Chemical Food Safety Issues in the United States: Past, Present, and Future

2009 ◽  
Vol 57 (18) ◽  
pp. 8161-8170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren S. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Safety Issues

scholarly journals The Codex Alimentarius Commission, Corporate Influence, and International Trade: A Perspective on FDA's Global Role

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 406-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam F. Halabi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Food Industries ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Regulatory Capacity ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Imported Foods

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is by all accounts the most sweeping and comprehensive update to U.S. food laws in seventy years, aiming to confront the reality that the nation's food supply has undergone fundamental shifts in its sources, distribution channels, and intermediate handlers. The law's intent is to prevent problems that can cause foodborne illness and enable the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to keep a record of facilities processing food for sale in the United States, a mandate that expands FDA's already global regulatory activities. FSMA gives FDA broad new powers to prevent food safety problems, detect and respond to food safety issues, and improve the safety of imported foods. Because the law specifically aims to update FDA authority in light of the reality of global food and food additive markets, Section 305 FSMA calls for FDA to develop a comprehensive plan to expand the “technical, scientific, and regulatory capacity of foreign governments and their respective food industries in countries that export foods to the United States.”

An Analysis of Tuna Recalls in the United States, 2002 through 2020

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Rene Blickem ◽  
Jon W. Bell ◽  
Deborah Mona Baumgartel ◽  
John DeBeer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Hazard Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chemical Contamination ◽  
Treatment Groups ◽  
Critical Control Points ◽  
Fresh Frozen ◽  
Foreign Materials ◽  
Shelf Stable

This manuscript reviews 18 years of voluntary recalls for commercially sold tuna in the United States. This recall information is a valuable indicator of the failure to implement procedures for food safety. The voluntary recalls involve fresh, frozen, processed, hermetically sealed and retorted in a shelf stable pack (i.e., canned tuna), and formulated into other tuna products. The FDA regulations that regulate the capture, processing, transportation, and sale of raw and processed seafood are discussed. These regulations include the current Good Manufacturing Practices, the Food Modernization Act, the Emergency Permit Control, Low Acid Canned Foods, the Seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, Food Labeling, and Sanitary Food Transportation. The importance of traceability and Food Safety Culture to successfully prevent or implement recalls is also discussed. The recalls themselves were separated into product treatment groups: uncooked, canned shelf-stable items, and using tuna as an ingredient. The recalls were further categorized and summarized by reason or cause, such as biological and chemical contamination, undeclared ingredients, under-processing, and foreign materials. The primary causes of recalls of the reviewed tuna products were, in order, Listeria monocytogenes , undeclared allergens, elevated histamine levels, and under-processing of retorted tuna items. The recalls for elevated levels of histamine primarily occurred in uncooked (raw) tuna. Recalls for Listeria sp. and undeclared allergens were considered to be primarily Class I recalls, while recalls for elevated levels of histamine and under-processing were almost always assigned to the less serious Class II designation.

scholarly journals Restaurant Policies and Practices Related to Norovirus Outbreak Size and Duration

2020 ◽  
Vol 83 (9) ◽  
pp. 1607-1618
Author(s):  
E. RICKAMER HOOVER ◽  
NICOLE HEDEEN ◽  
AMY FREELAND ◽  
ANITA KAMBHAMPATI ◽  
DANIEL DEWEY-MATTIA ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Safety Training ◽  
Foodborne Illness ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Safety Certification ◽  
Food Safety Training ◽  
Outbreak Size ◽  
Policies And Practices

ABSTRACT Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, and restaurants are the most common setting of foodborne norovirus outbreaks. Therefore, prevention and control of restaurant-related foodborne norovirus outbreaks is critical to lowering the burden of foodborne illness in the United States. Data for 124 norovirus outbreaks and outbreak restaurants were obtained from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance systems and analyzed to identify relationships between restaurant characteristics and outbreak size and duration. Findings showed that restaurant characteristics, policies, and practices were linked with both outbreak size and outbreak duration. Compared with their counterparts, restaurants that had smaller outbreaks had the following characteristics: managers received food safety certification, managers and workers received food safety training, food workers wore gloves, and restaurants had cleaning policies. In addition, restaurants that provided food safety training to managers, served food items requiring less complex food preparation, and had fewer managers had shorter outbreaks compared with their counterparts. These findings suggest that restaurant characteristics play a role in norovirus outbreak prevention and intervention; therefore, implementing food safety training, policies, and practices likely reduces norovirus transmission, leading to smaller or shorter outbreaks. HIGHLIGHTS

Microbiological Hazards and Emerging Food-Safety Issues Associated with Seafoods†

1997 ◽  
Vol 60 (11) ◽  
pp. 1409-1416 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. SPENCER GARRETT ◽  
MICHAEL L. JAHNCKE ◽  
JOHM M. TENNYSON
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Emerging Pathogens ◽  
Fisheries Resources ◽  
Critical Control Points ◽  
Seafood Safety

The United States is entering into a new era in which dwindling natural fisheries resources are forcing regulatory agencies to develop a more holistic approach to seafood safety and natural marine resource issues. Public health issues associated with seafoods can be grouped as (i) environmentally induced (i.e., natural or anthropogenic), (ii) process-induced, (iii) distribution-induced, or (iv) consumer-induced hazards. Similarly, loss of habitat and ecosystem degradation threaten the future viability of fisheries and have important ramifications for seafood safety. In the United States, large-scale legistlative efforts are underway to reexamine regulatory food control systems. The driving forces behind these efforts are the discovery of new emerging pathogens for which little information is available and dramatic improvements in analytic technology that allow for detection of low levels of microbial and chemical contaminants in foods. The global nature of seafood trading issues and the worldwide implementation of new preventative food safety programs such as hazard analysis for critical control points are driving some of the efforts to build new scientific bridges that will reevaluate current risk analysis strategies. New scientific bridges are needed to close the gaps between the scientific community and society concerning the effects of anthropogenic impacts on seafood safety and the heatlh of coastal habitats and associated fishery resources. The driving force behind this latter issue is the realization that the United States has lost over half of its original coastal wetlands areas. Protecting, conserving, and restoring the health and safety of our fisheries resources will require an integrated approach of food science and fishery science.

scholarly journals Use of Whole-Genome Sequencing for Food Safety and Public Health in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 441-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Brown ◽  
Uday Dessai ◽  
Sherri McGarry ◽  
Peter Gerner-Smidt
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Whole Genome Sequencing ◽  
Genome Sequencing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Whole Genome

scholarly journals Food safety and food imports in Europe: the risk of aflatoxins in pistachios

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Xiong
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Aflatoxin Contamination ◽  
Income Effect ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Food Imports

The United States has surpassed Iran as the largest pistachio exporter to the European Union. Both lower prices and a less frequency of aflatoxin contamination have contributed to the success of the US pistachio industry. Using EU monthly imports and food safety alerts data, we estimate EU demand for US and Iranian pistachios. We find that EU demand for US pistachios is price-inelastic but the demand for Iranian pistachios is price-elastic. We also find that the income effect is positive for US nuts but negative for Iranian nuts. Most importantly, we find that EU imports of US pistachios decrease with aflatoxin alerts traced back to the US but increase with contamination incidents originated from Iran.

Foodborne Illness: Perceptions, Experience, and Preventive Behaviors in the United States

1995 ◽  
Vol 58 (12) ◽  
pp. 1405-1411 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARA B. FEIN ◽  
C. -T. JORDAN LIN ◽  
ALAN S. LEVY
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Illness Perceptions ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
College Education ◽  
Latency Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foodborne Illness ◽  
Foodborne Disease ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
A Minor

Data from national telephone surveys conducted in 1988 and 1993 were used to describe consumer perceptions of foodborne illness. The 1993 data were also used to assess the relationship between the perception that a foodborne illness had recently been experienced and awareness, concern, knowledge, and behavior related to food safety. Respondents described foodborne disease primarily as a minor illness without fever that occurs within a day of eating a contaminated food prepared in a restaurant. However, several common pathogens have a latency period longer than a day, and experts on foodborne disease estimate that most cases of foodborne illness originate from foods prepared at home. In both surveys, people 18 to 39 years of age were more likely than those in other age groups to believe they had experienced a foodborne illness. In 1993, people with at least some college education were more likely to believe they had experienced foodborne illness than were people with less education. People who believed they had experienced foodborne illness had greater awareness of foodborne microbes and concern about food safety issues, were more likely to eat raw protein foods from animals, and were less likely to practice safe food handling than were those who did not perceive that they had experienced such an illness.

Risk of Foodborne Illness from Pet Food: Assessing Pet Owners' Knowledge, Behavior, and Risk Perception

2020 ◽  
Vol 83 (11) ◽  
pp. 1998-2007
Author(s):  
MERLYN THOMAS ◽  
YAOHUA FENG
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Foodborne Pathogens ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pet Food ◽  
Food Handling ◽  
Pet Owners ◽  
Handling Practices ◽  
Safety Knowledge ◽  
Food Handling Practices

ABSTRACT Pet food has been identified as a source of pathogenic bacteria, including Salmonella and Escherichia coli. A recent outbreak linked to Salmonella-contaminated pet treats infected >150 people in the United States. The mechanism by which contaminated pet food leads to human illness has not been explicated, and pet owners' food safety knowledge and their pet food handling practices have not been reported. This study was conducted to evaluate pet owners' food safety knowledge and pet food handling practices through an online consumer survey. The survey consisted of 62 questions and assessed (i) owners' food safety knowledge and pet food handling practices; (ii) owners' interaction with pets; and (iii) owners' risk perception related to their own health, their children's health, and their pets' health. The survey was pilot tested among 59 pet owners before distribution to a national consumer panel managed by Qualtrics XM (Provo, UT). All participants (n = 1,040) were dog and/or cat owners in the United States. Almost all pet owners (93%) interacted with their pets, and most cuddled, allowed their pets to lick them, and slept with their pets. Less than one-third of pet owners washed their hands with soap after interacting with their pets. Over half (58%) of the owners reported washing their hands after feeding their pets. Most pet owners fed their pets dry pet food and dry pet treats. Some fed their pets raw meat or raw animal product diets because they believed these diets to be beneficial to the pet's overall health. Many owners (78%) were unaware of pet food recalls or outbreaks associated with foodborne pathogens. Less than 25% considered dry pet foods and treats as a potential source of foodborne pathogens. Pet owners were more concerned when seeing news about pets becoming ill from pet food and less concerned when seeing news about people becoming ill from pet food. The findings of this study indicated the need for consumer education about handling pet food. These results can help researchers develop more accurate risk assessment models and consumer education messages related to pet food handling. HIGHLIGHTS

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