Federal Government’s Recent View On Food Safety After Peanut Poisoning Case
By Richard Achen
Christopher Meunier, 7, has not gotten ill since he was very young, but in late November, he suddenly had a high fever and bloody diarrhea and started vomiting.
He was just in severe pain, said his mother, Gabrielle Meunier of South Burlington, Vt. He said, It hurts so bad, I want to die something you dont expect to hear out of a 7-year-olds mouth.
In the hospital for six days, Christopher had salmonella poisoning, making him one of more than 500 individuals sickened across the country after eating peanut butter or peanut products made at a Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Ga.
The Food and Drug Administration has alleged that the company knowingly shipped tainted products to some of the largest food makers in the country from a plant that was never designed to make peanut butter safely, causing one of the most extensive food recalls in history. The company responded that it disagreed with some of the agencys findings and that it had taken extraordinary measures to identify and recall all products that have been identified as presenting a potential risk.
Food scares have become as well known as Midwestern tornadoes. Cantaloupes, jalapenos, lettuce, spinach and tomatoes have all been subject to major recalls in recent years. And a fast growing list of manufacturers and trade associations joined consumer supporters in begging for stricter regulations calls that the Bush administration largely rejected.
A clutch of legislative proposed measures this year would create repairs to the system, and people offering those proposals expect President Obama to back them because, as a candidate, he continuously promised reforms.
Far too often, tainted food is not recalled until too late, Mr. Obama said last year. When I become president, it won’t be business as usual when it come down to food safety. I will provide additional finances to hire more F.D.A. or Food and Drug Administration food inspectors.
Nearly all of the proposed legislation under consideration would need companies like the Peanut Corporation of America to lay out specific plans for manufacturing safely and testing routinely. The bills would require that test results and other records be made available to F.D.A. inspectors upon demand, and would provide additional money for more intense inspections of domestic and foreign food factories. Some would also fix the patchwork system by which outbreaks are detected.
Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, also propose creating a food agency independent of the F.D.A. or Food and Drug Administration so that food would receive its own individual attention. At present, at least 12 federal agencies regulate food safety. The battle between those who would strengthen the F.D.A. and those who would break it up will be an important fight this year.
I think I can prevail on the president to take a good fresh look at this, Mr. Durbin said. We can no longer forgive or explain whats happening with food safety in the U.S..
Not the White House nor the Health and Human Services Department would comment on Thursday. But the peanut issue, critics say, demonstrates just how very bad the system needs repairing, starting with the patchwork surveillance system that is the first indicator that something has gone very wrong.
Issues like Christophers are reported to local health departments, which in turn are to report them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By mid-November, the disease centers had seen enough cases of a similar strain of salmonella to take action.
The numbers were not necessarily significant starting with one here, one there, said Lola Russell, a disease centers spokeswoman. Over time, those numbers began to rise.
By the middle of December, the Minnesota Department of Health, known as among the best in America, had received reports of nine individuals with salmonella poisoning. As a result, the departments Team Diarrhea, a team of graduate students who work nights, started calling patients and their caregivers to get information about their food choices .
We had a bunch of people that like peanut butter, said Carlota Medus, a state epidemiologist. But none of the brand names were matching up well.
Other states were reporting similar cases, but as in Minnesota, no one could figure out the shared food. The process is fraught with uncertainty. State health officials ask individuals what they remember consuming in the days leading up to the moment they became ill. Poor memories and bad information side swipe these attempts, and officials are often sent on aimless pursuits.
Having to wait is part of the problem. More than two weeks generally pass between the time someone is diagnosed with an illness and the result of a feces sample test is givin to Government officials.
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