Diagnosis and Management of Foodborne Illnesses:  A Primer for Physicians and Other Health Care Professionals  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5304a1.htm

Virtual Livestock Library http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/library/

SPECIFIC ISSUES

Acrylamide

Food Additives

• Redbook 2000: Toxicological  Principles for the Safety Assessment of Food Ingredients – FDA’s guidance on toxicity testing of food ingredients.  http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~redbook/red-toca.html

• Foodline®: LEGAL Sight - a source of food additive, composition, and labeling legislation. Documents give details of the permitted uses of food additives worldwide. The file is ideal for checking the legality of specific additives in specific foods and countries. http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/bl0059.html

Food Allergy

Irradiation

• Consumer attitudes towards irradiated food: 2003 vs. 1993
  Food Protection Trends: Vol. 24, No. 6 (June 2004)
  A survey was conducted to determine current consumer attitudes toward irradiation after consuming irradiated ready-to-eat poultry meat products and evaluate differences in consumer acceptance, if any, over the past ten years. Surveys were completed by 50 consumers in the metro-Atlanta area. Although consumers were exposed to irradiated foods prior to the 2003 survey, consumer awareness was no higher in this study than in 1993, when consumers were not exposed to irradiated foods prior to the survey. The majority (66%) of the respondents were aware of irradiation; among these, 71% “have heard about irradiation, but do not know much about it.” Consumers in both studies expressed more concern for pesticide and animal residues, growth hormones, food additives, bacteria and naturally occurring toxins than irradiation. Consumers expressed slight concern regarding irradiation; however, this has decreased significantly over the past ten years. Approximately 76% prefer to buy irradiated pork and 68% prefer to buy irradiated poultry to decrease the probability of illness from Trichinella and Salmonella, respectively. More consumers are willing to buy irradiated products in 2003 than in 1993 (69% and 29%, respectively). http://www.foodprotection.org/Publications/Abstracts/2004Abstracts/June2004.htm

HACCP

HACCP: A State of the Art Approach to Food Safety
FDA Backgrounder (October 2001), describing the HACCP seven principles, and the reasons why there is a need for HACCP. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/bghaccp.html

HACCP Background and Overview
FDA Audio and Slide Program 6:20 min) http://www.foodsafety.gov/~fsg/vlscpodo.html

HACCP Principles and Application Guidelines
National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (August 1997) (Basic principles of HACCP and guidance for its implementation) http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/nacmcfp.html.

Critical Steps Toward Safer Seafood
Paula Kurtzweil, FDA Consumer magazine (updated in February, 1999).  An overview of the FDA Seafood HACCP regulation. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fdsafe3.html

Critical Controls for Juice Safety
Carol Lewis, FDA Consumer magazine (updated in May, 1999).  An overview of FDA's proposal to require juice processors to implement HACCP. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fdjuice.html

FDA’s HACCP Webpage
FDA CFSAN http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/haccp.html

HACCP Background and Overview
FDA audio and slide Program 6:20 min http://www.foodsafety.gov/~fsg/vlscpodo.html

Juice Hazards and Control Guidance: First Edition (Final Guidance)
March 3, 2004, The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) recommends that its Juice HACCP Hazards and Controls Guidance be used in conjunction with FDA's final regulation (21 CFR Part 120) that requires a processor of juice to evaluate its operations using Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles and, if necessary, to develop and implement HACCP systems (i.e., a system of preventive control measures based upon HACCP principles) for it's operations. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/juicgu10.html

USDA Pathogen Reduction/HACCP & HACCP Implementation http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/haccp/imphaccp.htm

National Agricultural Library HACCP Resource Database http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodborne/haccp/index.shtml

www.FoodSafety.gov HACCP http://www.foodsafety.gov/~fsg/fsghaccp.html

FDA Grade A Dairy Voluntary HACCP Guide http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/haccpdai.html

Food Safety Policy

Neal D. Fortin, The Hang-Up With HACCP: The Resistance to Translating Science into Food Safety Law, 58 Food and Drug Law Journal 565-594, Vol. 58:4 (2003) available with permission from FDLI; also available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=785916.

FDA Report on the Occurrence of Foodborne Illness Risk Factors in Selected Institutional Foodservice, Restaurant, and Retail Food Store Facility Types (2004) (September 14, 2004) http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/retrsk2.html

Scientific Criteria to Ensure Safe Food (2003) http://www.nap.edu/books/030908928X/html/

Food Safety Policy, Science, and Risk Assessment: Strengthening the Connection: Workshop Proceedings (2001) http://www.nap.edu/books/0309073235/html/

Food Policy Institute, Rutgers University http://www.foodpolicyinstitute.org/

Ensuring Safe Food: From Production to Consumption (1998) http://books.nap.edu/books/0309065593/html/index.html

Public Health Foundation http://www.phf.org

Risk Perception: Science, Public Debate and Policy Making, speeches and Presentations from an EU risk perception conference (December 2003) http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/risk_perception/speech_presentations_en.htm

Thomas site of the Library of Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/ 

USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) - Safe Food Supply Research: http://ers.usda.gov/Emphases/SafeFood/

SINGLE FOOD SAFETY AGENCY

Food Safety: Experiences of Seven Countries in Consolidating Their Food Safety Systems.  GAO-05-212, February 22 http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-212 Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05212high.pdf

"A system Rued: Inspecting food,"  Statement of Caroline Smith DeWaal Director of Food Safety, Center for Science in the Public Interest (March 30, 2004) at the House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization,Washington, D.C. http://www.cspinet.org/foodsafety/inspecting_food.html Arguments for a consolidation of a single food safety agency.

Federal Food Safety and Security System: Fundamental Restructuring Is Needed to Address Fragmentation and Overlap. GAO, March 30, 2004. The federal food safety system is not the product of strategic design. Rather, it emerged piecemeal, over many decades, typically in response to particular health threats or economic crises. The result is a fragmented legal and organizational structure that gives responsibility for specific food commodities to different agencies and provides them with significantly different authorities and responsibilities.  A federal food safety system with diffused and overlapping lines of authority and responsibility cannot effectively and efficiently accomplish its mission and meet new food safety challenges. Therefore, fundamental changes are needed to overhaul existing food safety legislation to make it uniform, consistent, and risk based.  Consolidation of food safety agencies under a single independent agency or a single department is needed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the current federal food safety system.  Integrating the overlapping responsibilities for food safety into a single agency or department can create synergy and economies of scale, as well as provide more focused and efficient efforts to protect the nation's food supply.  GAO-04-588T  Highlights  Accessible Text  Abstract

GAO recommends consolidation of food safety system
Elizabeth Newell, govexec.com (June 1, 2004) available at: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0604/060104e1.htm
The federal food safety system should be consolidated to improve accountability, responsiveness and ability for congressional oversight, according to the General Accounting Office.  GAO said too many agencies were involved in aspects of food safety and that "arbitrary jurisdictional lines of authority" diminish the accountability and responsiveness of the federal food safety system. In a response to follow-up questions from a recent House subcommittee hearing, GAO recommended creating a new agency to handle all food safety functions. GAO auditors also laid out pros and cons of existing agencies in case Congress chose to consolidate inspection and other safety responsibilities under either the Agriculture Department or the Food and Drug Administration.
"The food safety laws that we're operating under were drafted nearly 100 years ago," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington nutrition advocacy group. "It is certainly time to modernize the structures that regulate the food supply. This is critical not only to improve food safety, but to protect against threats of bioterrorists."
    The system is a result of legislative baby steps that have led to the placing of food products under the jurisdiction of one agency or another with little logic. According to Subcommittee Chairwoman Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., FDA inspects closed-face meat sandwiches, cheese pizzas, beef soup and chicken broth while the Agriculture Department inspects open-face meat sandwiches, pepperoni pizza, chicken soup and beef broth.
Bryce Quick, assistant administrator of the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said that Agriculture and FDA have two entirely different inspection systems. Quick said the separation of areas of jurisdiction has not hindered USDA from preventing the dissemination of hazardous products. "We talk to FDA on a daily basis," he said. "[Bovine spongiform encephalopathy] was a classic example of the cooperation that can take place, and it worked and it's working now. There have been numerous examples of how we are working together."
    Lawrence Dyckman, director of natural resources and environment at GAO, said that while cooperation between agencies is important, consolidation would eliminate possible confusion, gaps or overlap. "What we're saying is that we don't see a need to have two agencies basically split the responsibility for food safety," he said. "[Cooperation] might have improved, but why have a divided function if it's not necessary? There's no good reason."
While GAO, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and other groups have called for a drastic overhaul of the food safety system, they are skeptical of the likelihood of legislative changes. "I don't think it's very likely unless we have a major health crisis," Dyckman said. "I surely don't hope that we have such a crisis, but to be practical, most government change occurs when there is a crisis."
    DeWaal said she was confident that the government would eventually respond. "In the absence of that kind of crisis, it's a long-term proposition, but one that in the long run will prevail. Many countries are moving to unify the food safety system, and the U.S. doesn't want to be the last one to do this. If they want to stay competitive and effective, it is a necessary transition."
    Consolidating the two programs under an existing agency may be a possibility in the case of a budget crisis, Dyckman said, adding that GAO favors FDA because it does not have the "stigma of the appearance of a conflict of interest" between the promotion of a product and the monitoring of its safety. The Center for Science in the Public Interest also believes the FDA would make a better watchdog agency.
"I believe food safety should be handled by a health agency," DeWaal said, "not an agency that promotes agriculture."

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

BSE Information and Resources (USDA) http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/06/resources.html
USDA's site for current information and resources on mad cow disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

American Meat Institute http://www.meatami.com/ numerous documents on meat safety and regulation.

BSEinfo.org information from the America's Beef Producers and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association http://www.bseinfo.org/

Frontline Interview with Eric Schlosser http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/interviews/schlosser.html

Cowed Media Disease, Alternet (May 3, 2004) http://www.alternet.org/story/18578

USDA vet: Texas mad cow breach not unique, UPI (May 4, 2004) http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040504-012834-2365r

Don't read this over a burger, San Francisco Chronicle (May 4, 2004) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/05/DDGFL6EUPN1.DTL

International Terrestrial Animal Health Code - BSE, OIE http://www.oie.int/eng/normes/mcode/en_chapitre_2.3.13.htm

WHO BSE Fact Sheet http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs113/en/ 

BSE, APHIS fact sheet: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/pubs/fsheet_faq_notice/fs_ahbse.html

Groups chide U.S. response to mad cow
John Heilprin, Associated Press (June 23, 2004) WASHINGTON. 
U.S. food and consumer groups such as Center for Food Safety, Consumers Union and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation were cited as handing mediocre grades to the Agriculture Department in a "report card" Tuesday on its handling of mad cow disease. The story says there was one "C" for initial steps to better identify and track cattle nationally. Six "D's" were given in the areas of: testing cattle 20 months or older; ensuring feed restrictions; increasing surveillance for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow disease; strengthening authority to recall tainted meat; implementing use of country of origin labels; and allowing for public input. The "F's" were for not allowing private cattle producers to test their cattle voluntarily for mad cow disease and for breaking its own Agriculture Department rules meant to prevent the brain-wasting condition. Julie Quick, a department spokeswoman, was cited as saying the agency disagreed with the groups' findings, adding, "We've been addressing these issues over a decade and we're committed to protecting public health." On the Net: Center for Food Safety: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org  

EFSA report differs from Harvard Risk Assessment
August 23, 2004, Lean Trimmings, Edited by Jeremy Russell (for Kiran Kernellu)
Diverging from conclusions in the Harvard Risk Assessment, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) assessments for Canada and the United States have been raised to level III, "presence of BSE likely but not confirmed, or confirmed at a lower level." EFSA concludes that "the BSE agent was probably imported into USA and could have reached domestic cattle in the middle of the eighties. These cattle imported in the mid eighties could have been rendered in the late eighties and therefore led to an internal challenge in the early nineties. ... This risk continued to exist, and grew significantly in the mid 90's when domestic cattle, infected by imported MBM, reached processing. Given the low stability of the system, the risk increased over the years with continued imports of cattle and MBM from BSE risk countries."  The report, in direct contradiction to the more comprehensive Harvard Risk Assessment, concludes that as long as there are no significant changes in rendering or feeding, the stability remains extremely/very unstable. "Thus, the probability of cattle to be (pre-clinically or clinically) infected with the BSE-agent persistently increases."  However, the report's conclusions fail to address the USDA's long-standing program testing high-risk cattle, which has so far failed to detect a single native-born animal with the disease. This continuing surveillance program, which targets the types of animals in the highest probability class - dead, dying and condemned - is the most effective way to determine the prevalence, if any, of BSE in the U.S. herd.

Foodborne Illness

Bad Bug Book - Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxin, FDA, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition  http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/intro.html

CDC National Center for Infectious Diseases - Foodborne Infections

Food Risk Clearinghouse, catalogues data and methodology on food safety risk analysis by the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN), a collaboration between the University of Maryland (UM) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). http://www.foodriskclearinghouse.umd.edu/index.htm

Foodborne Illness Research Center Information on major foodborne pathogens from Marler Clark

National Library of Science's interactive guide to commonly encountered toxic substances - http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov

Food Safety at the Office: "Bugged" by Your Coworkers?
FoodTalk Newsletter, University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension in Lancaster County (Nov., 1997) http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/ftnov97.htm.

Foods Unsuitable for Young Children
New Zealand Foodsafe Partnership Media Release (December 2 2004) www.foodsafe.org.nz. 
Children under five are especially vulnerable to foodborne illness because their immune systems are not fully developed, which makes it easier for harmful bacteria to invade their bodies. . . . Which foods are not suitable for young children? Most foodborne illnesses are easily preventable by following the 4Cs: clean cook, cover, chill. However, there are some foods that have the potential to cause serious illness in those with tiny tummies, and should not be fed to children under five. They include:
§         Uncooked fermented meats, such as salami. Check the label: “heat treated” or “cooked” products are safe. Do not feed young children “not heat treated” products.
§         Unpasteurized milk and products made from unpasteurized milk – such as raw milk, cheese and other dairy foods made from unpasteurized milk.
§         Raw or undercooked meat (particularly minced meat), poultry, fish and shellfish
§         Raw sprouts – such as alfalfa, clover, and radish.
Unpasteurized fruit juices. Check the label or contact the manufacturer. All freshly squeezed juices are unpasteurized.

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