Organics

For all their virtues and growing popularity, organically grown fruits and vegetables are just as vulnerable to contamination by dangerous pathogens as non-organic produce.

Safety Solutions

These tips for safe food handling were compiled from a wide range of sources, including federal and state government health agencies, medical and public health groups, consumer advocates and News21 reporting.

Salmonella Lurks From Farm to Fork

No progress is being made in stopping salmonella contamination of poultry, the leading cause of foodborne illness, as it spreads from farms and chicken houses to slaughterhouses and processing plants to stores, restaurants and homes.

Pesticides

Federal approval of the chemical Aldicarb for farming continues, despite its documented health hazards, illustrating how special interests influence food safety policy

Prevention and Enforcement

The 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act expands regulation to high-risk fruits and vegetables through prevention-based food safety plans in processing facilities. But a News21 examination of federal records found about 30 percent success in enforcement of similar plans for juice and seafood processors.

Investigation: Food Safety

Foodborne illness strikes tens of millions of Americans each year, killing thousands and hospitalizing hundreds of thousands more, because the nation’s food safety system is dangerously fragmented, underfunded, undercut by politics and overwhelmed by a rising tide of food imports from countries with even lower safety barriers.

Small Farms

– An unusual coalition of small farmers, “locavore” devotees of locally grown food and farmers’ markets and Tea Party small government conservatives succeeded in exempting tens of thousands of small farmers from regulation by the Food and Drug Administration in the new FSMA Act, even though food grown on smaller farms is not necessarily safer and not all of it is sold locally. After a year-long lobbying battle, Congress missed a chance to create a realistic food safety plan for small farms.

Challenges Around D.C. Markets

News21 reporters find salmonella-contaminated chicken, among other violations, at the Agriculture Department’s own farmer’s market in Washington, another market near the White House and several local grocery stores.

Antibiotics

Resisting scientific, legal and political challenges, farmers and ranchers still use large amounts of antibiotics in raising livestock, which breeds and passes to humans drug-resistant bacteria.

Traceability

The produce industry is promising an electronic system to better track contaminated fruits and vegetables to their sources at farms and processing plants, while consumer advocates remain skeptical.

Egg Risks

Big egg companies avoid changes that could reduce salmonella contamination in eggs — for about two-tenths of a cent per dozen — even though a voluntary program in Pennsylvania is working well.

Problem Produce

Salmonella contamination has been showing up in fruits and vegetables, a vital part of a healthy diet, sickening thousands and confounding both growers and government regulators.

On the Border

In 2010, the U.S. imported over $86 billion worth of food throughout more than 300 entry locations. These locations are ground zero for the U.S. government’s ongoing attempt — through agencies like the FDA — to keep the nation’s food supply safe. News21 went behind the scenes of FDA’s Los Angeles district to talk with investigators, directors, chemists and bug experts to better understand the magnitude and complexity of this attempt, and to show what this agency faces in coming years.

Kosher

Preparation of kosher food, rather than the ritual slaughter of kosher meat and poultry, is key to whether it is safer to eat.

Inspection Gaps

The government says its seal on meat and poultry tells consumers the food is safe, but 21 recalls in 2010 and notable outbreaks from the past five years show the stamp doesn’t guarantee safety. Despite being governed by America’s strictest food regulations, millions of pounds of contaminated meat and poultry still reach – and kill – consumers because of flaws in the system of industry self-regulation and federal oversight.

Locavores

With small farms mostly exempt from federal and state food safety enforcement and little or no regulation of proliferating farmers’ markets, locavores, including those running farmers’ markets, bear the ultimate responsibility for the safety of what they buy and eat.

New Rapid Tests

Increased use of cheaper rapid tests to detect foodborne illness in patients has many public health experts questioning the accuracy of the government’s reported decline of E. coli O157, the most prevalent and virulent strain of the deadly pathogen. These tests – used to detect illness in lieu of traditional labor-intensive culture tests – don’t always identify a specific strain of E. coli and are not counted in official reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Epidemiologists are also concerned about what implications these emerging tests will have on the future of outbreak detection because they impede their ability to link individual illness cases together.

Suspect Seafood

Although most of the seafood Americans eat is imported from other countries, only 1 percent is inspected before it comes into the U. S., and a sizeable portion of that is rejected as filthy or tainted with banned drug residue.

Cantaloupes: Anatomy of an Outbreak

The spring 2011 salmonella outbreak linked to Guatemalan cantaloupe that sickened 20 people in 10 states reveals the challenges for U.S. agencies in overseeing food safety. It also shows the dangers American consumers face as more food is imported. Cantaloupe, a frequent carrier of pathogens that cause foodborne illness, is imported by the U.S. more than any other nation. The U.S. gets the majority of its imported cantaloupe from Guatemala.

States Slow to Respond

A data analysis of salmonella reports in all 50 states reveals inconsistent reporting requirements among state health departments for foodborne illnesses undermine national outbreak surveillance and put residents of the worst states at the greatest risk. An investigation of a 2008 salmonella outbreak linked to hot peppers that began in Texas before spreading to 43 states and sickening 1,500 illustrates the need for fast and effective reporting of diseases and exposes weaknesses in the nation’s collective ability to respond to widespread outbreaks.

Zeppole: Story of an Outbreak

Strong illustrative narrative about all-too-typical failures in food handling and state regulation in a catastrophic salmonella outbreak from zeppole distributed by a local bakery to senior centers and churches for a Catholic holy day in close-knit Rhode Island communities.