Two key food and agriculture measures inched forward on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. A Senate appropriations subcommittee approved a bill that would increase funding at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by $53 million for the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and the House kicked off debate on its version of the… Continue Reading
The Pew Charitable Trusts commended Congressman Tom Latham (R-IA) last week for his leadership in securing approximately $27 million in additional food safety funding for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the appropriations bill that is moving through the House. As Food Safety News reported Friday, the food safety funding boost was approved as… Continue Reading
While the reaction from trading partners was immediate with a significant impact on markets and Monsanto opponents did not miss an opportunity to crow, USDA says genetically modified wheat plants found in Oregon was an isolated event. “As of today, USDA has neither found nor been informed of anything that would indicate that this incident… Continue Reading
Opinion
Everybody in Washington, D.C. is running to catch up with the latest dustup over metadata or data mining, or whatever we are supposed to call it. One after another, we seem to have finally entered the twilight zone of scandals. The director of the FBI appears clueless and a high school dropout with a security… Continue Reading
The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a $19.45 billion funding bill to support the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, among other agencies, for fiscal year 2014. The bill would ban funding for USDA horse slaughter inspection and give FDA a relatively minor boost for food safety — $27… Continue Reading
California’s cantaloupe producers will face a new set of food safety rules this season — rules they are imposing on themselves. In an unprecedented move for the state’s produce industry, California cantaloupe handlers have elected to adopt a mandatory food safety plan as part of an effort to restore consumer confidence in the cantaloupe market,… Continue Reading
An official opinion from New Mexico Attorney General Gary K. King either marks the end of horse slaughter in The Land of Enchantment or a meaningless intervention into federal meat regulation. In a June 10 AG’s opinion, the Democrat King said veterinary drugs are too commonly administered to horses not to view their meat as… Continue Reading
Four former Peanut Corporation of America executives face a federal jury trial in October, but the pre-trial period has been all about just one of them — Stewart Parnell. The former president of the now-defunct PCA did not get to get his passport back, but the court is going to allow him to keep all… Continue Reading
The hepatitis A outbreak linked to a frozen berry mix sold at Costco and Harris Teeter stores has now sickened 79 people, 30 of whom were hospitalized, federal health officials reported Friday. Cases have been reported in eight western states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Washington, according to the Centers… Continue Reading
The award for the wittiest reaction to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to label such products as “mechanically tenderized top sirloin” easily goes to the industry’s powerful American Meat Institute. AMI said the proposed rule is like making Ford label “Robotically Assembled Ford Explorers.” It found the labeling changes on mechanically tenderized beef products… Continue Reading
Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium often associated with foodborne illness outbreaks in cheese and fresh produce, killed approximately one in five Americans it infected between 2009 and 2011, according to a new Vital Signs report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday. Though experts called infections from Listeria rare, the pathogen still… Continue Reading