Celebrate July 4th With Contaminated Cookies And Beef
The Cookies
From January to June 2009, at least 69 people from 29 states have gotten sick with E. coli O157:H7, which stemmed from eating Nestlé’s raw cookie dough.
On June 19, the FDA warned the public not to eat Nestlé’s raw cookie dough and Nestlé issued a voluntary recall.
Like most voluntary recalls, it does not stop the food from being sold or eaten (See ObFo’s paragraph below, in the beef discussion, detailing exactly how the process for recalls fails the consumer).
The Wall Street Journal reports that since 2006, Nestlé has consistently refused to allow FDA investigators to look at their safety records. Because the regulatory “requirements” are voluntary, the company actually doesn’t have to. They report:
The Nestlé USA plant at the center of a federal probe into an E. coli outbreak involving cookie dough refused to give inspectors access to pest-control records, environmental-testing programs and other information, according to newly released inspection reports covering the past five years…
A year earlier, officials at the Nestlé plant presented another FDA inspector with a list of things it wouldn’t do. “Among these are the refusal to review the firm’s consumer complaint file, refusal to permit photography, refusal to sign affidavits or receipts and refusal to provide specific information on interstate commerce,” the inspector wrote.
In the ensuing fiasco, Nestlé finally let the FDA in. And, just like that, on June 29, the FDA says it found E. coli O157:H7 in one batch of cookie dough. Of course, the company says it “deeply regrets” what happened and is fully cooperating with the FDA. They are now anyway…
Aptly, Marion Nestle has this to say in summation of the whole thing:
OK. So if we didn’t know it before, we know it now: “voluntary” is a euphemism for not having to do anything. Doesn’t this suggest the need for some real regulations?
The Beef
I think the blogger(s) at Obama Foodorama did a superb job of breaking down the beef problem. In addition, they give a further analysis of the ridiculousness of the recall protocol and general level of food safety in this country. Here is the article, reproduced in its entirety:
Avoid Beef Like It’s The Plague: Massive Class 1 Recall of Beef Products–421,000 Pounds
The President has a whopping new food safety problem: Hundreds of thousands of pounds of contaminated beef in the food chain & little hope of rounding up all the poisoned product…
The June 24 Class 1 (you could die) recall of 41,000+ pounds of beef primal cuts from Colorado firm JBS Swift Beef Company for E coli 0157:H7 contamination has just been expanded to an incredible 421,000 pounds. It’s incredible from a poundage standpoint, but not incredible from a food safety standpoint. The original USDA advisory noted that the cows slaughtered for the beef had been processed in April, so food safety experts spotted the potential for a massive expansion of the recall the moment they received the first notice. E coli 0157:H7 is an incredibly toxic bacterium which can cause everything from violent stomach upset to permanent renal failure to death. To date, there are 24 illnesses in multiple states, of which at least 18 appear to be associated. And keep in mind that for every one person who is a verified food poisoning victim, the CDC has an algorithm that estimates that there are 35-50 more cases that never get tracked. That’s between 630 and 900 people already ill. The numbers will grow. A “traceback” investigation has begun, run jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. This means investigators will be contacting state and local health authorities to see if there are any more reported illnesses.
Consumers, however, do not generally comprehend the idea that a recall is at the whim of the company doing the producing. Recalls are VOLUNTARY. There is no requirement legally that the products be tracked down by the processor and yanked from store shelves, out of restaurant freezers, out of community and church group food lockers. There’s no requirement that grocers or chefs not use contaminated products. And no private, self-deputized FDA or USDA agents such as your intrepid blogger will be rifling through your freezer and demolishing contaminated products. Worse, the contaminated meat is well-distributed along the food chain, since the cows were processed two months ago.
It gets worse: There’s almost no way to tell where the beef is, and USDA has not released a list of where the contaminated beef was sent, because JBS Swift Beef Company is refusing to release the list. From the USDA release: Each box bears the establishment number “EST. 969″ inside the USDA mark of inspection as well as the identifying package date of “042109″ and a time stamp ranging from “0618″ to “1130.” However, these products were sent to establishments and retail stores nationwide for further processing and will likely not bear the establishment number “EST. 969″ on products available for direct consumer purchase.
What can you do? Seriously, avoid beef like it’s the plague. Right now, it is. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which monitors meat, poultry and eggs, is still without a leader. The policy reforms needed to address this kind of issue involve stringent labeling and re-labeling requirements, government-mandated inspections, required reporting of test results, better first responders on the local level who can identify illness patterns, civil and criminal penalties for food poisoners. This recall is another good argument for having a system of many, smaller, local processing plants for food, rather than single, jumbo facilities that can poison the entire country with the lowest possible effort; food safety is yet another critical reason we need to re-localize the food economy. But at the moment all of these safety reforms are merely wish-list fantasies, because we’re operating under pre-Obama-era food safety standards. These were bad before, and they’re still bad now. And it seems like we need to get the Food Safety Working Group on the batphone….
For much more information as the recall develops, check out Bill Marler’s Marler Blog. Mr. Marler’s the pre-eminent food poisoning attorney who should be head of USDA’s Food Safety And Inspection Service…but he hasn’t been appointed yet. And right now, he’s going to have his hands full suing JBS, and anyone else who’s selling contaminated beef.
More info: (PDF) A list of the products subject to the expanded recall attached – 104 Pages.
The toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline 1-888-MPHotline (
1-888…
) is available in English and Spanish and can be reached from l0 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. JBS Swift Beef Company consumer hotline is (800)……but they’re not going to tell you anything, either.
Related: *Ob Fo is changing the Food Safety Grade of “D” for Dangerous to “D” For Disaster. *How effective are voluntary recalls? Not very. Why doesn’t USDA have someone leading the Food Safety and Inspection Service? Excuses, Excuses.
***
So, perhaps it would be best to enjoy homemade cookies and stick to the chicken or the tofu…
July 3, 2009
Tags: FDA, food, food event, food safety, Health, policy, USDA Posted in: Health, Politics
One Response
Personal Pleas For Food Safety, Will The Calls Be Heeded This Time? | Food Bubbles - October 12, 2009
[...] Within the last month, The New York Times and The Washington Post showcased two more cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome caused by E. coli contaminated foodstuff – Stephanie Smith suffered after eating hamburger, and the other has been hospitalized since May after eating contaminated Nestle cookie dough. [...]
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