Just landed in Norway, and the first thing I read off the plane was Tom Gremillion’s new piece for the Consumer Federation of America, “Food Safety and Corruption.” Read the whole thing. Nobody in Washington connects the dots on food safety better than Tom, and nobody says it more plainly. Thank you, Tom — for the piece, […]
I get asked frequently about how we decide which cases to go forward with. Frankly, how we evaluate cases is quite similair to how Health Departments decide which cases to investigate or not – please see my publication – Separating the Chaff from the Wheat : How to determine the strength of a foodborne illness […]
As reported last Friday by Larry Parsons – Monterey Herald Staff Writer – in “Taking on the spinach stigma – Officials gather to discuss how to restore vegetable’s image after deadly E. coli outbreak,” a group of 60 people lunched Friday on fresh spinach, Congressman Sam Farr said with pride, which according to the FDA […]
Over the last several weeks I have been asked dozens of times about the origin of E. coli O157:H7 and the impacts upon people. I remembered an article written on January 6, 1998 By Gina Kolata of the New York Times entitled: Detective Work and Science Reveal a New Lethal Bacteria I have taken the […]
Interesting article that I hope has no applicability of the source of E. coli O157:H7 4NI Northern Ireland News reports that defense scientists secretly tested E. coli bacteria as a possible biological weapon in the 1960s, according to a Ministry of Defense report. According to the 1966 MoD report on the Porton Down laboratory in […]
The FDA has found nine positive E. coli O157:H7 samples from one of the four ranches implicated previously – several hundred environmental samples have been taken. The samples have been found in cattle feces, a water sample and in the intestinal lining of a feral pig (YES, they killed the pig). The positive samples from […]
When I was in Milwaukee Monday I had the chance to talk to the Rotary and to WTMJ News – here is part of the report on the station’s Spinach test for E. coli O157:H7 in bags of spinach off store shelves: E. coli killed three people and made 200 others sick. The culprit: bagged […]
States Can Move Faster Than the Federal Government to Implement Standards, Says CSPI WASHINGTON—The state of California should move quickly to adopt regulations governing the production of fruit and vegetables in California since no federal agency has yet adopted standards, according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). In a legal […]
Great Job – Herb Weisbaum, MSNBC contributor, for keeping this issue in the public eye. Great article entitled: E. coli aftermath: Where is the accountability? With 20 E. coli outbreaks in spinach, lettuce and other salad greens since 1995, it’s clear more needs to be done…. The E. coli outbreak is no longer headline news. […]
Originally published October 24, 2006 by Nicole Fuller Maryland health officials confirmed yesterday that two more people in the state were sickened by eating spinach contaminated with E. coli during a recent nationwide outbreak, bringing the number of cases in the state to five. We expect that one more death will be added to the […]
I have been invited to speak at the Rotary lunch on Monday in Milwaukee about the recent E. coli spinach outbreak, past outbreaks and the legal liability faced by DOLE and Natural Selection Foods, also known as Earthbound Farms. Wisconsin has been by far the hardest hit State – over 25% of the ill people […]
Some interesting quotes and statistics from an article from the The Associated Press. In talking about people’s reluctance to return to Salinas bagged spinach: “As soon as somebody dies, then you’ve created something in people’s minds that’s very hard to overcome….” William E. Rice, a marketing professor at California State University, Fresno. Ultimately, it is […]
Just got back from Toronto, Canada giving a talk on the recent E. coli outbreak tied to spinach. I’ll give the same talk in Milwaukee on Monday to the Rotary. I’m then off to Chicago to talk about – Food Law and Regulation – Looking ahead to the future of food policy at the Crowne […]
Friday the FDA and CDC outbreak numbers will come out – it should be: 204 confirmed illnesses, 31 HUS, 3 deaths. I do expect the FDA and CDC to count the Maryland death case shortly as well. The vast majority of our nearly 100 clients have identified DOLE as the primary source of the E. […]
Larry Parsons from the Monterey County Herald (CA) reported that Natural Selection Foods, the San Juan Bautista produce firm at the center of the national spinach scare, is trimming its work force because of wilting sales today. Sales are down 70 percent for conventional salad and food-service products, and down 10 percent for the company’s […]
I have been asked to speak in Canada about Spinach and Lettuce E. coli outbreaks that have been a plague on both the produce industry and the hundreds of consumers who have become sick or died as a result of eating “ready-to-eat” produce contaminated with cattle feces. Specifically, there is great interest in the recent […]