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From: Food Quality 4/28 eNewsletter eNews at wiley.com
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:31:23 -0700
To: LFALEN at TURBONET.COM
Subject: [Spam] USDA Affirms Country of Origin Rule
April 28, 2009
News
USDA Affirms Country of Origin Rule
Deficiencies in the rule
remain, consumer advocacy group says
The United States
Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service has
affirmed its rule requiring a country of origin statement on the
label of all covered commodities, that is, most unprocessed
meats and vegetables. (more)
E-mail our editor at
enewsed at wiley.com
Nonprofits Call for Greater Government Role in Food
Safety
Report recommends creation
of Food Safety Administration
Trust for America's Health
and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a report in
March that calls for a more coordinated food safety structure
within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
(more)
E-mail our editor at
enewsed at wiley.com
Salmonella
can become highly virulent when exposed to micro-gravity.
Solving Salmonella Mysteries in Outer Space
Space research may help
control the leading foodborne pathogen
Space research has
revealed that Salmonella grows to be more or less virulent
depending on its environment, experts at the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration reported recently. The
Salmonella experiments were flown on shuttle missions to the
International Space Station in September 2006 and March 2008.
(more)
E-mail our editor at
enewsed at wiley.com
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USDA
Affirms Country of Origin Rule
Deficiencies in the rule remain,
consumer advocacy group says
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has affirmed its rule
requiring a country of origin statement on the label of all covered
commodities, that is, most unprocessed meats and vegetables.
This broad definition borders on fraud. The USDA should
promptly issue a new rule to cover all these defects in the existing
rule.—Jaydee Hanson, Center for Food Safety
Such products fall under the requirements of the Agricultural
Marketing Service’s (AMS) final rule, Mandatory Country of
Origin Labeling of Beef, Pork, Lamb, Chicken, Goat Meat, Perishable
Agricultural Commodities, Peanuts, Pecans, Ginseng, and Macadamia
Nuts. FSIS has amended its regulations to agree with the Agricultural
Marketing Service’s (AMS) final rule on Country of Origin
Labeling (COOL).
According to one food analyst, however, the
final rule doesn’t properly address problems related to the
labeling of products from multiple countries of origin.
“[The rule] should require labels
like: born in El Salvador, raised in Mexico, slaughtered in the
U.S.,” said Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst with the Center for
Food Safety (CFS), a nonprofit advocacy organization.
The processed food definition is too broad,
and it excludes cured, broiled, smoked, grilled, steamed, and
commingled products, Hanson added. “Moreover, it allows a label
for ground meat to bear the name of a country even if product from
that country was not in the inventory for up to 60 days,” he
said. “This broad definition borders on fraud. The USDA should
promptly issue a new rule to cover all these defects in the existing
rule.”
For more information about the COOL rule,
visit http://www.ams.usda.gov/cool.
Nonprofits Call for Greater
Government Role in Food Safety
Report recommends creation of Food
Safety Administration
Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation released a report in March that calls for a
more coordinated food safety structure within the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS).
The system is outdated and unable to effectively deal with
today's threats.—Michael R. Taylor, JD, George Washington
University
The report, Keeping America's Food Safe: A Blueprint for Fixing the
Food Safety System at the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, recommends that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
immediately establish a Deputy Commissioner with line authority over
all food safety programs, including the Center for Food Safety and
Applied Nutrition, the Center for Veterinary Medicine, and the food
functions of the Office of Regulatory Affairs.
The report also recommends that Congress
ultimately create a separate Food Safety Administration to exist
within HHS. According to the report, the Food Safety Administration
should strategically align and elevate the food safety functions
currently housed at the FDA and should better coordinate the way the
FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and
local agencies respond to foodborne illness outbreaks.
The current food safety structure actually
prevents the kind of coordinated, focused effort that Americans need,
Jeff Levi, PhD, executive director of TFAH, said in a news release.
"The system is outdated and unable to effectively deal with today's
threats,” he said.
"FDA certainly needs a modern food safety
law and more resources, but to make good use of these tools, HHS
needs a unified and elevated management structure for food safety
that can implement a science- and risk-based food safety program
dedicated to preventing foodborne illness," Michael R. Taylor, JD,
research professor of health policy at the George Washington
University in Washington, D.C., said in a news release.
The report is available at
www.healthyamericans.org.
Solving Salmonella Mysteries
in Outer Space
Space research may help control the
leading foodborne pathogen
Space research has revealed that Salmonella grows
to be more or less virulent depending on its environment, experts at
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported
recently.
This research opens up new areas for investigations that may
improve food treatment, develop new therapies and vaccines to combat
food poisoning in humans here on Earth, and protect astronauts on
orbit from infectious disease.—Julie Robinson, PhD, NASA
The Salmonella experiments were flown on shuttle missions to the
International Space Station (ISS) in September 2006 and March 2008.
The 2006 results showed that the space environment causes a
short-term alteration in Salmonella virulence—the bacteria
cultured in space were more virulent than those on Earth. (Wilson JW,
Ott C, Höner zu Bentrup, et al. Space flight alters bacterial
gene expression and virulence and reveals a role for global regulator
Hfq. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007;104(41):16299-16304.)
The 2008 experiment confirmed the 2006
results and demonstrated that a change in the growth environment of
the bacteria could control its virulence. There is no evidence that
the space-grown bacteria sustained these effects for long periods
after returning to Earth. (Wilson JW, Ott CW, Quick L, et al. Media
ion composition controls regulatory and virulence response of
Salmonella in spaceflight. PLoS One. 2008;3(12):e3923.)
“This research opens up new areas for
investigations that may improve food treatment, develop new therapies
and vaccines to combat food poisoning in humans here on Earth, and
protect astronauts on orbit from infectious disease,” Julie
Robinson, PhD, ISS program scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space
Center in Houston, Texas, said in a news release.
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