Killer Cookie Dough?

Can you imagine a commercial airline refusing to turn over aircraft maintenance records to a Federal Aviation Administration inspector upon request? Or blocking the inspector from taking photographs of a faulty part or a crash scene?

Would you fly on such an airline?

Well, fold your napkin and put down your fork.

As it turns out, when inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration arrive at a food processing facility, the company can actually dictate the terms of the inspection in pretty much the same way. According to astonishing documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal's Jane Zhang, employees at the Danville, Va., processing facility churning out E. coli-contaminated cookie dough for Nestle have, at various times, refused to turn over customer complaints, safety plans, pest control records, and other paperwork, and refused to allow photography inside the plant.

(An imaginative Nestle spokesperson calls that "full cooperation," leaving one to wonder what stonewalling looks like.)

Most Americans are shocked to learn that federal inspectors rarely visit most food processors. Whereas the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts daily inspections of every factory that churns out chicken noodle soup and other meat and poultry-containing products, it might be five or ten years before the FDA sends an inspector to check out a spinach farm or a peanut-processing plant.

And, when the FDA does find or confirm that a food product is tainted with E. coli or Salmonella, it doesn't even have the authority to order a recall. Instead, consumers rely on food companies themselves to voluntarily recall tainted foods, though the government does have considerable influence on companies' behavior.

The silver lining behind the tragic illnesses and deaths related to spinach, tomatoes, peppers, peanuts and other foods is that Congress is finally moving legislation that would bring our country's food-safety system into the 21st century. And on July 7, a presidential working group led by the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services released sensible recommendations aimed at preventing contamination before it occurs.

The Food Safety Enhancement Act pending in the House of Representatives would go a long way toward making food safer. The bill would require all food manufacturers to identify possible sources of contamination and to develop plans for controlling hazards. It would require the FDA to make more frequent inspections of farms and factories based on the degree of risk involved. It would give the FDA the authority it now lacks to order recalls of contaminated foods. And the bill would put a wider range of civil and criminal penalties at the government's disposal to punish violators. (That alone should spur food processors to treat food safety inspectors with greater hospitality than Nestle did at Danville.)

The bill is far from perfect. After all, it still leaves two separate cabinet agencies in charge of most food safety functions. Ideally, we wouldn't have the Secretary of Agriculture regulate sausage pizza and the Secretary of Health and Human Services regulate plain cheese pizza. But the Food Safety Enhancement Act would make great improvements in strengthening the FDA's ability to ensure a safer food supply.

Whether your culinary preferences lean toward cookie dough or spinach, the bill deserves your support -- and your representatives in Congress should hear it directly from you.

This article was co-written with Caroline Smith DeWaal
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Michael Jacobson, Ph.D., is executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the nonprofit publisher of Nutrition Action Healthletter and long-time advocate for stronger food-safety laws. Caroline Smith DeWaal directs CSPI's food-safety program.

Comments

[AngieMom57]

"Most Americans are shocked to learn that federal inspectors rarely visit most food processors. Whereas the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts daily inspections of every factory that churns out chicken noodle soup and other meat and poultry-containing products..."

Nope, think again...or check out this link: Interview-Bruce Friedrich-The Animal Activist's Handbook

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M84JVzSXKJI

[nightwind928]

There are more regulations and inspections to set an electric power pole or put up a fence in your backyard than there are to regulate what you put on your plate three times a day. If you think about it,the food processing starts from seed stock to dinner table and there are many steps in between. To do a proper job, each step of the process should be monitered and guidelines put in place and enforced. But, with the huge daily consumption of food by the populace, that would be almost like counting grains of sand at the beach. The only thing you can trust is that where huge amounts of money is involved, there will be shortcuts to save costs and corruption to insure a smooth flow of the machinery. I'm sure everyone is back to eating spinich, peanut products and tomatoes despite the fact nobody was given any assurance by anyone that the problems with these products has ever been tangibly corrected. Money rules Washington and food is money... and just about as safe to eat.

[mlaiuppa]

Yet another example of the corruption of lobbying and their control over our political system.

Get rid of lobbyists. Get rid of campaign contributions. And make Corporations corporations...not "people".

[MikeLMiller]

I was sent this by a friend who said they didn't have the stomach for commenting on it.

I understand their point.

"Sensible reform guidelines"? The bill is full of insane (not sensible) draconian (not reform) controls (not guidelines). Are you kidding or lying?

"Powerful interests want to water down key reform measures"? What are you talking about? What powerful interests? You are setting up a straw man, trying to get people to support all the corporate power written into a corporate bill, as though corporations were opposing it, which they are not.

The only "powerful interests" are the big corporations that are contaminating our food - ConAgra which has killed people gets two spots on the committee, JBS is there though they are in the middle of a recall. And Monsanto is there. They want the bill and you are apparently working to make sure nothing they want is watered down to something safe for farmers, supplement companies, and us consumers.

After reading your post, I have decided to end years of support for CSPI. In addition, I will be letting progressive friends know that I now believe your organization works for industry.

I now see CSPI's industry bias and wonder how I missed it in the past.

By the way, some friends had questioned whether industry caused the peanut problem to scare the public so they could introduce these bills. Now, with e-coli in cookie dough just as the bills are being considered, I am convinced.