Dr. Richard Raymond is the former Undersecretary for Food Safety, U.S. Department of Agriculture (2005-2008) who works as a food safety and public health consultant. He is an editor for two food safety blogs, Meatingplace.com and Feedstuffs Foodlink. He graduated from the University of Nebraska Medical School with distinction and had longtime family practices in Nebraska, where he also served as that state's Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Raymond and his wife now live in Colorado; he is the proud grandfather of two "wonderful grandkids."
This commentary was contributed jointly by John Munsell and Dr. Richard Raymond.Last week, James H. Hodges, Executive Vice-President at the American Meat Institute (AMI), ostensibly penned an opinion piece for Food Safety News titled "Wrestling With the Science of STEC". You can read it here. But in case you are not inclined to go back to the original article, let...
Food Safety News, citing the Hagstrom Report newsletter, said on Jan. 14 that the Obama Administration may be considering a plan to merge the functions of food safety as currently performed at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into one large single food...
Food Safety News Editor Dan Flynn reported on Jan. 14, 2012 that if Congress gives the Obama Administration the authority to consolidate six agencies that deal with international trade into one agency, bringing together the two major food safety agencies into one would follow.This possible move is not totally unexpected from this Administration, nor was the way the Office of...
Michele Simon is turning into a pretty regular contributor to Food Safety News. In recent weeks she has had two opinion pieces on the evil McDonald's empire that is preying on kids by offering toys in their Happy Meals, and another piece on the cereal industry's awful attempt to get kids to eat their product by adding sugar and using advertising...
September 13, 2011, will go down in the history of food safety as a very significant day.It will be remembered by many as the day that Secretary Tom Vilsack of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that the USDA and its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) moved forward with the rule-making process to get the Big Six non-O157...
America is seeing more and more outbreaks and illnesses from people drinking raw, unpasteurized milk. This phenomena has been on the rise over the last 15 years or so. This documented increase is most likely because of PulseNet, the relatively new Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tool, introduced in 1996, that now allows us to link what used to be...
How Many Killer Bacteria Does it Take to Adulterate the Meat I Eat?That question seems to have been put out there for public debate in quotes attributed to Betsy Booren of the American Meat Institute (AMI) Foundation in a recent USA Today story by Elizabeth Weise that can be read here. The story was about E. coli O157:H7 being...
Most of us don't get too many opportunities to lead change in our organizations and businesses. We might be in a position to try, but creating change is very difficult.One of the best reads on the subject, and a book I quote and refer to often, is John P. Kotter's 1996 edition titled "Leading Change."Kotter lists eight necessities to "drive...
Nancy Donley, an avid and educated food safety advocate with STOP Foodborne Illness (previously Safe Tables Our Priority), has often said, and I can only paraphrase here, that if you go back far enough in any E. coli outbreak investigation, you will eventually bump into a cow. I assume she was referring to O157:H7, but many have taken those words...
Editor's Note: This opinion piece was written by Carol L. Tucker-Foreman and Richard A. Raymond, M.D.Like the familiar cell phone coverage commercial on television, we are beginning to wonder if the President and his appointees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are getting any of the many messages being delivered daily...
Editor's Note: This opinion piece was written by Carol L. Tucker-Foreman and Richard A. Raymond, M.D. [1]It's Time to Move the Needle on non-O157:H7 STECsThe massive 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 foodborne illness outbreak was a seismic event that moved the food safety needle toward greater public health protection. It caused over 650 illnesses and four deaths,...
The USDA news release dated April 5, 2011, and reported in Food Safety News April 6 by Helena Bottemiller, had this for a headline: USDA Announces Proposed Test and Hold Requirement for Meat and Poultry Products Will enhance existing...
Last week, I penned an article for Food Safety News about a quote attributed to an American Meat Institute official regarding testing of product at a further processing plant that had already been tested at a slaughter facility. In that article I stated that in 2009, there were 64 positive tests for E coli O157:H7, and that 29 of those...
In a recent article about the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service's (FSIS) subtle move toward more effective and efficient traceback efforts, Scott Goltry, the American Meat Institute's (AMI) vice president for food safety and inspection services, was quoted as saying:AMI "believes that it is a misuse of FSIS resources to subject ground beef that has been...
Editor's note: If you had a magic wand, how would you conjure up sustainable ways to make the food supply safe? We asked several people to consider the possibilities. Here is another response, from Dr. Richard Raymond, former Undersecretary for Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.If I had a Food Safety Magic Wand ... that would be a daunting...
Copyright © Marler Clark
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