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Food Safety News

Breaking news for everyone's consumption

Dan Flynn

Dan Flynn

Editor Dan Flynn is a Northern Colorado-based writer and editor with more more than 15 years of food safety experience. As a public affairs professional, he worked with government and regulatory agencies at the local, state, and federal levels. His career as a journalist included working for newspapers throughout the West, from the Black Hills to Seattle. His on-scene reporting on the collapse of the Idaho’s Teton Dam and the suicide bombing at Washington State University’s Perham Hall was carried by newspapers around the world and was recognized both times regionally by the Associated Press for Best Reporting on a Deadline. Most of the disasters he attends these days involve food illnesses.

Articles Written by Dan Flynn

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Parnells’ new lawyer says brothers are ‘entitled to a new trial’

Appeal describes corporate defendants as victims in aftermath of deadly peanut butter outbreak

“Humans are essentially storytellers.” — Walter Fisher It would be unfair to depict the previous appellate work by the Parnell brothers’ attorneys as legal theories thrown against the wall in hopes that something would stick. But, in the first round before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, they failed to persuade a… Continue Reading

Scott Gottlieb keeps FDA office hours while growing star power

The Wall Street Journal’s May 22 Health Forum at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington D.C. will feature 22 speakers, including several CEOs for big pharmacy and giant insurance companies. But in a full-page advertisement, which WSJ has been running at the expense of its paper and ink, the top billing goes to Food and… Continue Reading

Amazon says food warehouse isn’t subject to FDA food rule

After Amazon took over Whole Foods Market locations nationwide this past August in a $13.7 billion acquisition, it still did not see a need to register a Kentucky food warehouse with the Food and Drug Administration. The 10-year-old dispute between the FDA and the world’s largest internet company by revenue crept into the headlines in only the… Continue Reading

More food producers exempt from FSMA under Tester-Hagen

Eight years after the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was passed by Congress, the Tester-Hagan amendment is coming into focus. It is a loophole that keeps on growing for an exemption that may never quit. Named for Sen. Jon Tester, D-MT, and Sen. Kay Hagan, D-NC, the amendment was a late concession obtained by the… Continue Reading

Latest organic controversy involves carrageenan as an additive

ANALYSIS

The growing, but increasingly fractured organic industry does little these days that is not without controversy. USDA’s decision earlier this week to buck a recommendation and allow carrageenan as an ingredient in organic products is just another example. With 7 percent domestic and 11 percent international growth rates, sales of organic foods are approaching $50… Continue Reading

Cattlemen ask judge to impose mandatory COOL for beef, pork

Opponents who could not see the issue more differently have nonetheless put the decision in the hands of a federal judge who heard the arguments last month, and she has not yet decided.  At issue is whether USDA was wrong to remove mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) requirements after it was instructed by Congressional… Continue Reading

Vulto Creamery shut down because owner did not ‘understand’

Investigation into deadly Listeria outbreak shows company knew cheese plant was contaminated

A federal court has shut down the Walton, NY, creamery that last year was the source of a multistate listeriosis outbreak that infected eight people in four states with listeriosis, resulting in two deaths. In a civil action, U.S. District Court Judge Brenda Sannes permanently enjoined Vulto Creamery LLC and its owner Johannes H. Vulto… Continue Reading

Dream team ready to help South African listeriosis victims

A dream team of world-class food safety experts is ready to go on behalf of the victims and their family members, according to the mammoth 501-page lawsuit dropped on Tiger Brands this past Thursday by South African trial lawyer Richard Spoor. In the complaint, seeking $2 billion in damages in the worst listeria outbreak in… Continue Reading