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.
An inconveniently timed outbreak of Campylobacter infection 200 miles west of Trenton in Pennsylvania may trip up a bill to allow commercial sale of raw milk in New Jersey.Linda Doherty, president of the powerful New Jersey Food Council, took to the editorial pages of state's newspapers Monday to caution lawmakers against making raw milk legal in the Garden State.She pointed...
Next to the Star Trek transporter, which could free us from both traffic jams and airport security lines, the Star Fleet tool we most need now is the tricorder.We all remember the hand-held device that could scan, analyze and record, telling Captain Kirk in seconds about any new substance the Trekkers happened across on a distant planet. The very name of...
In updating its dairy law last session, the Vermont Legislature allowed personal consumption of unpasteurized (raw) milk purchased from another consumer to continue to be a legal transaction in the state. That was about as wild it usually gets in the Vermont Legislature.This year could be a bit different, however.In overhauling the law that governs the state's 1,000 cow, sheep...
Last year the Texas Legislature approved a bill to allow the sale of food made in uninspected and unlicensed home kitchens, but some now say the state's rules implementing the new law are unnecessarily burdensome and subvert the measure's intent.Rules for Senate Bill (SB) 81, which went into effect last Sept. 1, were not made public until Dec. 1 at...
As early as next week, the New Hampshire House of Representatives will likely be deciding whether the "Live Free or Die" state should allow unlicensed "homestead" food and on-farm sales of raw milk.The quick action has left state regulators scrambling to get ahead of lawmakers who seem bent on removing government oversight of the sale of homemade food.The proposals are...
When the 117-year old UL (Underwriters Laboratories) has something to say about global food safety, it's probably a good idea to listen up.This time, UL is out with a survey of both consumer attitudes and the views of food manufacturers when it comes to food safety. It covers global perceptions from consumers and manufacturers in China, India, Germany and the...
The raw milk games are just getting underway in statehouses across America. Legislative sessions are annual opportunities to make changes in the crazy quilt that is raw milk regulation in this country, as the states all pursue their own unique courses when it comes to the sale of unpasteurized milk.On one side are those who say anyone can drink raw...
John Perkins, the long-time police chief of Pocatello, ID, taught me all I needed about the public's right to know.When hired on after college at the Idaho State Journal, I inherited the police beat. It was usually the first beat assignment daily newspapers gave to rookie reporters who did not know anything. I knew a lot less than that.For many...
In 1864, when Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman conducted his famous March to the Sea, splitting George apart like a ripe peach, his troops lived totally off the bounty of the land.Sherman's Union army, marching without supplies, did not want for anything, while up north the Army of Virginia was experiencing disease and starvation as Gen. Robert E. Lee fought...
The Mexican-style fast food chain referred to only as "Restaurant Chain A" in a report on a 10-state outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is Taco Bell, Food Safety News has learned.While Taco Bell was suspected ever since the CDC's outbreak report was issued on January 19, confirmation that the chain was central...
County sheriffs and federal officials bickering over land, guns and water policies are as old as the West, but the Constitutional Sheriffs Convention, underway for the past three days in Las Vegas, has something new on the menu --- food safety regulation. "I made the decision that the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office was not going to be the milk police,"...
British meat-packing plants deemed to be a "cause for concern" will be named publicly under a policy adopted this month by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is responsible for inspecting food processing in the UK.The decision to publish audit reports on the agency website is designed to eliminate the public mystery surrounding audits of British processing plants.But the move...
We can go back to talking amongst ourselves about the theory of a single food safety agency in the United States. But in reality, the idea is now dead.Let's review.On Jan. 13, President Obama announced he was asking Congress "to reinstate the authority that past presidents had, over decades, to reorganize the government."The President said his immediate goal was to...
Two executives of a family-owned Kansas meat company are charged in a six-count criminal indictment with processing chickens after USDA inspectors left for the day, selling them as if they were USDA-inspected, and then shipping the poultry across state lines.The 10-page indictment has plenty of detail about the criminal charges for the unusual violations, but does not contain any explanation...
After home bakers organized on Facebook and went to the state capitol bearing tasty treats Thursday, a Colorado House committee gave its unanimous support to a cottage food bill.If enacted, the bill would allow the sale of "nonpotentially hazardous" food from home kitchens.Cottage food advocates handed out homemade cookies decorated with the Colorado state seal at the Economic and Business...
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