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.
On today's second anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform, which killed 11 workers and caused the massive BP oil spill, there will be no gifts.The Resource and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourism Opportunities and Revived Economy (RESTORE) of the Gulf Coast Act has been approved by both the House and Senate as an amendment to the mammoth transportation bills...
A federal grand jury in Chicago has returned a six-count indictment against four individuals, alleging they were involved in a 2007 scheme to ship more than 110,000 pounds of contaminated Mexican-style cheese. The indictment does not claim that the cheese caused human illnesses or other public health consequences, according to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois....
Missouri could become the third state this year to impose criminal sanctions, including jail time, against the practices animal welfare groups have used to expose both animal agriculture cruelty and food safety violations.In a 124-29 vote, Missouri's lower house adopted a House Bill 1860 amended to include a section on "Agricultural Production Facility Fraud" with the same sort of ag-gag...
There's no threat to human health in a growing quarantine in Southern California, but an annual $2 billion worth of citrus fruits are at risk in a war with a tiny insect and the bacteria its spreads.Earlier this month, the state of California added 93-square miles in the Hacienda Heights area of Los Angeles County to the quarantine after the...
UPDATE: Valley Meat Co., now seeking a grant of inspection to allow it to slaughter horses for export, had its beef slaughter inspectors pulled from the plant for five days for the company's inhumane treatment of animals.The incident resulting in the suspension occurred on Feb. 24, 2012 when both an employee using a .40 caliber pistol and a backup .410...
The popular Men's Health magazine is the latest to weigh in with a list of dangerous foods, along with information on how to increase their safety if you are still inclined to eat them.The Men's Health list includes the 10 most often contaminated foods that are likely to be popular with its readers. The magazine claims to have looked at...
Nikita Khrushchev knew it was over when for just 10 minutes he visited the Quality Foods supermarket in San Francisco on Sept. 21, 1959.At home the Soviet Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party well knew Muscovites were doing what they always did, getting in long lines for what little was available.Khrushchev's Quality Foods visit is often remembered for...
Since the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper has been in power in Ottawa, the Canadian Food Safety Inspection Agency (CFIA) has seen annual increases in its inspector ranks.Also there is a yearly scare about food safety jobs that gets pushed along by government unions with speculation about cuts that might occur as Canada goes through its budget process. ...
More locally grown food and safer growing methods are the goals of a couple of bills close to passing the final hurdle in the Hawaii Legislature.Small farmers appear split on the bills. They like House Bill 2703, which sets out to double the locally grown food supply by 2020. They have doubts about HB 1947, which would give the Hawaii Department...
Enough results are in from the 2012 Food Safety News Reader Survey for a 47-page report to have hit my desk by the time I returned from California late last week.Wow! What can I say?I guess should I say "thank you!" to the several hundred readers who stepped forward to speak for the 2.5 million readers we've enjoyed serving during...
The list of the 10 most deadly outbreaks of food- and waterborne illness in U.S. history, previously published by Food Safety News, has been revised for a presentation in Sacramento to the California Environmental Health Association.Added to the list is a 1903 outbreak of typhoid fever in Ithaca, NY, which caused 82 deaths, among them 29 Cornell University students. In 1903,...
Sugar is the toxin responsible for most of today's health problems, a California endocrinologist who conducts research for the American Heart Association, told the television magazine program 60 Minutes Sunday.The University of California's Dr. Robert Lustig said obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension and heart disease can all be blamed on Americans consuming too much sugar.The 60 Minutes segment, with CNN's...
Truth be told I'm like the Brent Spiner character. Not Lieutenant Commander Data in Star Trek, but as Dr. Brackish Okun in the 1996 movie Independence Day.They don't let me out much. There is probably a good reason for that and I'm OK with it. I went through a time when I traveled a lot. It was part of the...
With the second anniversary of the BP oil spill fast approaching, attention is once again returning to the damaged Gulf environment, especially to its greatly diminished oyster production. The worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history put 200 million gallons of oil and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico with the April 20,...
Transportation, terrorism and tickets have been among the top concerns for planners of London 2012, the summer Olympic Games that begin in just 120 days.But now they are turning their attention to a new problem---what to do about food safety problems like refreshment stands that might pop up to take advantage of millions of visitors expected to flock to East...
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