DadTalk

Food Recall Dry Milk Products

Food sellers are recalling milk products because of possible salmonella contamination, reports the Food and Drug Administration. The voluntary effort is an extension of an earlier recall, which includes flavored whey proteins, instant nonfat dried milk, fruit stabilizers and thickeners from the Minnesota-based Plainview Milk Products Cooperative.

The recall was sparked after the USDA found salmonella in Dairyshake powder. The FDA subsequently found food equipment at the Plainview plant contaminated with salmonella.

In response to the recalls, Dunkin’ Donuts announced it would stop serving hot chocolate and Dunkaccino drinks because it received the mixes from the Plainview Coop, reports WebMD. Contamination was not found in Dunkin’ Donut prod ducts.

Additional

Companies Recall Products Linked to Milk Processor

Food Safety Let the Eater Beware

Did you know that one big food maker wants you to stop using the microwave for frozen meals and instead use a conventional oven? Why, you ask? Because some big food makers are now relying on customers to make prepared food safe now that they cannot, reports The New York Times.

The concern isn’t about raw meat. Instead, the big food makers can’t guarantee vegetables and seasonings aren’t contaminated with salmonella, E. coli and other pathogens.

Consider ConAgra’s problems with “frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007:”

Food Safety Falls to Us, States That Give a Dang

If it wasn’t for Minnesota, we’d probably still be eating peanuts and lettuce contaminated with salmonella. While I’ve written about the failure of the Food and Drug Administration to keep watch on food growers and manufacturers, it turns out the key to discovering the cause of outbreaks depends on state and county governments, reports The New York Times.

The problem? Only a handful of states take this responsibility seriously, relying on conscientious Minnesota, Florida and Washington to do the hardcore sleuthing and reporting. If you live in states like Kentucky, Nevada, Texas and Arizona, you’d wrongly think that contaminated food didn’t exist.

The key to uncovering the source of a food-borne illness? Speed. Because humans forget what they ate more than a few days ago, it’s crucial for food investigators to question victims ASAP. Many states do not.

Memories of my 20s and 30s brings up a point not covered in the Times story. You see, I used to get stomach ailments on a regular basis, but I never thought to report the problems to anyone, not even my doctor. For whatever reasons, I started to believe getting food illnesses was normal.

While I now know better, I follow some simple safety procedures learned over the years:

Food Recalls CDC Acknowledges Food Safety Stalled

Hey guess what mom and dad? America’s food supply hasn’t improved over the last three years.

What was readily apparently to any parent trying to find something SAFE to feed our kids, is finally official, reports The New York Times. In fact, the entire food system needs a thorough overall, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Wish I could find the darned report.)

About 76 million Americans suffer from foodborne illness every year, the study found. Salmonella accounted for 48,000 cases in 2008.

Below are the most common food-related illnesses in 2008 based on a study of 10 states, according to WebMd:

1. Salmonella: 7,444 cases
2. Campylobacter: 5,825 cases
3. Shigella: 3,029 cases
4. Cryptosporidium: 1,036 cases
5. E. coli 0157: 718 cases
6. Yersinia: 164 cases
7. Listeria: 135 cases
8. Vibrio: 131 cases
9. Cyclospora: 17 cases

Children under 4 are the most vulnerable to food illnesses. “Children can become infected simply by sitting in a shopping cart next to raw meat,” reports The Washington Post. Fortunately, we rarely buy raw meat.

On the other hand, I think I’m going to skip eating today.

Food Recalls FDA Expands Recall of Pistachio Products

While the recall of pistachios is yet more evidence of what is wrong with America’s food industry, it also may be a sign that the Obama Administration is working hard to fix the Food and Drug Administration.

Rather than incrementally expand the recall week after week, as was done with peanut products, the FDA has quickly pushed to recall the entire 2008 crop, reports The New York Times. No illnesses have been reported to date.

The fact that the FDA essentially must ask manufacturers to implement recalls, shows the glaring regulatory weakness of the agency. But at least the culture may be changing from industry lapdog to proactive regulatory agency.

“The food industry needs to be on notice that FDA is going to be much more proactive and move things far faster,” Dr. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration, tells the Times. “We’re going to try to stop people from getting sick in the first place, as opposed to waiting until we have illness and death before we take action.”

Kraft Foods first discovered salmonella in pistachios it received from Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, based in the city of the same name in California. (Kraft deserves kudos for aggressively checking food ingredients.) Setton tried sending contaminated pistachios back to the roasters, but regulators are concerned there is an unknown contamination point somewhere in the manufacturing plant.

The FDA is warning consumers to avoid all pistachio products unless they can determine the nuts were not recalled by Setton, according to an FDA press release. What to do? Go here for a searchable database.

Food Recalls This Time, It’s Pistachios

Here we go again. A full WEEK after the Food and Drug Administration quietly announced a pistachio recall, the agency is now telling consumers to avoid ALL products containing the nut, reports The Associated Press. (The agency is forced to punish innocent companies because apparently the FDA does not keep a registry or database of where the raw ingredients wind up.)

Like with the ongoing peanut recall, salmonella was found at Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc. The nation’s second-largest pistachio processor is recalling more than 2 million pounds of the nuts, which are used in a variety of consumer products including roasted nuts, chocolate and yogurt-covered candies, ice cream and cake mixes.

As I’ve already learned, it will be impossible to keep up with all the upcoming recalls, so go here over the next few weeks to discover which products are implicated. A searchable database is planned, reports the FDA.

Food Recalls Another Plant Closes as Revelations Continue

Expect more peanut-related products to be recalled after a Texas processing plant closed Monday night because of possible salmonella contamination, reports The New York Times. The plant was operated by the Peanut Corporation of America, the same company that owned the Georgia facility blamed in the massive ongoing recall of food products.

The Texas facility was described as “disgusting” by a former assistant plant manager. The roof leaked and water was often left standing in the basement.

Why the Texas plant wasn’t singled out sooner is going to haunt the Food and Drug Administration and lawmakers for some time to come. The reason: the FDA claims it could not investigate this plant until it had cause. In other words, one plant causing millions if not billions of dollars of damage to the food industry does not constitute probable cause to investigate a food maker’s other properties. What horse hockey.

I should note that the FBI raided the Georgia facility and hauled away “a whole bunch of stuff” for a criminal investigation. I’m trying to picture a handcuffed vat being loaded into an FBI van.

Meanwhile, more revelations emerge, . Consider that there was another massive salmonella outbreak that sparked a recall of Peter Pan peanut butter in 2007. Instead of checking out the entire industry, the FDA simply ignored the warning signs, reports The Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Toy Recalls New Safety Rules Sort of Kick In

As new rules banning lead-and phthalate-contaminated products kick into gear today, retailers, thrift stores and even librarians are confused over what can and can’t stay on the shelves, reports a variety of news services.

That’s because court decisions and rule revisions have been occurring, reports The Associated Press. The biggest problems revolve around children-focused thrift stores whose entire product lines are in question.

Explains The AP:

The standards were set to go into effect on Tuesday, but on Jan. 30 the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a one-year stay of enforcement for some testing and certification requirements for manufacturers and importers of regulated products. The decision gives the CPSC more time to finalize four proposed rules that could exclude some materials and products from testing and issue more guidance on how testing is to be conducted.

However, retailers are still not allowed to sell the products, causing some uncertainty.

The key word here is: Confusion. I’m still unclear myself over what’s in effect and what’s not. So the best I can do is provide a quick rundown of what the rules entail (page may have been pulled), according the CPSC website:

Food Recalls FDA Needs Citizen Inspectors to Improve U.S. Food Safety

“To say that food safety in this country is a patchwork system is giving it too much credit. It is a hit or miss gamble, and that is truly frightening. It’s time to find the gaps in the system and remedy them.”

– Agriculture Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa

As I’ve been reporting for years, the Food and Drug Administration is failing Americans. Because the agency remains broken, the outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter has killed eight and sickened 575 people so far, according to The New York Times.

And yet the FDA keeps claiming, like a misbehaving child, that everything is just fine, reports The Associated Press. In fact, the agency has the unmitigated gall to claim that it was already on the trail of the processor blamed for contaminating thousands of products containing peanut butter products.

Really? If the FDA was on the ball, why did the agency, according to the Los Angeles Times, quietly slip into an existing report that the Peanut Corp. of America knowingly shipped out batches of product that had tested positive for salmonella? Why didn’t the FDA announce these new findings more vocally? By the way, some of the contaminated lots were destined for school lunch programs around the nation.

Here’s how the FDA responded to the latest criticisms:

Food Recalls Recall of Peanut Butter Products Expands

The Peanut Corporation of America has expanded its recall to include products made since Jan. 1, 2007, reports The New York Times.

Why, you ask? Because the FDA discovered that the Georgia peanut plant knowingly shipped product contaminated with salmonella prior to the first recall, the Times reports:

An FDA inspection team that visited the plant on Jan. 9 discovered that on 12 occasions in 2007 and 2008 tests conducted by the company found salmonella contamination in its products but that it shipped the contaminated products to customers after a retest found no contamination and did nothing to clean the plant.

“The practice of initially obtaining a positive sample and subsequently of getting a negative result and not having” cleaned up the plant is illegal, said Michael C. Rogers, director of the division of field investigations at the food and drug agency.

The recall will likely force other food manufacturers to slog through their records to discover which of their products might have been made with Peanut Corporation of America peanut butter. And that means new recalls will continue for weeks if not months to come.

I’ll do my best to keep updating this file with all the recalls in one place, but jeesh.

Additional:

New Look at Food Safety After Peanut Tainting