Headlines about another restaurant involved in an outbreak are almost a daily occurrence now. Some major restaurant chains have had at least one outbreak. It begs the question, why? In my experience working with the restaurant industry on food safety, I come across a lot of resistance from operators who are naïve about their chances of contributing to an outbreak....
On February 2, I wrote a commentary that appeared on Food Safety News entitled "USDA Inspected and Approved High-Risk Meat." One sentence in the editorial stated "USDA has concluded that Hannaford's high risk practices likely led to this outbreak," a reference to Salmonella infections linked to supermarket ground beef. Investigators were unable to trace the contaminated ground beef to any one...
"There's no money for . . ." well you name it. At a time when all manner of government services are being cut, trillions in bailouts to the financial services industry aside, why should food safety be spared? In fact, food safety protections are being systematically slashed across the board--and while this might achieve some short-term savings, the long-term costs...
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...
I recently participated in "The Conversation", which aired on the local Seattle public television station, KCTS. Enrique Cerna and I talked about how food safety -- and the laws that govern food safety -- have changed since I represented victims of the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak. I think it airs opposite of the Superbowl this Sunday....
The Hannaford chain of grocery stores in the Northeast recently recalled ground beef products which were laced with an antibiotic-resistant strain of Salmonella. Like most other retail chains, Hannafords purchases all its meat from outside source slaughter plants. Salmonella and E. coli are "enteric" bacterium, which is defined as originating from within animals' intestines, and is thus present in manure. Live...
With the ongoing economic crisis there has been a need for governments across the globe to cut budgets. Food safety lacks the tangible benefits of, say, health care and it was somewhat inevitable that food inspection agencies would experience the brunt of such cutbacks.In the United Kingdom, the Food Safety Agency that was established in the wake of the "mad cow"...
For those who have been working on food safety for years -- even decades -- the promise of a quick-fix holds no allure. Experts know that food safety is multi-faceted, and no silver bullet exists to wipe the scourge of E. coli 0157:H7 from existence. But where promising new technologies could -- in combination with common-sense approaches -- make serious...
This past week, I read Utah's S.B. 34 titled "Production and Sale of Food in Utah Revisions," along with its New Hampshire counterpart, H.B. 1650-FN, called "Commerce in Food in New Hampshire." As any lawyer would, I immediately asked myself, "what are these pieces of legislation really trying to do?," and, of course, "are they constitutional?" I'll get to those...
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission took public comments on a proposed settlement with the alcohol company Phusion Projects, which makes a beverage line called Four Loko. You might recall in 2010 how that product gained much notoriety for sending scores of college students to the emergency room as a result of its dangerous combination of alcohol with caffeine. In a...
Copyright © Marler Clark
