Ethics And The FDA
Although the FDA has had any number of experts present at the various conference calls it has conducted, it has yet to include an ethicist. This is a significant problem. Today every major medical center has a committee devoted to ethics. Every medical school has courses on ethics and there are many journals specializing in […]
Perishable Thoughts
The FDA and CDC are in control right now. With letters from the Florida Tomato Exchange and especially the one from Senator Tom Harkin, the message is going forth that this industry shall be heard. It reminds us of the first speech Benjamin Disraeli made in the House of Commons. He was a novelist and […]
FDA Town Hall Meeting To Be Held
During United Public Policy Conference
United came out with an announcement that it will hold an FDA Town Hall Meeting at FDA headquarters during its September Washington Public Policy Conference: The Town Hall meeting will allow industry members to talk with top FDA officials to ask questions and hear their views on all key questions regarding produce safety, outbreak investigations, […]
Madness Must Stop
It was simultaneously a moment of poignancy and good sense when during United’s conference call held to update its members and solicit input and ideas regarding the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, Drew McDonald, Vice President of Quality Systems at Taylor Farms, basically asked this question: How is it possible that we have gotten to the point […]
Pundit Mailbag — Irradiation Safety
Clearly Demonstrated
We’ve run many pieces on irradiation, including one specifically on tomatoes, entitled Irradiation Holds Promise For Tomato Pathogen Reduction, which featured an interview with Dr. Anuradha Prakash at Chapman University. It was, however a mention in our interview with Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH that brought this note: I was pleased to read the frank […]
Pundit Mailbag — Processed Salsa
Not Suspected Of Salmonella… Yet
We’ve run a number of pieces in which we have speculated on the likely cause for this Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak. One of the possibilities we mentioned was freshly prepared salsa, such as is typically sold in the deli section of supermarkets as well as for foodservice applications. This speculation brought a response: The news from […]
Important Questions Never Asked,
According To Navajo Nation Investigators
Investigators from the Navajo Nation’s Bio-Terrorism Preparedness Program (BTPP) in New Mexico are going back into the field to re-interview both “cases” (people who fell ill) and “controls” (people of similar demographics who remained healthy) as part of the national effort to get to the bottom of the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak. So explains the Gallup, […]
Senator Harkin Calls For Reform
Of FDA’s Food Safety System
Late in the evening on July 15, 2008, we received a nice note from Adela Ramos: I work for Senator Tom Harkin on the Senate Agriculture Committee and I wanted to make you aware of a letter we sent today on the Salmonella outbreak. I’ve been reading the Perishable Pundit for some time now, and […]
FDA’s Sacrificial Lambs
One of the lessons of this Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak is that, as an industry, we cannot allow individual industry members to be hung out to dry by the FDA. We have been writing for months regarding the FDA Import Alert imposed on a producer of Honduran cantaloupes. The Import Alert was imposed on March 22, […]
Perishable Thoughts
Perhaps as industry anger over the progress of the investigation of Salmonella Saintpaul boils over, all of us need to remember words that Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a book entitled, The Strenuous Life. The title came from a speech he gave as the Governor of New York when he spoke on April 10, 1899, in […]
