Editor’s note: We continue with our Food Safety News holiday tradition by publishing our fifth annual Christmas Day “nice” list, calling out a few folks we think are worthy of some positive mention based on their contributions to food safety during the past year. This year, we separated the “naughty,”
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Letter From the Editor: A 10-Year Term
Dr. Elisabeth Hagen is departing government in mid-December, again leaving America without a Senate-confirmed under secretary for food safety. How common are these periods when USDA is without an under secretary for food safety? More common than not, it seems. 
It was just over 19 years ago, on Oct. 19,
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USDA's Hagen Addresses Rep. DeLauro on Inspector IT Network
Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, Under Secretary of Food Safety for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wrote a letter to Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) last week regarding DeLauro’s concerns over a reportedly problematic computer network used by USDA meat inspectors. The letter came as a response to an open letter DeLauro wrote
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Hagen Promises Poultry Inspections are Still Going to Change
A government auditor’s critique of data used to justify new poultry inspection rules is not going to prevent the new system from going forward, Elisabeth Hagen, USDA’s Under Secretary for Food Safety, said Wednesday. Hagen told The Hagstrom Report, the subscriber news service covering USDA, that there were more reasons
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Hagen, Taylor Urge Public to Engage in Lengthy Policymaking Process
The public should not hesitate to be more involved in the food safety policymaking process, Dr. Elisabeth Hagen and Michael Taylor, the nation’s two leading food safety officials, told an audience at the Food Safety Summit in Baltimore late last week. Dr. Hagen is Under Secretary for Food Safety at
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Letter From The Editor: Poultry Politics
In writing about food safety for the past four years, I’ve come to appreciate those times when government, industry and consumers are all on the same page. It’s at those moments that a bipartisan Congress adopts reforms like the Food Safety Modernization Act. Then there are times when government, industry
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All Federal Meat Inspectors To Be Furloughed on 11 Scheduled Days
The nation’s meat inspectors will be forced to take the same days off, possibility shutting down the U.S. meat industry on those dates, the House Agriculture Subcommittee learned Wednesday. In an exchange with USDA Under Secretary For Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen, the committee heard details of the administration’s plan for
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Letter From The Editor: New Years Resolutions
I wrote a few imaginary New Year’s resolutions for some of our newsmakers that we haven’t gotten around to publishing until now. As the great Willie Nelson would say: “Funny how time slips away.”
Truth be told, some of my colleagues thought I was being too harsh on the government
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Top Ten Most Important Food Safety Stories of 2012
Editor’s Note: We continue today with our look back at what happened in 2012 with the Top Ten Most Important Stories of 2012 as selected by the writers and editors of Food Safety News. Like yesterday’s Reader’s Choices, the stories that drove Food Safety News’ readership to new heights,
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Santa Claus Wants To Know: Who’s Been Naughty & Nice?
Editor’s Note: It’s time to put out the milk and cookies for Santa Claus and read the Food Safety News Naughty and Nice List for 2012. This is the fourth N&N list we’ve prepared. Our annual Naughty and Nice List along with our New Year’s Resolutions are among the traditions
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