The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) should carry on with its work to reduce pathogens in meat and poultry, but first, the agency needs to improve documentation, add some timelines to its tasks
Continue Reading
Senators Still Want Answers From Antibiotic Resistance Task Force
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) are still waiting for answers to animal antibiotics questions posed eight months ago. The senators originally wrote to the co-chairs of the Interagency Task
Continue Reading
Senators Ask GAO to Examine Options for Food Safety Oversight
Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) study whether creating a single food agency would increase efficiencies, reduce costs and
Continue Reading
Senators Want USDA to Finalize Poultry Pathogen Standards
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) are asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to finalize USDA’s Salmonella and Campylobacter performance standards as soon as possible. In January, USDA’s Food Safety and
Continue Reading
McDonald’s Plans to Phase Out Chicken Fed Medically Important Antibiotics
Fast-food giant McDonald’s announced Wednesday that, within two years, all of the chicken served at its 14,000 U.S. restaurants will come from farms which raised the birds without medically important antibiotics. The move could help
Continue Reading
Senators Reintroduce Bill to Combat Antibiotic Overuse
On Monday, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) reintroduced the Prevention of Antibiotic Resistance Act (PARA). The bill, previously introduced in June 2013, would require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to withdraw
Continue Reading
2014 in Review: Animal Antibiotics
Food Safety News wrote a lot about antibiotic resistance this year — particularly the debate surrounding the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) plan to phase out the use of certain antibiotics in food animals, introduced
Continue Reading
Three Senators Have Questions for Interagency Antibiotics Task Force
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent a letter Tuesday to Secretaries Chuck Hagel, Tom Vilsack and Sylvia Burwell, co-chairs of the newly formed Interagency Task Force for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant
Continue Reading
Senators Want FDA to Collect More Animal Antibiotics Data
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are calling on the Food and Drug Administration to step up animal antibiotic tracking. Specifically, they want the agency to propose
Continue Reading
GAO: USDA Needs to Tighten Up Salmonella and Campylobacter Standards for Poultry
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is recommending that the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) take action to reduce pathogen contamination on chicken and turkey products, make sure that agency food-safety
Continue Reading
FDA: Antibiotics Sales to Farms Up 16 Percent Between 2009-12
Federal data released Thursday show that sales of medically important antimicrobials used in food-producing animals in the U.S. increased by 8 percent in 2012 and by 16 percent between 2009 and 2012. The Food and
Continue Reading