Food Safety NewsDan Flynn is a Denver-based writer and editor with more than ten 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.
There is good news and bad news about the "L-type" atypical mad cow phenotype, found in the nearly 11-year-old, dead dairy cow discovered two weeks ago in California.The good news is no human has ever contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD) disease from cattle infected with atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). vCJD is the human version of mad cow disease, a...
Everything I know about the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), I learned from a U.S. District Attorney for Idaho years ago. He was, I think, taken aback by how little this then-recent J-School, Political Science graduate knew about our federal justice system.Actually, I knew enough about the the third branch of government. I just did not know what...
Odwalla Inc., now part of Coca-Cola, paid $1.5 million after pleading guilty to 16 misdemeanors stemming from an outbreak of E. coli infection caused by unpasteurized apple juice that killed a child and sickened dozens of others in 1996. And Sara Lee Corporation pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge and agreed to pay $4.4 million in civil and criminal penalties...
California -- where some say state ballot initiatives are a substitute for warfare -- may soon decide whether genetically engineered food should be labeled. An initiative to require GMO labeling will be on the California ballot Nov. 6 if, as it now appears, the Right-to-Know campaign obtained enough petition signatures.The campaign has four rallies planned Wednesday in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los...
A Missouri Senate committee will hear and likely recommend approval of House Bill 1860, the so-called ag-gag bill the lower chamber already approved on a 124-29 vote. If that happens, HB 1860 will get a final up or down vote on the floor of the Missouri Senate, possibly before the end of the week.Sponsored by Rep. Casey Guernsey, who chairs...
These should be heady days at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).The nation's $1+ trillion deficit is not much of a speed bump for the $288 billion potpourri we call the 2012 Farm Bill, replenishing the supply of goodies USDA gives out to those who qualify in the 400 pages of legislation. But crisis management is giving USDA the fits....
In the two years since the BP oil spill, most scientific research on its effects falls into one of two categories -- seafood safety or environmental damage.Now there are signs science is moving beyond those preliminary assessments to career-defining work that the some researchers don't want to see misused by others.That can be difficult in a region known for strong...
The nation's fourth confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) infected a 10-year, 7-month-old dairy cow on a dairy farm in California's Tulare County. USDA said the animal "was humanely euthanized after it developed lameness and became recumbent." In other words, the dairy cow was demonstrating "downer" cow behavior often associated with BSE."It is important to reiterate that this...
The dead Hanford, CA dairy cow with laboratory-confirmed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is now the centerpiece of an investigation into whether there are any more mad cows in the vicinity.Dairymen in the Central Valley of California have been told state and federal officials are testing the BSE-infected animal's feeding herd, which could include some of its own offspring, and other...
The research firm Scarborough, a joint venture of the ratings barons Arbitron Inc. and The Nielsen Company, has profiled healthy consumers and then peeked into their dining habits.It found that health-conscious consumers were dining at the same fast food outlets as the rest of us -- just not in quite as great numbers. But pretty close.Scarborough attributes this to the...
The few Colorado farmers who grow the same brand of cantaloupe implicated in last year's Listeria outbreak -- the most deadly outbreak of foodborne illness in the U.S. in decades -- are falling into line with growing and packing reforms that originated in California.The California-centered U.S. cantaloupe industry is bending other growing areas to its will without anything more than...
A six-year span without any bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) cases in the U.S. is over as the prion disease has again been discovered in the nation's cattle herd.A dairy cow in a central California dairy has been diagnosed with atypical BSE -- mad-cow disease -- according to both state and federal officials. It is the fourth such infected animal discovered...
A public opinion survey has surfaced in Canada that shows folks do not know much about food irradiation, but suggests they might support its use.The 65-year old Consumer Association of Canada released the Food Irradiation Survey last week. It was conducted last Feb. 7 and 8 by Angus Reid Public Opinion in Vancouver, BC. It operates under the name Springboard...
After six years, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has again been discovered in the U.S. cattle herd.A dairy cow in central California dairy was recently diagnosed with BSE, commonly called mad-cow disease, according to USDA Chief Veterinary Officer John Clifford.The carcass of the animal is being held by the state of California at a rendering facility, where it will be destroyed....
I really did not plan on stirring up reader comments last week, but I did.That's not what I have in mind for these Sunday sermons and generating comments is never on my agenda when reporting and writing news.Nonetheless, Food Safety News welcomes comments and from time to time, I've generated my share. Last week when I wrote about supermarkets, it...
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