Lettuce outbreak shows need for reform

Like the coming hurricane season, one major outbreak was recently
announced, while another could be already forming. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced there were at least a
dozen people hospitalized and three probable victims of related kidney
failure called HUS. This summer, the “storm” season for outbreaks
started with lettuce. Two summers ago, it was tomatoes and then peppers
that were recalled following a major nationwide outbreak. But unlike
hurricanes, there are steps that can be taken to prevent these
outbreaks. From farm to table, the way that food is grown, gathered,
processed and handled can make its safety more certain.

The Senate is poised to vote on legislation that would ensure everyone involved with food production would take steps to keep food safe. Through the use of more frequent inspections, new standards and scale-appropriate safety plans, and tougher enforcement tools, both domestically produced and imported food will be safer once the new bill is implemented. But implementation won’t occur until the law is passed.

{mosads}How can this new legislation help? Recent outbreaks give some startling insights on the gaps in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) inspection capacity.

In 2007, more than 600 people in 47 states were sickened from salmonella-contaminated Peter Pan peanut butter. The ConAgra plant responsible for the outbreak had been inspected by FDA in 2005, and inspectors learned from plant managers that the company had destroyed some product due to “microbial problems” in 2004, but the managers did not disclose the fact that the problem was salmonella contamination. When FDA’s oral request for documents from the plant went unanswered, FDA did not follow up until 2007 during the outbreak investigation.

In 2009, at least 80 consumers were sickened and 25 hospitalized from E. coli O157:H7-contaminated frozen cookie dough. Though FDA inspectors had visited the Virginia plant in 2005 and 2006, the weakness of FDA’s authority hobbled the agency’s ability to respond when the plant refused to allow FDA inspectors to review consumer complaints or inspect its food safety plans. The agency does not have the ability to require companies to show inspectors any records during regular food-safety inspections, with a few exceptions. As these two examples demonstrate, access to food safety plans and records during inspection is key, and that authority is contained in the new legislation.

Also in 2009, a second salmonella outbreak linked to peanut products sickened hundreds and killed nine consumers. According to the FDA, it had last inspected the offending plant — Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely, Ga. — in 2001, before the company even started producing peanut butter. FDA relied on state inspectors to review the factory in 2006, 2007 and 2008 — and those inspections showed unsanitary practices, such as a leaking roof and gaps in doors where rodents could enter. Federal officials also discovered records showing that 12 times in the past two years the company knowingly shipped products that initial tests showed were contaminated with salmonella.

The company conducted retests, shipping tainted products, and paid private inspectors who gave the plant “superior” and “excellent” ratings. Reliance on private inspections is clearly not sufficient to prevent outbreaks. The new legislation will allow FDA to see test results to verify a plant’s safety plan is working.

A 2007 Botulism toxin outbreak sickened eight people and led to a recall of tens of millions of cans of food after FDA inspectors missed critical warning signs that a canning plant’s safety systems were failing. Five months before the recall began, FDA inspectors did a three-day inspection at the plant, looking only at a line of new cookers. They did not inspect the 100 cookers already operating at the plant — the ones that were later determined to be producing the contaminated sauce. Frequent inspections are essential to preventing occurrences like this. Annual inspection for high-risk plants is mandated in the new legislation.

We don’t know all the details of this latest outbreak linked to lettuce, but the odds are high that – like hurricane season – another food safety outbreak is just around the corner.

A recent poll released by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press found 56 percent of those surveyed felt that government doesn’t do enough to protect average Americans. Everybody eats. Passage of food-safety legislation is a win/win for the public, the White House, and Congress. Hopefully, Washington will get this legislation delivered right after Memorial Day, which marks the beginning of another outbreak season. 

Caroline Smith DeWaal is the director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest