Mary Rothschild – Food Safety News

May 16, 2012

Diamond Pet Foods, the company behind a massive recall of dry dog food due to Salmonella contamination that has sickened at least 16 people, was not taking “all reasonable precautions” to ensure the safety of its product, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspection report.

The Form 483 report, posted by the FDA late Tuesday afternoon, was the result of a week-long inspection that began April 12 after an outbreak of human Salmonella Infantis infection was traced to contaminated pet food manufactured at the Diamond Pet Foods plant in Gaston, S.C.

The report states that Diamond was using cardboard and duct tape on some of its equipment and that there were damaged paddles on the conveyor. The inspectors also noted that some surfaces at the facility were encrusted with food residues.

FDA inspectors specifically listed these four observations:

OBSERVATION 1

All reasonable precautions are not taken to ensure that production procedures do not contribute contamination from any source.

Specifically, no microbiological analysis is conducted or there is no assurance that incoming animal fat will not introduce pathogens into their production and cause contamination of finished product. Also, the firm’s current sampling procedure for animal digest does (sic) preclude potential for adulteration after sampling and during storage in warehouse. On 4/13/12, an employee was observed touching in-line fat filter and oil with bare hands.

OBSERVATION 2

Failure to provide hand washing and hand sanitizing facilities at each location in the plant where needed.

Specifically, there are no facilities for hand washing or hand sanitizing in the production areas where there is direct contact with exposed finished feed/food.

OBSERVATION 3

Failure to maintain equipment, containers and utensils used to convey, hold, and store food in a manner that protects against contamination.

Specifically, paddles in conveyor (South or Middle conveyor leading to the screeners going to packaging) were observed to have gouges and cuts, which exhibited feed residues. The damage to the paddles may allow for harborage areas for microorganisms and are difficult to clean and sanitize.

OBSERVATION 4

Failure to maintain equipment so as to facilitate cleaning of the equipment.

Specifically, firm utilizes cardboard, duct tape, and other non cleanable surfaces on equipment. These materials were observed to have residues adhering. The foam gaskets around access doors to the bucket elevators were observed in deteriorating condition and exhibited an accumulation of feed residues and dust.

Diamond Pet Foods has said, on its website, that it is audited “regularly by a highly respected independent laboratory for food safety, quality and palatability” and that its products go through 141 ingredient tests and 10 final product quality and safety checks prior to shipment.

Phyllis Entis, who has assiduously monitored the outbreak and the various recalls related to it on her eFoodAlert blog, asked Tuesday, “Can anyone tell me how this company, with its self-proclaimed attention to product quality and safety, managed to miss the ongoing presence of Salmonella Infantis in its finished products for at least four months?”

Entis notes that the oldest batch of food in which a government lab found Salmonella was produced on Jan. 3 and 4, 2012, yet Dec. 9, 2011 was chosen as the earliest production date for recall. “This suggests that the contamination was present somewhere in the production environment for five months without being detected by the company’s quality assurance program,” Entis wrote.

As of May 11, at least 15 people in nine states and one person in Canada had been confirmed infected with Salmonella from contact with the contaminated dry dog food or from contact with a pet that had eaten the tainted product, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The FDA has not yet revealed how many complaints it has received about pet injuries possibly related to the contaminated food.

Diamond Pet Foods recalled nine brands of dry pet foods manufactured at its Gaston plant between Dec. 9, 2011 and April 7, 2012. Several other companies whose food was also produced in the facility have joined the recall. See eFoodAlert for the most up-to-date information on the recall and product distribution.

The CDC offers the following advice:

- Salmonella germs are transmitted from animals to humans and humans to humans by the fecal oral route. Salmonella germs can be shed in the stool of pets for 4 to 6 weeks after infection. (And infected pets may not have any outward symptoms of illness.)

If your pet is diagnosed with Salmonella infection, please talk to your veterinarian about taking precautions to minimize spread of this germ. A mild bleach solution can be used to clean areas that may be contaminated with Salmonella germs.

- Follow these simple guidelines to prevent getting a Salmonella infection from your pet:

After contact with animal feces (stool), wash your hands well with soap and running water. Wash your hands as directed in the handwashing instructions.

Be sure to wash your hands with soap and running water after handling or feeding your pet. Wash your hands as directed in the handwashing instructions.

Clean up after your pet. If you have a dog, use a plastic bag to pick up the stool, and clean up the stool while on walks or from the yard and dispose of the stool in a tightly sealed plastic bag. If you have a cat, scoop the litter box daily and dispose of the stool in a tightly sealed plastic bag.

Do not share food with your pets.

- If anyone in your household becomes ill with diarrhea and has bloody stools, fever, or diarrhea lasting more than 3 days, he or she should seek medical care. If you believe you or someone you know became ill from contact with a contaminated food, including dry pet food, please contact your county or city health department. Please refer to your state health department website to find more information about how to contact your local health department. Reporting illnesses to your local health department helps them identify potential foodborne disease outbreaks. By investigating foodborne disease outbreaks, public health officials learn about possible problems in food production, distribution and preparation that may cause illness.

- If your pet develops diarrhea or appears sick, contact your veterinarian. Do not feed your pet any more of the recalled products. Dispose of the products immediately.

- You can report illnesses associated with pet food in two ways: (1) call the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator in your state, or (2) report electronically through the Safety Reporting Portal. Reports should include product details such as brand name, production code (Example: BDR0105E2XJW), expiration date (Example: Best by 3-APRIL-2013), manufacturer or distributor, and location of purchase. Reports also should include medical information.

- More information regarding How to Report a Pet Food Complaint can be found on the FDA website.

The FDA says the recalled pet food does not need to be tested. “The recalled product should be viewed as contaminated and disposed of properly. FDA already knows that the product is potentially contaminated and a recall is in place,” said Laura Alvey, deputy director, communications staff, the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, in an email.

© Food Safety News

CBC News
May 15, 2012

A proposed change to Canada’s meat inspection rules could permit meat from already-dead animals to be processed for human consumption, although federal inspectors say that would only happen on rare occasions.

The proposed changes to the inspection regulations will leave Canadians wondering if the meat they buy is actually safe, federal NDP says.

But the Canadian Food Inspection Agency disagrees, saying the changes designed to streamline the system have only been proposed at this point and if passed would have no effect on food safety.

The NDP released a statement Tuesday saying the Conservative government will allow private inspectors, who may not be qualified, to inspect meat and also change what meat is acceptable — meaning already-dead and crippled animal meat would be okay for processing for the tables of Canadians.

The party is also concerned how budget cuts to CFIA mixed with the proposed regulation changes would affect the inspection of meat for human consumption.

“First the Conservatives will let private inspectors monitor meat, and now they’re essentially allowing road-kill-ready meat into the food supply,” said Malcolm Allen, the NDP agriculture critic. “Even scarier is the fact that we won’t know how long animals have been dead before processing — or even that the meat will be inspected at all.”

Tim O’Connor, a spokesperson for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said that is untrue.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says the amendments would not reduce food safety in any way. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

“Dead stock is not allowed for human consumption,” he said.

He said right now the federal rules are black and white: under no circumstance can an animal designated for human consumption be slaughtered outside of a registered facility.

With the proposed rule changes, O’Connor said there could be a possibility for rare cases where an animal could be slaughtered on farm; for example, if a steer broke its leg or was too aggressive to be safely transferred.

“It would only be under very limited circumstances,” said O’Connor.

Since losing the steer would be a financial hit to the rancher, they could seek approval from CFIA for euthanizing the animal at their location.

They would need an inspection by a veterinarian to verify the animal is safe for human consumption before it is euthanized. The vet would also certify the date and method.

Then the rancher would have to document their techniques, which would have to fall in line with humane treatment and the Health of Animals Act requirements, before transferring the meat to a processing plant within a required time frame where it would be inspected again.

Details still to be worked out

O’Connor said the exact protocol still has to be worked out, as the amendment proposal is still in its early stages and still has to go through a consultation process.

He said the role of private inspectors or veterinarians is also still undecided, and would still have to fulfill current food inspection requirements.

Meat pegged for interprovincial and international trade has to be completed at a federally-registered processing plant, which would have to follow food inspection requirements already in place.

There are some processing plants and slaughterhouses that are not federally-registered, but O’Connor said regulations for those facilities fall under the control of each province.

“The NDP know full well, despite their outrageous rhetoric, that this proposal will not reduce food safety in any way,” said Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz in a statement.

“Only live animals that are inspected and safe for human consumption but cannot be transported safely and humanely would be eligible for on-farm slaughter and then transported to a federal processing facility.

John Masswohl, director of government and international relations at Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, said the proposed rule change is a win-win situation for the better treatment of the animals.

He said it’s better to euthanize an injured animal on a farm and then transport it.

“Right now, the farmer could only choose to transport it or euthanize and dispose of it,” Masswohl said.

He also said diseased or dead animals would not be considered.

“I don’t know where [the NDP] are coming from, or what regulations they read,” said Masswohl.

© CBC News

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

OTTAWA – New Democrat MP, Alex Atamanenko (BC southern Interior) is appalled by the reckless changes to Meat Inspection Regulations (MIR) being proposed by the Conservative government that will leave Canadians wondering if the meat they buy is actually safe. Private inspectors, who may not be qualified, would now be able to inspect meat. Worse, these changes to meat inspection rules also change what meat is acceptable – meaning already-dead meat and crippled animals’ meat will be okay for processing for Canadians’ tables.

According to Atamanenko, these changes have been tried before, and with disastrous results. “The 1970’s “rotten meat” scandal caused the meat industry to collapse which is what led to the creation of federal regulations in the first place.” said the BC MP. “This happened because of a lack of meat processing regulations and already-dead and crippled animal meat was entering the food supply. It’s staggering that the government would ever considering going down this road”

Atamanenko suspects that these changes are arising out of meetings between the US Department of Agriculture, industry reps and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) officials, to further the aims of the Regulatory Cooperation Council to harmonize regulations between the US and Canada. The government claims they are just looking for ways to cut red tape and provide greater flexibility to slaughterhouse operators.

“I’m certain that most Canadians would agree that cutting red tape and flexible regulations should not be the principles guiding our food safety system” stated NDP Agriculture Critic, Malcolm Allen. “To top everything off, hundreds of CFIA employees, including front line inspectors and veterinarians are on the chopping block.

Atamanenko believes the strength of our federal meat inspection rules for major meat packers must not be weakened. “I join with my NDP colleagues in echoing the calls of industry workers to keep our meat inspection system regulated, and safe for Canadians,” concluded Atamanenko. “The Conservative government has no business gambling with Canadians’ health and safety.”

© Office of Alex Atamanenko

May 15, 2012

OTTAWA — When can a chick or a pig claim Canadian residency?

It’s a tricky question that’s confounding the federal government, as it struggles to sort out what meat products can claim to be a “Product of Canada” on food packaging.

The conundrum dates back to 2008, when the government didn’t factor in how imported live animals fit in to strict new Product-of-Canada-labelling guidelines unveiled by Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. The new policy, in effect since the beginning of 2009, requires any food to contain 98 per cent of Canadian ingredients to be considered a Product of Canada.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency now has interim guidelines for imported cows, permitting cattle to be considered Canadian for labelling purposes if they live in Canada for 60 days before being slaughtered and processed in Canada. But CFIA says it has yet to establish residency rules for other animals, such as imported chicks and swine so, for now, the 60-day residency period only qualifies to cattle.

“The Product of Canada guidelines did not explicitly deal with live animals when they were put in place. At that time, the application of the guidelines to imported animals was not highlighted as an issue,” the agency said in a statement, adding it’s still reviewing “how these guidelines can be best applied to meat products from live animals imported into Canada.”

Ron Bonnett, who operates a cow and calf farm in Bruce Mines in Northern Ontario, said the 60-day residency rule for cattle “definitely helps.”

That’s because the life of a cow, which usually spans 20 to 26 months from birth to slaughter, often involves cross-border travel, said Bonnett.

“Cattle do move a lot back and forth across the border. It’s not uncommon for cattle born in my farm, I don’t finish them. They might go into a feed lot in Canada or they might go into a feed lot in the states. And you can end up with Canadian born cattle, sent to a plant in the states and meat is imported back in, and it still wouldn’t qualify. It just gets messy,” added Bonnett, who chalks up a resolution to the cattle-residency question to the government’s “cross-border harmonization effort.”

But Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said the government still has to address serious concerns from producers about requiring virtually all ingredients in a food product to be Canadian in order to be marketed as a Product of Canada.

Bonnett’s organization has been pushing the government to establish a threshold of 85 per cent to allow processed foods made from local produce, such as Saskatoon-berry jam, to be sold as a Canadian product, even if incidental secondary ingredients, many of which are not available in Canada, are sourced outside the country.

“Very few products actually meet that requirement,” Bonnett said of the 98 per cent threshold.

“I’m not really sure what happened there. I think one of the problems is they made a decision to go with the 98 per cent, and then they realized, ‘Well, that isn’t working,’” said Bonnett. “I don’t think they want to trip on this again.”

Until this policy change, a food product could be labelled as a Product of Canada if 51 per cent of the total production cost occurred in the country, even if all the ingredients were imported.

Just days before Ritz pressed ahead with announcing the 98 per cent threshold, the top official in his department warned that the proposed Product of Canada rule might not help local producers and could cause confusion among consumers, an internal memo released to Postmedia News shows.

CFIA said Tuesday it is maintaining the current guidelines related to the 98 per cent threshold, “with no changes to its current policies regarding these claims.”

© Postmedia News

May 14

OTTAWA—The federal government wants to allow the carcasses of already dead animals to be processed in slaughterhouses for human consumption, a move that is raising concerns about the safety of Canada’s food system.

The Conservative government is pitching the change as a way to cut red tape and provide greater flexibility to slaughterhouse operators.

But the New Democrats are raising a red flag saying the move invites possible “contamination” of the food supply.

“Under the present regulations . . . it has to come in alive, be slaughtered on site,” said NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland), the party’s agriculture critic.

“Now you can bring in dead stock. It’s okay to bring in that animal into a slaughterhouse, have it cut, wrapped . . . for human consumption.

“The real fear is how did it die, (and) under what circumstances did it die.”

The proposed changes to Meat Inspection Regulations, outlined in the Canada Gazette, would allow “greater flexibility” to the activities that can be carried out in federally regulated slaughterhouses.

Current federal regulations do not allow meat to be processed from animals slaughtered outside of a registered slaughterhouse.

Now the government is proposing to make exemptions to that rule for animals that cannot be transported to a slaughterhouse alive because they are too aggressive to move or because they are injured.

“It is proposed to amend the (meat inspection regulations) to allow into registered establishments carcasses from food animals slaughtered elsewhere . . . following a detailed ante-mortem examination by a private veterinary practitioner,” the proposed rules state.

“Such an amendment would be extremely useful for industry in a number of situations, such as when injured animals cannot be transported alive for welfare reasons; or when animals are dangerous, aggressive or difficult to handle and cannot be transported.”

A vet would have to inspect an animal prior to slaughter to confirm it could not be safely transported, as well as determine if the animal is fit to serve as food. The vet will also certify the date of the slaughter and method.

Allen said that rule change risks allowing the food supply to be contaminated by “dead stock.”

“You wouldn’t know by looking at it and nor would the label tell you it’s dead stock because I’ll guarantee you if the label said dead stock, you would never buy it,” Allen said.

“All the regulations before about dead stock not being consumed by humans is for a reason and that was to protect our health,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency cited the example of an animal suffering from a broken leg.

“The cow could be slaughtered on the farm and after inspection at a federally registered establishment can be processed. This meat would be eligible for retail,” Guy Gravelle said.

“As for concerns that this amendment may allow unfit animal into the food supply system, this would not be the case.”

“CFIA inspectors, including veterinarians, are present daily during operations at federally registered establishments to verify that food safety requirements are met. All carcasses are individually inspected to protect the health and safety of Canadians,” he said in an email.

That was echoed by Meagan Murdoch, a spokesperson for Agriculture Minster Gerry Ritz, who called the rule change “common sense.”

“This does not affect food safety,” she said.

© Toronto Star

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Washington (CNN) — On a sunny morning early last September, Susanna Gaxiola fed her husband a healthy breakfast of fresh cantaloupe in their Albuquerque, New Mexico, home. Her husband, Rene, a Pentecostal pastor and minister, had been fighting a rare blood cancer and he was eating fresh cantaloupe and other fruit daily.

Around the same time, Paul Schwarz ate fresh cantaloupe in his home in Independence, Missouri. Though 92 years old, Schwarz was still active and healthy, and ate fresh fruit often. And Dr. Mike Hauser, a podiatrist, also ate fresh cantaloupe with his family in Monument, Colorado. Hauser, 68, had been fighting myeloma, a blood cancer, but he was recovering well, even planning a bow-hunting trip in the mountains.

Within days or weeks of eating the cantaloupe, all three men became horribly sick, and all eventually died painful deaths. Their deaths were directly caused by the cantaloupe, which was contaminated with the deadly bacteria Listeria, according to health officials.

After a months-long investigation surrounding the outbreak, CNN has found serious gaps in the federal food safety net meant to protect American consumers of fresh produce, a system that results in few or no government inspections of farms and with only voluntary guidelines of how fresh produce can be kept safe.

Just days after Paul Schwarz, 92, ate cantaloupe he became horribly sick and eventually suffered a painful death.

Gaxiola, Schwarz and Hauser were among the roughly three dozen Americans who died last winter after consuming the infected fruit. More than 110 other Americans across 28 states were sickened, many hospitalized, from eating the cantaloupe.

The 2011 listeriosis outbreak turned out to be one for the record books. It was, in fact, the most deadly food outbreak in the United States in nearly 100 years. It was the third-deadliest outbreak in U.S. history, according to health officials.

It should not have happened, and it could have been prevented, according to numerous food safety experts and federal health officials.

Among those most vulnerable to infections from Listeria are pregnant mothers, unborn fetuses, the elderly, and those ill with a compromised immune system.

Michelle Wakley was in her sixth month of pregnancy in September when she ate fresh cantaloupe in her home in Indianapolis. Within days she was rushed into a hospital emergency room, forced into premature labor from the infection ravaging her body.

“I wasn’t feeling well, I had flulike symptoms,” Wakley said. “I had a headache, but it was not a migraine. Every day when I woke up my head hurt. My legs were killing me. … They ached. Kind of like when you get the flu, your body aches. It was painful! …and I had chills. I should’ve gone to the hospital but knowing … you get fluike symptoms when you’re pregnant, I didn’t go. and I felt awful. My teeth were chattering, I was hot and cold. I had sweats and dry heaves.”

Rene Gaxiola, a Pentecostal pastor who’d been fighting a rare blood cancer, died shortly after eating tainted cantaloupe.

Wakley and her husband, Dave Paciorek, were startled when their baby daughter, Kendall, pushed her way out of her mother nearly three months early.

“It hurt so bad,” Wakley said. “And the reason why it hurt so bad is that the baby was trying to come, because the infection at that point was pretty far into my bloodstream. … That’s why the contractions were so bad and so painful, (because) she knew she needed to come out to live.”

Baby Kendall had to be whisked immediately into a neonatal incubator and attached on all sides to tubes and machines. She remained that way for weeks, with her parents unable to hold her.

“I remember that time that the doctor came in and he told us about the problems that that could happen with a baby that was born that premature, and it was devastating,” Wakley said. “She could be blind, she could be deaf. She could have heart problems, cerebral palsy, ADHD, and the list went on and on. It was — it was just horrible.

“And you think, a day ago we thought we were fine, and and now you’re having the baby and she might not even live? It was just awful.”

Most of these people who died, died very, very painful deaths.

Bill Marler, nationally-known food safety lawyer

Today Kendall still is on 24-hour watch and needs to be fed through a tube in her stomach. There are still larger questions about whether other physical or developmental problems occur later.

And yet, baby Kendall and her mother are today among the lucky ones. They lived.

Last fall, as people began to die and fall sick, investigators from local health departments in Colorado and other states along with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fanned out across two dozen states.

The investigators worked through the Labor Day weekend doing real scientific detective work and gumshoe reporting to find links to what was causing the sudden, deadly food outbreak. They interviewed people who were sick and relatives of those who died. The scientists collected samples of blood and samples of fruit still sitting in refrigerators. They collected fruit from stores and warehouses.

And the trail of evidence, the cantaloupes themselves, eventually led to a remote part of eastern Colorado, near the town of Holly, and a single farm known as Jensen Farms.

‘Tragic alignment’ of poor practices

Investigators and health experts eventually descended on Jensen Farms and would determine that the outbreak occurred because a pair of brothers who had inherited the fourth-generation farm had changed their packing procedures, substituted in some new equipment and removed an antimicrobial wash.

“It truly was an ‘Aha!’ moment,” said Dr. James Gorny, the FDA chief investigator who led a team to Jensen Farms.

“We had melons from the grocery stores which were positive for Listeria, with the exact same genetic fingerprint as we found in all of the ill individuals. We had ill individuals with that same genetic strain of Listeria. We had food contact surfaces at the packing house of Jensen Farms with the exact same, genetically matched strain of Listeria. So we had lots and lots of evidence that this was … as definitively as possible, a smoking gun, that this was the source of the contamination. … The evidence is very, very strong in this case. Some of strongest I’ve ever seen.”

Jensen Farms has been a fixture in the dry plains of southeastern Colorado since the early 1900s, when the first Jensen arrived from Denmark. Brothers Ryan and Eric Jensen inherited what was an approximately 160-acre farm from their father after he died several years ago, and they expanded it out to about 6,000 acres, growing cantaloupes along with hay and alfalfa and other grains.

The brothers grew up cultivating cantaloupes and knew the business by heart. But last year they decided to make a few changes, and it would cost them everything, along with lives of some three dozen Americans they never met.

“What turned the operation upside-down was some significant changes they made,” said Gorny. “It was a very tragic alignment of poor facility design, poor design of equipment and very unique post-harvest handling practices of those melons. If any one of those things would have been prevented, this tragedy probably wouldn’t have occurred.”

But the story of what happened at Jensen Farms, and why no one stopped the sale and shipments of the cantaloupes, also sheds light on serious problems in the nation’s fresh produce food safety net, and a voluntary system created by businesses to ensure a quality product, known as third-party audits.

Gorny and his team of experts from the FDA, the CDC, and other food safety experts would discover a multitude of problems at Jensen Farms, all tied to a series of changes that the Jensen brothers instituted in the packing shed on their farm just before the 2011 harvest.

The investigators said they found, among other things, a dripping, potentially contaminated condensation line allowing water to get onto the floor; water was pooling on the floor; sections of the floor had cut holes and jagged sides that were difficult to clean. Samples taken from the pooled water were positive for the Listeria that sickened people. On the rolling line where the melons moved, investigators found dirty equipment used to wash and dry the melons, and it could not be easily cleaned.

The FDA report stated that “several areas on both the washing and drying equipment appeared to be un-cleanable, and dirt and product buildup was visible on some areas of the equipment, even after it had been disassembled, cleaned, and sanitized.” What’s more, inspectors found that an older, secondhand washing machine designed for cleaning potatoes had been substituted to clean the melons.

“Because the equipment is not easily cleanable and was previously used for handling another raw agricultural commodity with different washing and drying requirements, Listeria monocytogenes could have been introduced as a result of past use of the equipment,” the FDA report stated.

The equipment on the line, including rollers and pads that touched many melons as they passed by also yielded numerous positive genetic matches of Listeria, according to Gorny.

But there was also one other significant point, Gorny and many other food safety experts said. The change in procedures and equipment had also resulted in the removal of what had been used previously to decontaminate melons of bacteria; the farmers had removed their antimicrobial wash. Without it, melons that pass along the packing equipment and are placed in pools of water to rinse can cross-contaminate one another, and an entire production line can spread dangerous bacteria.

“That water can then become a source of contamination, so that if one bad melon gets into that system, you can imagine it can contaminate the water and basically contaminate every melon that comes after it,” Gorny said.

The contaminated melons were shipped out and distributed across the country through an efficient system that took them to hundreds of supermarkets and retailers, and then into people’s homes. The sick, the elderly and pregnant women were the most vulnerable.

Expert calls third-party audit system worthless

Since September, at least 30 people in the United States have died, many of them after suffering excruciating pain and some having gone into comas for weeks. One died as recently as March.

And every single death has been linked genetically to Jensen Farms, according to FDA investigators.

Dr. Mike Hauser, 68, was recovering from myeloma, a blood cancer. Health officials blamed his death on listeria.

Although the CDC’s official death toll stands at 30, CNN has confirmed death certificates giving Listeria as the cause in at least two other deaths linked to the outbreak. CDC officials say they plan to continue tracking victims and will update records later this year.

The cantaloupes, like much of the produce Americans eat, were not inspected by any government body. The reason is that the FDA simply does not have the money or the manpower to inspect all fresh produce on all farms. The agency is responsible for watching over some 167,000 domestic food facilities or farms, and another 421,000 facilities or farms outside the United States, according to FDA officials. But there are only about 1,100 inspectors to oversee these facilities, officials said.

In the absence of FDA inspectors, food retailers and the industry have created the third-party audit system, in which auditors are hired by farms or facilities to inspect their premises and provide scores.

But many food safety experts, and some members of Congress, have assailed the audit system, saying it is unreliable and full of conflicts of interest.

Just days before the Listeria outbreak, Jensen Farms paid a private food inspection company called Primus Labs to audit their operation. Primus Labs subcontracted the job to another company, Bio Food Safety, which sent a 26-year-old with relatively little experience to inspect Jensen Farms.

The auditor was James DiIorio, and he gave Jensen Farms a 96% score, and a “superior” grade. On the front page of his audit at the farm, DiIorio wrote a note saying “no anti-microbial solution” was being used to clean the melons.

Dr. Trevor Suslow, one of the nation’s top experts on growing and harvesting melons safely, was shocked to see that on the audit at Jensen Farms.

“Having antimicrobials in any wash water, particular the primary or the very first step, is absolutely essential, and therefore as soon as one hears that that’s not present, that’s an instant red flag,” Suslow said. The removal of an antimicrobial would be cause for an auditor or inspector to shut down an entire operation, he said.

“What I would expect from an auditor,” Suslow said, “is that they would walk into the facility, look at the wash and dry lines, know that they weren’t using an antimicrobial, and just say: ‘The audit’s done. You have to stop your operation. We can’t continue.’”

The auditor, James DiIorio, did not return CNN’s calls. The subcontractor, Bio Food Safety, and Primus Labs, declined CNN’s interview requests. Eric and Ryan Jensen, the young farmers who changed their procedures, also declined an on-the-record interview.

To some food safety experts, the third-party audit system the Jensens relied on is a joke.

These so-called food safety audits are not worth ANYTHING.

Dr. Mansour Samadpour, president and CEO of IEH Laboratories

“These so-called food safety audits are not worth anything,” said Dr. Mansour Samadpour, president and CEO of IEH Laboratories, one of the nation’s largest food safety consulting labs for industry. “They are not food safety audits. They have nothing to do with food safety,”

Samadpour said consumers should have no faith in the current system of farm audits, because farms pay for their own inspections.

“If this industry is sincere and they want to have their products be of any use to anyone, they should be printing their audit reports on toilet paper,” Samadpour said. “People who are commissioning these audits don’t seem to understand that they are … not worth the paper that they’re written on.”

Some industry officials have confidence in the audit system, and some of the audits are rigorous and thorough. But the entire system is a voluntary patchwork of unregulated guidelines with no national standards or actual regulations. And, however flawed, it is what most farms rely on; the auditors are often the only people who have inspected fresh fruit or produce in some fashion.

Improvements may lie ahead

Gorny and his team of experts were the first FDA inspectors ever to set foot on Jensen Farms.

Samadpour said he finds that appalling.

“Too often we are willing to send paratroopers after something goes wrong and — you know, we kill so many people,” he said. “But the question is: Where were these guys before? Why should anyone be allowed to have a processing plant without the required amount of expertise, without having the food safety systems in place, (to) produce food and send into the chain of commerce? We have had failures at multiple levels.”

William Pumphrey of Springfield, Missouri, died September 24 from Listeria, officials said.

Changes for the better in the food safety system and inspections may lie ahead. The federal Food Safety Moderization Act became law last year, and the FDA is currently writing new regulations to increase food inspections and push for better audits. But even under the new law, officials said, farms might only be inspected once every seven to 10 years. Consumer advocates doubt the new law is likely to solve all the problems in the system.

Back in Indiana, Michelle Wakley doesn’t care much about the FDA, the private inspector or the audits. She and her baby, Kendall, got sick eating cantaloupe grown by farmers who, she says, should have known better, and who need to answer questions from victims’ families.

“Why?” she asked. “They said that their facilities weren’t clean. They said everything about the process was not done correctly according to the guidelines issued by the government. They they didn’t use chlorine to wash the fruit with. They had dirty floors. The Listeria was found on the floors, on their equipment. There were so many things that they weren’t doing correctly. Why? To save a dollar? People have died.”

Bill Marler, a nationally known food safety lawyer in Seattle, represents Wakley and her husband, and many families of the victims who died from the cantaloupe who have filed multiple wrongful death lawsuits.

“Listeria is a really a nasty bug,” said Marler. “Listeria gets into the bloodstream and it causes enormous problems. Most of these people who died, died very, very painful deaths. They had neurological symptoms, physiological symptoms, they suffered lots of pain, and in some cases it was like losing their minds. That just that shouldn’t happen from eating fresh cantaloupe. It shouldn’t happen.”

Jensen Farms will likely now soon fall into bankruptcy, its assets sold to pay medical claims.

Most troubling of all, there is virtually nothing in place, no protective systems that could prevent this from happening again, someplace else.

© CNN

May 1, 2012

OTTAWA — Health Canada’s top nutrition experts are at odds over their minister’s laissez-faire approach to company-sponsored nutrition labels on the front of food packages, internal records suggest.

The schism, chronicled in documents released to Postmedia News under access to information, comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers options to develop a front-of-packaging (FOP) labelling system. It would replace the myriad of private programs developed by food manufacturers and retailers that designate certain foods as healthier options using their own criteria.

These include proprietary programs such as Kraft’s Sensible Solution, Nestle’s check mark system and Facts up Front, a recently launched voluntary program for food and beverage companies. In Canada, other examples include Loblaw’s Blue Menu, Safeway’s Eating Right and the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Health Check program.

The push for a government-regulated nutrition rating system on front of food packages got a big boost in the U.S. last October, when the Institute of Medicine released a report calling for corporate logos and symbols on the front of food packages to be scrapped in place of a single nutrition system that ranks products on a scale of zero to three based on their sugar, sodium and fat content. The report of the government science panel was commissioned by the FDA.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq immediately shot down the proposal, telling Postmedia News she thought it was “great” that companies have developed these proprietary programs. “Our government is not considering implementing a point system for food,” Aglukkaq added.

The categorical statement caught senior officials in Health Canada’s nutrition evaluation division off guard, who raised the issue of harmonizing labelling rules with the U.S., records show.

“I must say I was curious about who had done that response!,” a section head in Health Canada’s nutrition evaluation division wrote to colleagues after the chief of the nutrition regulations and standards division circulated Aglukkaq’s comments.

“Were we consulted at all? This seems like a rushed response,” added a research scientist in the nutrition research division.

In response to a separate note from the chief of the nutrition regulations and standards division about “our minister’s position on standardizing FOP labelling,” the section head of Health Canada’s nutrition labelling and claims unit raised Aglukkaq’s objections as a potential problem.

“Interesting, but the pressure will be high on the government to show that something as valuable will be offered to Canadians. We obviously need to discuss this one with USFDA,” the section head wrote. “Is it worth trying to see what kind of collaboration we want to see on this one with them?”

The senior issues manager in the director general’s office of Health Canada’s food directorate also raised the issue of how to tackle questions of “whether and how Canada’s policy would be harmonized with the U.S.’s” in light of Aglukkaq’s “position (which she made quite clear in the article.)”

Separately, a scientific evaluator in the nutrition evaluation division noted that “in the U.S., there is an expectation that the FDA develop an FOP system,” but “how this will formalize has yet to be determined.”

And just days after Aglukkaq’s statement on front-of-package labelling and the Institute of Medicine’s report, the food directorate prepared “talking points” for Aglukkaq for a November meeting on food labelling that painted a different picture.

In addition to defending Canada’s labelling regulations because they provide Canadians “the tools they need to make health food choices when they shop for groceries,” Aglukkaq said the rules were enhanced by proprietary front-of-package programs that “help give Canadians even more information about the food they purchase.”

However, the briefing said “guidance to help ensure these systems are not confusing to consumers is being considered.” In the appendix, the ministerial briefing also said “a need for consistency in the criteria and type of information has been identified” with front-of package proprietary programs.

Products qualifying for Kraft’s Sensible Solution stamp include Kool-Aid and Peek Freans Lifestyle Selections cookies, and the green checkmark appears on the front of Kit Kat and other Nestle chocolate bars to highlight “natural flavours.”

On Tuesday, FDA spokeswoman Tarama Ward confirmed the U.S. regulatory body “shares the goal of having a uniform front-of-pack nutrition label on all food and beverage products” and is “still currently exploring several possibilities.”

Ward added: “We plan to work through our regulatory channels and engage with consumers to see what approaches will be the most valuable and effective.”

© Postmedia News

The union representing federal food inspectors says it’s hearing two very different explanations of what the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is cutting: one version from the minister and a very different version from senior CFIA managers.

Among the issues affecting food safety is the continuing lack of clarity over federal government plans to change the monitoring of food labels. A line in the March 29 budget said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would be launching a “web-based label verification tool that encourages consumers to bring validated concerns directly to companies and associations for resolutions.”

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, who is responsible for CFIA, has said inspectors would continue to do spot checks on store shelves. But Bob Kingston, the president of the Agriculture Union, says senior CFIA officials recently told staff the labelling program is now under a “full scale review” and the final outcome is not clear.

Mr. Kingston said the risk is that Canadians will no longer be able to trust the labels they read on store shelves.

“Diabetics make choices about these things every day, which their lives depend on,” Mr. Kingston said at a news conference on Parliament Hill. “So do people with serious allergies. There’s a variety of diseases. If you’ve got Celiac disease, obviously you need to know what’s in a product. A lot of products that are on the shelves have contents in them that you’d never expect, but if you’ve got one of these problems, they could literally kill you. So to say that’s not health and safety related I think is somebody’s pipe dream.”

A spokesperson for CFIA accused Mr. Kingston of “misrepresenting” the facts around labelling.

“There are no planned reductions in labelling inspection activities,” said a statement from CFIA’s media relations office. “The CFIA will continue to enforce food safety and consumer protection labelling requirements including those related to ingredients and allergens, nutrition, compositional standards and mandatory labelling.”

Mr. Kingston said briefings from senior CFIA staff have also contradicted the minister’s claims that there will be no changes in frontline inspectors.

The union says CFIC vice-president Stephen Baker told staff last week during town hall meetings that the agency is moving toward a new inspection model that “will radically alter” its current way of conducting inspections. Mr. Baker allegedly told staff the new model would see the CFIA move away from having inspectors specialize in specific commodities, such as fish or meat and that industry would not on a larger role in enforcing safety rules.

Mr. Ritz has kept a low profile in the weeks since the budget. He has rejected the union’s previous claims about food safety being put at risk as a result of budget cuts.

“I absolutely disagree that our food is not safe,” Mr. Ritz told CBC’s The House in an interview that aired on April 14. “In no way would we ever compromise food safety.”

Meaghan Murdoch, a spokesperson for Mr. Ritz, repeated Tuesday that the safety of food “is in no way reduced” by the measures announced in the budget.

“While the union’s priority is to save union jobs, our government’s priority continues to be the safety of Canadian food,” she said in an e-mail. “Our changes will allow the CFIA to focus on the verification and inspection activities that keep the Canadian food supply one of the safest in the world while helping industry get products to market at the speed of commerce.”

OTTAWA—The union representing federal food inspectors says assurances from Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz that budget cuts will not impact front line services contradict what the food safety watchdog has been telling its own staff.

“I’m thinking he made this (decision) in an information vacuum,” Bob Kingston, president of the Agriculture Union at the Public Service Alliance of Canada told reporters on Tuesday of the move to eliminate up to 100 food inspector positions from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Ritz has repeatedly responded to union claims that federal budget cuts will not have a negative impact on food safety.

“We’re looking at administrative money for the most part, programming is not being affected,” Ritz told the Ottawa weekly The Hill Times in an interview published Monday. “There will be no changes in front-line inspectors.”

The union says this contradicts what Stephen Baker, the vice-president of operations at the food inspection agency, told staff in a town-hall meeting about the looming job losses.

“I don’t know how you take 10 per cent of your budget and not deal with the front line,” Baker told staff on Apr. 16, according to the union.

Kingston said Baker has also briefed staff on program cuts that include getting rid of a program dedicated to overseeing meat products imported from the United States — saying that staff checking other imports are already overworked — and the pre-market approval of meat labels.

Ritz repeated his assurances when asked to explain the discrepancy.

“We’re identifying efficiencies. We would never put food safety at risk. We will maintain the growing number of food inspectors that we put on the front lines of the government,” Ritz told reporters during a teleconference call on Tuesday after announcing changes to the Fisheries Act.

“We’ll continue to provide the standards that are required to maintain the safety of our food supply in Canada.”

The March 29 federal budget showed a $5.2-billion reduction in spending will reduce federal employee ranks by about 19,200 — or 4.8 per cent — over the next three years.

Kingston said the changes could have a direct impact on food safety, giving the example of how the CFIA is getting rid of a unit that was dedicated to tracking which shipments of meat from the United States needed inspection.

Kingston said inspectors would often find storage conditions like the temperature of a transport truck were not right — even finding car batteries or spare tires stored alongside the meat — and would make a note to pay closer attention to meat coming from the same place next time.

“That type of targeting is gone, so the idea that they will be able to find the bad actors and zero in on them for awhile is gone,” Kingston said Tuesday. “They were daily events. These are not rare things that inspectors would find.”

CFIA spokesman Guy Gravelle said that the same standards would apply to all foods sold in Canada, whether they are domestic or imported.

“Canada and our trading partners have technical equivalency agreements and science-based certification standards in place to make sure that any products offered for sale in Canada meet our national food safety requirements,” Gravelle wrote in an email Tuesday.

Kingston said he wants to believe that Ritz was misinformed rather than trying to mislead the public.

“I’m certainly not a mind reader, but I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. He has maintained from the beginning that he wouldn’t do anything that would jeopardize food safety,” Kingston said. “He has told me this in person and I would like to take him at his word.”

Kingston also noted that Baker told staff the agency is working on a new inspection model that will “radically alter” the way inspectors perform verification, compliance and enforcement activities.

Ritz said Tuesday this will mean a greater reliance on information technology to improve efficiency at the agency.

“We are looking to the future and are looking at more IT use,” Ritz said Tuesday. “We’re a paper society at CFIA right now, which is slow, doesn’t really generate the speed of commerce that’s required, so moving to IT (we) are going to be able to make changes that will maintain food safety at the speed of commerce.”

Gravelle said the agency has always been “open and transparent” about its plans to modernize inspections.

“The agency is designing a single and consistent approach to inspection that will be applied across all food commodities that are either imported or produced domestically,” Gravelle wrote in an email Tuesday, adding that it would supplement more traditional inspection methods with “more sophisticated science and risk-based approaches”.

The Conservative government devoted more resources to food safety following a deadly outbreak of listeriosis in 2008 linked to tainted deli meats from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto.

The illness killed 23 Canadians and sickened hundreds more that summer and part of the government response was to evaluate the way the food inspection agency deals with processed meat and nearly double the number of inspectors devoted to ready-to-eat meat plants.

The federal government is misleading Canadians about the changes it’s making to Canada’s food safety measures and bowing to industry pressure in its cuts to the food inspection agency’s budget, says the union that represents food inspectors.

The Agriculture Union, a component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said Tuesday the changes the government is planning to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will create a system “reminiscent of the conditions in place just prior to the listeriosis outbreak.”

In a statement to the press, the union said the CFIA’s food inspectors will be converted to “systems inspectors,” effectively creating an industry “self-policing” system reminiscent of the one in place prior to the 2008 listeriosis outbreak, in which 22 people died from eating processed meats linked to a Maple Leaf plant in Toronto.

The union also said Tuesday that CFIA executives expect to hand off a “big role” to the food industry when it comes to enforcement of food safety rules. It did not provide details.

Despite assurances by Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz that there will be no reduction in the front-line staff that inspect food products, executives at the CFIA have been telling staff that cuts are coming, the Agriculture Union said.

The union told reporters that Stephen Baker, vice-president of operations at the CFIA, told staffers he “didn’t know how you take 10 per cent [out] of your budget and not deal with the front line.”

That contradicts Ritz’s assertion in a recent Hill Times interview that “there will be no changes in frontline inspectors.”

“It appears CFIA executives did not tell the Minister that staff who perform these functions have already been told their jobs and the program will be eliminated,” Agriculture Union President Bob Kingston said in a statement.

Ritz has been denying this in public statements since the budget was released in March.

“Since 2006, the CFIA has received funding to hire 733 net new inspection staff, including 170 meat inspectors,” Ritz wrote in a letter to the Calgary Herald.

Kingston says he never saw these people materialize.

“It’s great that they made the investment to produce all these workers but I’m not sure where they ended up,” Kingston told the CBC. “It sure wasn’t on the front lines.”

The union estimates some 100 food inspectors may lose their jobs as a result of the budget cuts, among 308 job cuts in total. The CFIA saw a $56 million annual cut in the federal budget, though Ritz has been promoting a two-year, $51-million increase to the food safety program.

Kingston told the press he’s willing to believe that Ritz was misinformed about the changes to food inspection, rather than deliberately misleading the public.

“I’m certainly not a mind reader, but I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt,” he said, as quoted at the Toronto Star. “He has maintained from the beginning that he wouldn’t do anything that would jeopardize food safety. He has told me this in person and I would like to take him at his word.”