FDA knew of food contamination for years.

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FDA knew of food contamination for years By Naomi Spencer

28 April 2007 For years, the federal Food and Drug Administration knew about

contamination problems on California spinach farms and at a Georgia peanut

butter processor that sickened at least 600 people and caused at least three

deaths, according to agency documents and interviews obtained by the Washington

Post.

 

The spate of recent outbreaks in the US underscores not only the vulnerability

of the country’s human and animal food supplies at every stage of production and

distribution, but also the role of government agencies, which are understaffed

and rely on the agriculture companies to voluntarily police themselves. The Post

reported on the documents in an article published April 23 (“FDA Was Aware of

Dangers to Food,” by Elizabeth Williamson).

 

Food poisoning is excessively common in the US, with as many as 81 million

cases each year, according to federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

estimates, although for the most part only very serious cases are reported.

The country has experienced numerous outbreaks and recalls over the past nine

months. Since August, thousands of reported illnesses have been attributed to

tainted spinach, lettuce, carrot juice, tomatoes, candy, milk, green onions, ice

cream, oysters and peanut butter. Other products, including potato salad,

cantaloupes, and pancake mix have also been recalled.

 

Throughout these outbreaks, the FDA, which lacks the authority to issue

mandatory recalls, has relied on the food industry to enforce its own voluntary

safety standards—and what little authority the federal agency does have is not

regularly exercised.

 

A case in point, the FDA was aware of contamination problems in California’s

Salinas Valley agricultural region for years. A particularly virulent strain of

the food borne pathogen E. coli, associated with manure and run-off from large

industry cattle farms, had repeatedly been detected in spinach and other leafy

greens fields in the region.

 

In 2005, Robert Brackett, director of the FDA’s food safety arm, wrote to

California produce growers, “FDA is aware of 18 outbreaks of foodborne illness

since 1995 caused by [E. coli] for which fresh or fresh-cut lettuce was

implicated ... In one additional case, fresh-cut spinach was implicated. These

19 outbreaks account for approximately 409 reported cases of illness and two

deaths.”

 

The following year saw an E. coli outbreak associated with spinach from the

region that sickened over 200, killed 3, and prompted the largest produce recall

in US history. No fines were levied against Natural Selection Foods, the

processor of the tainted spinach, after the outbreak. In the months since, 35

lots of the company’s spinach have been found to have E. coli contamination.

Clearly, the problem is ongoing in spite of dangerous public health

consequences.

 

Likewise, in the case of the tainted peanut butter, contamination problems

found by agency inspectors were not pursued by either the agency or the

producer. In its report, the Washington Post quoted a 2005 FDA review that

described unsanitary conditions at the Georgia ConAgra peanut butter processing

facility pinpointed in February as the source of tainted Peter Pan and Great

Value brands that sickened over 400 people.

 

A leaking roof and malfunctioning sprinkler system at the facility had

fostered the growth of the bacteria salmonella, and FDA inspectors were looking

into “an alleged episode of positive findings of salmonella in peanut butter in

October of 2004 that was related to new equipment and that the firm didn’t react

to ... insects in some equipment, water leaking onto product, and inability to

track some product.”

 

During that inspection, the FDA report said, ConAgra admitted to inspectors

that it had destroyed some peanut butter in October 2004, but did not explain

why. When inspectors asked the company to provide documentation, ConAgra

representatives told the agency to put the request in writing, which the FDA

never did. “We did not receive a written request,” a ConAgra spokeswoman told

the Washington Post, “they filed the report and that was that.”

 

Brackett defended the lack of follow-up by saying, in the paper’s words, that

inspectors had not seen anything “truly dangerous.” He told the Post that the

unsanitary conditions found in 2005 do not “necessarily connect to the

salmonella outbreak right now. It’s not unusual to have it in raw agricultural

commodities.”

 

The division’s medical officer, David Acheson, told the Associated Press that

the moisture in the facility was “a logical explanation” for the salmonella, but

added, “Whether it’s the sole explanation, I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

Shrugging off the notion that the outbreak could have been prevented or that the

company bears some responsibility, he said, “It doesn’t automatically follow

that a company, just because they had a recalled product that made people sick,

did anything wrong that they could have done differently and did it

deliberately.”

 

Indeed, some responsibility for the outbreak is also owned by the FDA, and in

turn by the Bush administration, which has appointed pro-industry figures to the

agency and implemented drastic cuts to its inspection budget.

 

Since 2003, the FDA’s food safety division has had its budget nearly halved,

to $25 million. The number of full-time positions in the division fell from 950

to 817, even as the number of food processors in the industry has grown to

80,000 and imports have exploded into the US market. Congress has approved a $10

million increase in food safety funding—yet the USDA received an increase of ten

times that amount to oversee far fewer facilities.

 

In response to the public distress over the rising incidence of food

contamination, Congressional Democrats have made various gestures towards

strengthening oversight. In January, the newly Democratic-controlled Congress

added the FDA to its “high risk” list, suggesting that its inefficiencies left

it open to waste and fraud.

 

Connecticut House Democrat Rosa DeLauro, who chairs the subcommittee

appropriating the FDA’s budget, suggested she would cut salaries to top agency

officials for fiscal year 2008 unless they immediately articulated a plan to

improve standards.

 

The posturing of the Democrats ignores the fact that the voluntary

self-policing of the agricultural industry has been a long-standing policy of

the US government, including under Democratic administrations. In the late

1990s, the Clinton administration issued a series of guidelines in response to

the rise of E. coli and salmonella illnesses that were entirely voluntary. The

agricultural industry has long resisted even the most minimal federal

regulations for fear that safety restrictions will cut into corporate profits.

 

In March of this year, in response to the more recent outbreaks, the FDA

issued another series of guidelines for fresh food processors, likewise

voluntary.

 

 

 

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