Its good to refelct on where we are every once in a while, this way we can benchmark the face of food safety which is changing all the time. So at mid year 2011, here are my thoughts.
I continue to be surprised by the way the microbes seem to outwit us.
We seem to be…
As the result of political and economic pressures, FDA will likely not have the resources it needs to carry out its responsibilities under the FSMA. What this means is that more responsibility will be placed on the food industry to self-govern. The various industry initiatives will need to expand to make up the difference.
Some of…
Join me here as I go deep inside a food safety reporter’s home and kitchen and uncover the lurking, ever present microbes. Wendy Ryan and Tampa Bay’s Channel 9 really made this entertaining and educational, tough to do, we can take a few tips from these media/communication masters.
What we are seeing now in the latest peanut butter recall and the problem with hazelnuts is this continued change in illness patterns from animal derived foods, to plant derived foods. See Bill Marler’s blog on the topic.
The situation is fueled by increased consumption, scrutiny, better detection methods and more industry testing. Small…
Food safety auditing and inspection is a complex world thanks to the prevalence of food hazards and the repeated nature of outbreaks where some type of inspection or audit was a feature. As I spend about 40% of my time doing this type of work, I would like to spell out what I see as…
Florida presses on its reckless path of destroying public health and continues its sinking spiral of deregulation. Here is another story about how political pressure by industry and lack of public outrage whittles away our safety net. All of this is occurring at a point in time where federal efforts are strengthening public health agencies to protect the food
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8-4-10
An Open Letter to Carol B. Dover of the Florida Restaurant Association.
Dear Ms Dover:
In reply to your recent Tampa Tribune article
,http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/aug/04/na-food-inspections-strong/
you failed to mention several important facts about your involvement in food safety and inspections in Florida. From an historical perspective, I have personally seen…
The following MSNBC story about caterers having the highest risk is right on.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38420815/ns/health-food_safety/
This has also been my experience as an investigator. The reasons for this include time and temperature abuse due to large batch cooking in advance of service sometimes 48 hours in advance, excessive handling of ready to eat foods (NoV), and facilities…
Food safety has risen to a mainstream issue in the last few years. The reasons behind the rising interest of the public have to do with increasing risks. These risks have resulted in numerous contaminated products, hunderds of large recalls, billions in losses, hunderds of millions in lawsuits and thousands of illness and deaths. How is it possible that our fourth largest…
Recent statements by several experts about the legitimacy of third party audits are missing the point. Third party audits are far from Ponzi schemes. They act to protect the buyer when they are realistically representative of the safety of foods and the buyer uses then as a basis for buying decisions. If there is a…