Pondering the news from this week’s food safety beat, I found myself perplexed, paranoid and peeved. A terrifying trio of unrelated stories was begging for a beach beating. I was passionate enough to think I would not need to court the muse. Three hours later, nothing worth reading had crossed my keyboard. 
The “Pathogens’ Field of Dreams” concept was the first to be pitched in the general direction of the trashcan icon. When I got to “Triple Crown of Pathogens” and “Trifecta of Infections,” I started to panic. Enter my new favorite muse, Rod Serling. From 1970 to 1973, Serling — widely known for his work with “Twilight Zone” — provided the narration and no small part of the content for a weekly television series, “Night Gallery.” His weekly intro about a trio of unrelated pieces of art is the perfect start to this week’s triple threat from the world of food safety:
“Good evening and welcome to a private showing of three paintings, displayed here for the first time. Each is a collector’s item in its own way — not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a canvas, suspended in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.”
Here are three terrible tales from the food safety gallery this week. The perplexing problem of pathogens and state boundaries Once again, Organic Pastures Dairy Co., of Fresno, CA, was in the news, this week recalling unpasteurized, raw dairy products for the second time since May 9 because state inspectors found Salmonella contamination. The May 23 recall was the result of follow-up testing the state was conducting in response to finding Salmonella in the organic dairy’s milk earlier in the month. State officials say the 500-cow dairy, operated by founder and CEO Mark McAfee, will be subject to increased inspections and testing for an unspecified period. 
McAfee says if his dairy was in Pennsylvania, his milk would have been OK’d for sale. He contends the testing method used by California is too sensitive. He prefers a Dupont BAX brand test kit, which he says is adequate under Pennsylvania law. “This is an issue regarding conflicts in testing methodology. The state (California) uses BAM ‘Moore Swab’ and our private state-approved third-party lab uses PCR-BAX,” McAfee said. “Our BAX PCR tests are negative and the state returns mostly negative and some positive tests. This level of bacteria is at the far bottom reaches of the detection limits. “If (Organic Pastures Dairy Co.) was under Pennsylvania state law, we would not be under recall. In Penn State, PCR BAX is one of the approved methods for detection of salmonella.” Here’s the perplexing part. Leaving aside the arguments about the safety of consuming unpasteurized raw dairy products and leaving aside the scientific attributes of various testing methods, there is a major problem with this picture. Does anyone really believe pathogens are aware of state boundaries? States’ rights are crucial to our democratic republic, but seriously, shouldn’t there be one set of rules for things like foodborne pathogen testing? Consumers should be able to buy food in any state knowing that the same standards — and methods of checking and enforcing those standards — are uniform. Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean the sky isn’t falling 
Hundreds of news stories — from legitimate news outlets, not just fear mongers and mommy bloggers — have been published since the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported this week that health officials had confirmed the first case of a person infected with a super-resistant form of E. coli. Everyone in public health had been anticipating the finding since November 2015 when Chinese officials announced they had confirmed human as well as swine cases of colistin-resistant mcr-1 E. coli in their country. In fact, HHS and U.S. Department of Agriculture have been looking for the specific pathogen since the news in China broke. Efforts are detailed in the HHS report “Proactive Efforts by U.S. Federal Agencies Enable Early Detection of New Antibiotic Resistance.” USDA found the so-called superbug in the intestine of a domestic pig, proving that it is already present in both the human and animal food populations in the U.S. It has also been confirmed in Europe, Canada and other parts of Asia. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been an increasingly significant problem for decades, but this one is different, according to the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “It basically shows us that the end of the road isn’t very far away for antibiotics — that we may be in a situation where we have patients in our intensive care units, or patients getting urinary-tract infections for which we do not have antibiotics,” CDC Director Tom Frieden told the Washington Post. Investigators are trying to determine how the Pennsylvania woman was exposed to the bug, which is proving difficult, especially since she had not traveled in recent months. The possibility of foodborne transmission routes have not been ruled out. FDA apparently missed the memo about the internet While the federal government jumped on the colistin-resistant mcr-1 E. coli situation quickly, it has not been so nimble when it comes to thinking outside the brick-and-mortar box regarding food recalls involving online retailers. I was shocked and disappointed this week when I checked in with the people at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to learn that the agency does not have any procedures or notification requirements in place regarding online retailers and food recalls. When I queried the agency, I fully expected to be directed to a link where I could find a rundown of who is supposed to do what to make sure that online retailers pull recalled food from their distribution centers. I also expected that some kind of consumer notification guidance — if not a full-blown rule — would have been developed in the more than 20 years since consumers started buying food online. 