Center for Science in the public Interest
Tony Corbo, Food and Water Watch
Stephen Pretank, National Chicken Council
George Watts, National Chicken Council
Rick Ropp, National Chicken Council
Gary Kushner, National Chicken Council
Federation of Government Employees Meeting, Shreveport, LA
Sara Lilygren, Tyson Foods
Chuck Penry, Tyson Foods
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Sandra Wind, Canada
Howard Maguire, United Egg Association
Randy Green, United Egg Association
Enrique Sanchez Cruz, Mexico
Carlos Sanchez, Mexico
Monthly industry meeting
Dennis Johnson
Caroline Smith DeWaal, CSPI
Felicia Nestor, Food and Water Watch
Seaboard Farms, Guymon, OK (plant visit)
Swift Beef, Cactus, TX (plant visit)
Cactus Feeders, Cactus, TX (feedlot visit)
Tyson Fresh Meats, Amarillo, TX (plant visit)
Caviness Beef Packers, Hereford, TX (plant visit)
Cargill Meat Solutions, Friona, TX & Plainview, TX (plant visits)
Scott Becker,Association of Public Health Laboratories
National Assiciation of County and City Health Officials
Alan Taylor, Association of Food and Drug Officials
Margot Bolon, Partnership for Food Safety Education.
David Tharp, International Association of Food Protection
Kimberly Reed, International Food Information Council
Pat McConnon, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
Larry Marcum, National Environmental Health Association
George C. Benjamin, American Public Health Association.
USDA Stakeholders
Joe and Keri Harris, Southwest Meat Organization
Monthly industry meeting
Ann Hooper, VP Total Quality, Darden
Safe Food Coalition
National Pork Producers Council
Dr. Cathy Woteki, Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition
President Harvey Fineberg, Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutritiuon
Peggy Rochette, Grocery Manufacturers Association
Richard Carnevale, Animal Health Institute
Professor Marsha Echols, Howard University
David Lambert, Lambert Associates
Lucyna Kurtyna, Monsanto Co.
Kyd Brenner, DTB Associates (corn refiners)
Elizabeth Parker, National Cattleman’s Beef Association
Clay Hough, International Dairy Foods Association
Randy Russell, Russell & Baron Inc.
Australian delegation
Dr. Hilary Thesmar & Joel Brandenberger, National Turkey Federation
David Schmidt, International Food Information Council Foundation
Kimberly Reed, International Food Information Council Foundation
January – March, 2011
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
Monthly consumer meeting
Cargill Beef Packers (plant tour)
Harris Ranch (tour)
Foster Poultry Farmers, Modesto (tour)
Costco Wholesale, Modesto (tour)
Ann Wells, North American Meat Processors
Brian Covington, Keystone Foods
Dennis Hecker, Wendy’s
Shawn Althauser, Wendy’s
Bill Griffith, Wendy’s
Pfizer & Cargill (live animal vaccine)
Brian Covington, Keystone Foods
Rickette Collins, McDonald’s
Dr. Todd Bacon, McDonald’s
Nancy Donley, Safe Tables Our Priority
Deidre Schlunegger, Safe Tables Our Priority
Shelley Feist, Partnership for Food Safety Education
Will Fisher, Partnership for Food Safety Education
Dr. Bruce Stewart-Brown, Perdue Farms
Carol Tucker Foreman, Consumer Federation of America
Lo Fo Wong, World Health Organization
Industry monthly meeting
“This Week in Agriculture” (radio program)
Dr. Ron DeHaven, American Veterinary Medical Association.
Dr. John Clifford, APHIS chief veterinary officer
Laurie Hueneke, National Pork Producers
National Turkey Association
USDA Stakeholders
Randy Russell, Russell and Barron
Barry Carpenter, National Meat Association
Joe Swedberg, Hormel (on telephone)
Beef Industry Food Safety Council
Monthly consumer meeting
Scott Goltry, American Meat Institute
Laura Fenton, Advance Pierre Foods
Nick Meriggioli, Oscar Meyer
Abby Blunt Dr., Oscar Meyer
Modena Wilson, American Medical Association
Nancy Donley, STOP
Dierdre Schlunegger, STOP
Cathy Liss, Animal Welfare Institute
Marc Mortureux, Government of France
Monthly consumer meeting
Audrey Adamson, National Pork Producers
Chelsie Redalen, National Pork Producers
Dr. Paul Sundberg, National Pork Producers
Dr. Steve Larsen, National Pork Producers
Monthly industry meeting
St. Joseph’s University facility and students
April – June, 2011
No meetings outside federal government reported