Date: 2/5/2009 12:10 PM
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health officials are defending their handling of the nationwide salmonella outbreak, telling Congress they had been hot on the trail of a Georgia processor even before they were certain that peanuts were to blame for hundreds of illnesses.
The Food and Drug Administration “began its investigation prior to having a strong epidemiological link to a particular food,” Stephen Sundlof, head of the agency’s food safety center, said in testimony prepared for delivery to the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The first signs of the outbreak were detected in November by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But disease detectives initially suspected chicken was the culprit in clusters of salmonella infections that states were reporting.
On Jan. 7 and 8, after discussions between federal and Minnesota authorities, peanut butter was added to the short list of suspects when some people who had gotten sick reported eating peanut butter in nursing homes and at an elementary school. On Jan. 8, the FDA visited an Ohio distributor for Peanut Corp. of America.
The next day federal inspectors were at the company’s Blakely, Ga. facility, which ultimately was identified as the source of the food poisoning. That same day, Jan. 9, Minnesota health officials found salmonella in an open container of peanut butter made at the plant. On Jan. 10, Minnesota made a positive match to the salmonella strain that caused the outbreak.
Lawmakers, however, may not be reassured. They are concerned about the state of the national food safety system, a collaboration between the FDA, CDC and authorities in each state. As the list of recalled items containing peanut products surpasses 1,000, lawmakers are vowing to press for stronger food safety laws and more money for inspections.
“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,” said Agriculture Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. “It’s time to find the gaps in the system and remedy them.”
The salmonella outbreak has sickened at least 550 people in 43 states, eight of whom have died. New cases are being reported, although the outbreak is slowing.
The Peanut Corp. plant in Blakely, Ga., which produces a tiny share of U.S. peanut products, is being blamed. Authorities say the facility shipped peanut butter, paste and other products that had tested positive for salmonella. The company retested, got a negative reading, and shipped the products.
A criminal investigation is under way. The company has denied any wrongdoing and said Wednesday that its Blakely plant had received regular visits and inspections from state and federal authorities in 2008 and had gotten a “superior” rating from an independent inspection.
As the list of recall list grows, Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan said it’s a textbook example of an ingredient-driven outbreak.
“The event illustrates how a large and widespread outbreak can occur from distribution of a single item to hundreds of foods,” Khan said in his prepared testimony.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are dusting off food safety legislation that went nowhere under administration of former President George W. Bush and are hoping for better luck under President Barack Obama, who has criticized the FDA’s handling of the outbreak.
But it remains unclear whether Congress can deliver major improvements in food safety this year, given the press of critical issues such as the shaky economy and a ballooning federal deficit.
All the reform proposals would give the FDA authority to order recalls, which are now voluntary.
Reformers also agree that food processing plants should be required to have a safety plan and document their compliance. And there is widespread agreement that standards for imported foods must be upgraded.
There’s also consensus that inspections should be carried out according to common requirements, but legislators differ on how frequently checks should be performed.
There’s agreement on the need for standards for fresh produce, but there are differences over setting up a tracking system to find foods implicated in an outbreak.
One of the bills calls for taking food safety away from the FDA, where it is sometimes seen as a bureaucratic stepchild, and setting up a new Food Safety Administration within the Health and Human Services Department.
William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner, said no reforms can succeed without more money. He says Congress must double the FDA’s food safety budget to about $1 billion a year.
But even with that, Hubbard warned, the agency would not be able to regularly inspect some 150,000 facilities that produce, ship and store foods. He says the answer is a food safety system in which the FDA sets rules that all players in the food industry must comply with and that states help to enforce.
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On the Net:
The FDA’s recall page: http://tinyurl.com/8srctw
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
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