New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has once again proposed a law that would give the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) the ability that it does not believe it already has to recall meat tainted with the pathogenic Salmonella bacteria. The law, in essence, would prompt FSIS to label Salmonella for…
FDA Warning Letters: Misbranding, Inadequate HACCP Plans, Excessive Drug Residues
The latest round of warning letters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) include a dairy company cited for inaccurate nutritional claims, two seafood processors for inadequate HACCP plans, and three cattle producers for excessive drug treatments. FDA found that Minerva Dairy in Minerva, OH, misbranded its Greek yogurt butter product labels by including…
Publisher’s Platform: Salmonella Really Should Be An Adulterant – Always
Last Thursday the Minnesota Departments of Health and Agriculture made the following announcement:
State health and agriculture officials said today that six recent cases of salmonellosis in Minnesota have been linked to raw, frozen, breaded and pre-browned, stuffed chicken entrees. The implicated product is Antioch Farms brand A La Kiev raw stuffed chicken breast with …
CSPI Files Revised Petition on Antibiotic-Resistant Salmonella as Adulterants
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has submitted a revised petition for meat regulators to declare certain strains of Salmonella as adulterants, making it illegal to sell food contaminated with these bacteria and allowing the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to recall or hold the food from commerce.…
FSIS Denies CSPI Petition to Declare Antibiotic-Resistant Salmonella an Adulterant
Thursday was a busy day for the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. In addition to publishing its new poultry inspection rule, the agency also released its response to the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s petition, denying the organization’s request to have antibiotic-resistant Salmonella declared an adulterant. CSPI’s petition,…
Lawsuit Seeks USDA Response to Salmonella as Adulterant Petition
On the third anniversary of filing a petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to have antibiotic-resistant Salmonella declared an adulterant, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is still waiting for a response. On Wednesday, the consumer advocate group filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia…
Salmonellosis: The Problem
In 2013, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that more than 500 people were sickened by seven strains of Salmonella Heidelberg linked to chicken. However, salmonellosis caused by Salmonella Heidelberg is only in fourth place, according to CDC’s outbreak data; in 2011, it was only in seventh place. Salmonellosis is…
Publisher’s Platform: If I Were the Chairman of Foster Farms
I would chop off the head of (fire) young Ron Foster, or at least clip his beak (find a different spokesperson), despite him being the president of the company founded by his grandparents, for allowing our chicken to sicken hundreds – likely thousands – of our valued customers. Honestly, Mr. Foster is simply not up…
Consumer Groups Request Foster Farms Recall
A coalition of consumer groups has demanded that the U.S. Department of Agriculture ask chicken producer Foster Farms to recall chicken products from three central California processing plants that have been linked to an ongoing Salmonella outbreak. At least 317 people in 20 states have been sickened in the outbreak since March. The Safe…
Publisher’s Platform: Mike Taylor and the Myth of Monsanto’s Man
I have known of Mike Taylor since shortly after September 29, 1994. As Food Safety News reported in “Looking Back: The Story Behind Banning E. Coli O157:H7,” Taylor took the podium that day in San Francisco at the American Meat Institute’s annual convention to make his first, and arguably most significant, speech as…