E Coli Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark Law Firm : E. coli Blog

The Western Growers Association said there should be no exemptions from uniform steps that growers and handlers should have to follow to certify the safety of lettuce, spinach, endive, kale, cabbage and other greens.

At a congressional hearing in May, Joseph Pezzini, an executive with Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville, Calif., and the chairman overseeing California's Leafy Green Handlers Marketing Agreement, said industry is best suited to define best practices for handling the covered vegetables.

The Consumers Union's Odabashian opposed the marketing-agreement plan in comments, saying the Agriculture Department idea isn't appropriate for addressing safety concerns. She said in an interview that the California agreement, which went into effect in July, didn't prevent two recent recalls.
 

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In an editorial titled, "Is the meat you buy safe enough?" that appears online at the Eco-Logic Powerhouse website, Henry Lamb evaluates the state of the meat industry and USDA's role in it, including the recent E. coli outbreaks linked to meat produced at Topps and Cargill.

In the editorial, Mr. Lamb analyzes what in his view is the inadequacy of the current USDA inspection system and discusses USDA's current efforts to implement an animal tracking system - which he believes is completely unnecessary.

Mr. Lamb addressed the argument that irradiation will make food safer, and suggests that if food irradiation is implemented, there will be less pressure on slaughterhouses to prevent contamination.
 

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The California Department of Food and Agriculture today announced that members of the California Leafy Greens Handler Marketing Agreement can begin using a service mark on July 23. The service mark certifies membership in the LGMA program, and "indicates a handler's commitment to a set of Good Agricultural Practices audited by the LGMA."

In a press release issued by CFDA, Chairman of the LGMA communications committee and member of LGMA board of directors Tom Nunes stated, "The service mark reflects a handler's commitment to implementing enhanced food safety standards.  By using it on their bills of landing, our signatories will be communicating to customers that they are members in good standing of the LGMA."

Using the service mark communicates that a handler is in compliance with the marketing agreement, which means they are producing and marketing lettuce, spinach and other leafy green products in California according to the enhanced Good Agricultural Practices.
 

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The California Assembly Agriculture Committee defeated Senate Bill 202, and did not vote on Senate Bills 200 and 201, all bills introduced by California Senator Dean Florez. The bills were introduced in response to last year's E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks traced to contaminated spinach and lettuce grown in California.

During the hearing, Assembly Member Nicole Parra blasted Florez: "I know you're going to go out to the press and probably say that if someone else dies, it's on our back. Well, don't blame the members of this committee, senator. Blame me if you have an issue, but that is not the message that we want to get out of this committee."

Florez shot back, criticizing Parra and the committee for failing to vote on two of the bills.

"I think this is one of those cowardly acts that will just kind of haunt people as they go on," he told reporters after the hearing. "And people will ask the question, 'Why didn't you ever vote on food safety?' At least say yes or no."
 

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Summer grilling season brings more awareness of E. coli contamination in ground beef and the need to properly cook hamburgers. But other foods must also be properly prepared, stored, and served to prevent foodborne illness, according to the Contra Costa Times.

Realistically, unless you have thermometers in all of your food, it will be difficult to gauge when your food is in the temperature danger zone. Therefore, the FDA recommends leaving perishable food out no longer than two hours, and for no more than one hour in temperatures above 90 degrees.

The best way to keep salads and other cold foods at the right temperature on picnics is to pack them on plenty of ice, and even put serving bowls in a pan or platter of ice.
 

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A salad could be one of the riskiest foods on American tables right now, according to New York Times Op/Ed columnist Paul Krugman.

As he puts it,

These are anxious days at the lunch table. For all you know, there may be E. coli on your spinach, salmonella in your peanut butter and melamine in your pet’s food and, because it was in the feed, in your chicken sandwich.

Marler Clark clients Michael and Elizabeth Armstrong and their two daughters, Isabella and Ashley, experienced the repercussions of eating what has been deemed a "risky" food in September, when the daughters became ill from E. coli-contaminated spinach. Ashley nearly died from a complication of E. coli infection known as hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Although Ashley is home now and doing well, she remained on dialysis until December. She must take six medicines daily and has only about 25 percent kidney function. Eventually, she will need a kidney transplant, doctors say.
 

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Marler Clark client Elizabeth Armstrong testified in front of the US House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in regards to food safety.

Her 2-year-old daughter, Ashley, one of more than 200 people affected by the outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 in spinach last year, is still dealing with the effects of kidney failure. Today she is off dialysis and home from the hospital. But she is on daily medication and will eventually need a kidney transplant, said her mother, who lives with her family in a suburb of Indianapolis.

Armstrong suggested efforts to overhaul the US Food and Drug Administration. Her report included comments from important players in the food industry, including a quote from former FDA commissioner Dr. David Kessler, who stated, "Our food safety system is broken."
 

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Barbara Kowalcyk and her husband, Michael, were propelled into food safety advocacy in 2001, when their two-year-old son, Kevin, died after suffering an E. coli O157:H7 infection and hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Barbara served on the Board of Directors for S.T.O.P. (Safe Tables Our Priority) for several years, and recently formed the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention (CFI).

The Kowalcyks had limited knowledge of foodborne illness before their son got sick. The family lived in Wisconsin at the time. They now live in Loveland, Ohio, near Cincinnati.

"Our public health department didn't have the resources or, frankly, the desire to spend a lot of time investigating our case because it wasn't part of an outbreak," Kowalcyk said. "They did very little to help us. We only found out what we did because we contacted an attorney and he worked on our case.
 

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CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews interviewed Marler Clark client Lisa Brott, who became ill with an E. coli infection after eating E. coli-contaminated spinach in September, former USDA and FDA food safety official Michael Taylor, and Senator Dick Durbin for a story that aired tonight on the CBS Evening News. Notable comments included the following:

• "There's no one in charge in the federal food safety system."  - Michael Taylor
• "The basic allocation has nothing to do with who's getting sick, and it's out of proportion to where the actual risks in the food supply." - Michael Taylor
• "When you consider 75 million Americans with food-borne illnesses each year, I do believe a better, more modern, streamlined agency would reduce those numbers. And it means that more people would survive." - Senator Dick Durbin
• "It's outrageous so many people are poisoned by food.  A lot more has to be done, whatever it takes, to protect people's health." - Lisa Brott

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Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, she asserts that the latest E. coli outbreak traced to fresh produce from the Salinas Valley was preventable and predictable and that having a single federal agency in charge of food safety is part of the solution to preventing outbreaks in the future. She tells NPR:

“For anyone who tracks the arcane politics of food safety in the United States, this outbreak was entirely predictable. Since 1998, the Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly warned producers of fresh fruit and vegetables about the dangers of E. coli 0157:H7 and the need for measures to keep potential sources of these bacteria well away from their crops.

In 2004, the FDA issued a plan for preventive steps that it fully expected vegetable producers to follow. But last year the agency complained that its long efforts to engage the lettuce industry ``have not yet resulted in a comprehensive, collaborative plan to address the issue of E. coli 0157:H7.'' The FDA then warned growers to get busy and fix the problem.

This August -- too late to prevent the current outbreak -- the agency extended this warning to spinach producers. The futility of the FDA's increasingly urgent pleas reflects the huge gaps in the nation's century-old and highly dysfunctional food safety system.”
 

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