FSnet Aug. 20/08 KANSAS: Group urges posted letter grades for restaurants BARFBLOG: Guest barfblogger: Seattle has officially washed its hands of the five self-cleaning toilets BLOG: Who poisoned our peppers? Safety and Food Packaging OTTAWA: Some parts of controversial food inspection plan may be cut: Minister how to subscribe KANSAS: Group urges posted letter grades for restaurants 20.aug.08 The Kansas City Star Joyce Smith http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/756790.html Kansas City doesn’t give its restaurants a health inspection letter grade — and that’s giving the city a low grade from a consumer advocacy group. The Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington looked at 539 restaurant inspection reports — from high-end, medium-range and fast-food operations — in 20 cities and found many high-risk violations. Kansas City ranked among the five cities with the most severe violations. So the center is calling for state and local governments to require restaurants to display food safety letter grades in their front windows. “Who wants to eat at a ‘C’ restaurant if a restaurant next door got an ‘A’?” said Sarah Klein, staff attorney for the center. “Performing poorly on the inspection reports was your hidden shame. No one had to know how poorly you did. A letter grade in the window has proven to be one of the most powerful incentives for restaurants to perform well on inspections.” Letter grades have been used in Los Angeles County restaurants for more than a decade, and Las Vegas and St. Louis recently adopted similar measures. But the Kansas City Health Department does not approve of the letter grades. “In the systems we have reviewed they don’t always represent a fair or accurate description of the results,” said Jeff Hershberger, department spokesman. “Primarily, they don’t take into account the severity of certain individual violations.” For example, a restaurant may have a rodent infestation, but it would score higher than another restaurant that has two violations for an employee who had long nails and another employee who wasn’t wearing gloves — common violations in establishments with large numbers of employees, Hershberger said. But Klein said that may mean the grading system needed to be changed to reflect the severity of the violations. Though rats and roaches are the most unappetizing violations, diners can get sick when meat or poultry is undercooked, there is a lack of hand-washing, food isn’t stored at proper temperatures, or other guidelines aren’t followed. According to the center’s database, more than 40 percent of outbreaks from food-borne illness have been linked to restaurant foods, while only 22 percent have been linked to private homes. Naser Jouhari, code enforcement manager with the Kansas City Health Department, criticized the “very small” sample size used in the study. “We do an average between 100 and 150 inspections a week and they reviewed only 30 reports,” Jouhari said in a written response. “It would be interesting to know the criteria they used to select the inspection reports reviewed.” Kansas City inspections are on the department’s Web site. Pittsburgh and Washington require consumers to make written requests under the Freedom of Information Act. In Atlanta and San Francisco, restaurateurs are required to keep the most recent report to show to anyone who asks.   top BARFBLOG: Guest barfblogger: Seattle has officially washed its hands of the five self-cleaning toilets 19.aug.08 Barfblog Michele Samarya-Timm http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2008/08/articles/culture-of-food-safety/michele-samaryatimm-guest-barfblogger-seattle-has-officially-washed-its-hands-of-the-five-selfcleaning-toilets/ Oh, the news stories that catch the eye of one immersed in public health. While we spend most of our time on this blog discussing issues that have to do with what comes after toilet use (handwashing, hopefully), the toilet facilities themselves occasionally come into the spotlight …. The Seattle Times recently reported that Seattle has officially “washed its hands” of their self-cleaning public toilets. Which leaves visitors to that city without a convenient place to, uh, relieve themselves – as well as leaving them without a convenient place to wash their hands. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008117767_toilets15m0.html and http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2008/07/articles/food-safety-communication/seattles-automated-toilets-plagued-by-filth-drugs/) Too bad Seattle did not work toward finding a way to deal with any problems these public toilets may have caused. Finland found they could reduce/eliminate illicit behavior in their roadside toilets by allowing one to unlock the door by text messaging with a mobile phone. The toilets have been secured, and a sign outside explains that the user just sends the word "open" (in Finish) to a short code and the door will be unlocked remotely. The company managing the service will keep a short-term record of all users’ phone numbers, simply so that if the toilet is then damaged by criminals, they can be traced by the police. http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/04/sms-opens-public-toi.html And across the globe, even now, more than 600 cities have automatic public toilets -- Singapore alone has 750, London 678, and Athens 500. And there are traditional facilities across the globe as well. So what’s a tourist in Seattle – or elsewhere -- to do? Do you ask a stranger for directions? Advocate for conveniently located facilities? Or map out toilet and handsink locations before you ever leave the comfort of home? How about all three: - Visiting England? The Public Toilets-Gut Trust recently began a campaign, Can’t Wait, Won’t Wait: Public Toilet provision in the UK to educate stakeholders on need to retain or provide adequate public toilets: www.theguttrust.org/campaigns - How about those travels down under? Australia’s National Continence Management Strategy Project readily publishes locations of rest rooms on their searchable public toilet map: www.toiletmap.gov.au - Traveling wherever the world will take you? The Bathroom Diaries www.thebathroomdiaries.com lists, describes and rates toilet facilities in cities throughout the world. Whether you stay close to home or are planning a trip, say, to China, Turkey or Florida, you can print out a list of public facilities in the cities you plan to visit. One can also enter search terms such as “soap” “changing table” or “don’t eat poop.” - Do you ever find yourself desperately looking for a clean toilet in the city? MizPee www.mizpee.com purports to find the closest, cleanest toilets in your area and sends the information to your cell phone. One can add and review rest rooms, and check their toilet paper ratings. - Then there’s Diaroggle www.diaroogle.com which helps one locate public toilets from a mobile phone. In addition to location, the website includes user ratings for cleanliness, the rules of gaining entrance, and occasionally even pictures snapped by users to show how good or bad the porcelain sanctuary is. According to the site, this is “ for the discerning, on-the-go defecator who is brave enough to use a public bathroom, but still demands a hygienic and private bathroom experience.” In Seattle or elsewhere, we all can map our comfort breaks along with our travel itineraries. What a wonderful resource for a discerning on-the-go handwasher. -- Michéle Samarya-Timm is a Health Educator for the Franklin Township Health Department in New Jersey.   top BLOG: Who poisoned our peppers? 19.aug.08 Marler Blog Bill Marler http://www.marlerblog.com/2008/08/articles/lawyer-oped/who-poisoned-our-peppers/ What if the great 2008 Tomato, right Pepper, Salmonella Outbreak actually happened this way? At 10:00 PM last May 30th, on the same day New Mexico asked for help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) with a growing outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul, a foreign Network begin airing a video taken inside a fresh produce distribution center showing workers treating peppers with an unknown liquid. There is a claim that this is a terrorist act. In the next 15 minutes, every network news operation is playing the video. The broadcast networks break into regular programming to air it, and the cable news stations go nonstop with the video while talking heads dissect it. Coming on a Friday afternoon on the East Coast, the food terrorism story catches the mainstream Media completely off guard. Other than to say the video is being analyzed by CIA experts, and is presumed to be authentic, there isn’t much coming out of the government. Far-fetched? Don’t count on it. I have been saying for years that a foodborne illness outbreak will look just like the terrorist act described above, but without the video on FOX News. Far-fetched? Tell that to the 751 people in Wasco County, Oregon—including 45 who required hospital stays---who in 1984 ate at any one of ten salad bars in town and were poisoned with Salmonella by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The goal was to make people who were not followers of the cult too sick to vote in county elections. Tell that to Chile, where in 1989, a shipment of grapes bound for the United States was found laced with cyanide, bringing trade suspension that cost the South American country $200 million. It was very much like a 1970s plot by Palestinian terrorists to inject Israel’s Jaffa oranges with mercury. Tell that to the 111 people, including 40 children, sickened in May 2003 when a Michigan supermarket employee intentionally tainted 200 pounds of ground beef with an insecticide containing nicotine. Tell that to Mr. Litvenenko, the Russian spy poisoned in the UK with polonium-laced food. Tell that to Stanford University researchers who modeled a nightmare scenario where a mere 4 grams of botulinum toxin dropped into a milk production facility could cause serious illness and even death to 400,000 people in the United States. The reason I bring this up is not only because we are about to mark the seventh anniversary of 9/11, but because I wonder if food terrorism really had been the cause of this year’s Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, would it have made any difference in our government’s ability to figure out there was an outbreak, to figure out the cause, and to stop it before it sickened so many. Would the fact of terrorists operating from inside a fresh produce distribution center somewhere inside the United States or Mexico brought more or effective resources to the search for the source of the Salmonella Saintpaul? If credit-taking terrorists were putting poison on our peppers, could we be certain Uncle Sam’s response would have been more robust or effective then if it was just a “regular” food illness outbreak? After 9/11, Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said: “Public health is a national security issue. It must be treated as such. Therefore, we must not only make sure we can respond to a crisis, but we must make sure that we are secure in defending our stockpiles, our institutions and our products.” Before Thompson’s early exit from the Bush Administration, he did get published the “Risk Assessment for Food Terrorism and Other Food Safety Concerns.” That document, now 5-years old, let the American public know that there is a “high likelihood” of food terrorism. It said the “possible agents for food terrorism” are: • Biological and chemical agents • Naturally occurring, antibiotic-resistant, and genetically engineered substances • Deadly agents and those tending to cause gastrointestinal discomfort • Highly infectious agents and those that are not communicable • Substances readily available to any individual and those more difficult to acquire, and • Agents that must be weaponized and those accessible in a use able form. After 9/11, Secretary Thompson said more inspectors and more traceability are keys to our food defense and safety. To date, we’ve made no movement to ensure this. So would the fact of a terrorist group operating from a produce distribution center inside the United States or Mexico have brought more or effective resources to the search for the source of Salmonella Saintpaul? If credit-taking terrorists were putting poison on our peppers, could we be certain that Uncle Sam’s response would be more robust, more effective than if it was just a “regular” food illness outbreak? Absolutely not! The CDC publicly admits that it manages to count and track only one of every forty foodborne illness victims, and that its inspectors miss key evidence as outbreaks begin. The FDA is on record as referring to themselves as overburdened, underfunded, understaffed, and in possession of no real power to make a difference during recalls, because even Class 1 recalls are “voluntary.” If you are a food manufacturer, packer, or distributor, you are more likely to be hit by lightening than be inspected by the FDA. You are perfectly free to continue to sell and distribute your poisoned product, whether it has been poisoned accidentally or intentionally. The reality is that the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak is a brutal object lesson in the significant gaps in our ability to track and protect our food supply. We are ill prepared for a crisis, regardless of who poisons us. Somewhere between the farm and your table, our Uncle Sam got lost.   top Safety and Food Packaging 19.aug.08 Foodconsumer.org FDA http://foodconsumer.org/7777/8888/L_aws_amp_Reg_64/081908192008_Safety_and_Food_Packaging.shtml The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring the safety of all food packaging, including components of packaging materials that are expected to migrate into food. The agency refers to these materials as "food contact substances." Examples include coatings on cans, plastics, paper, and sealants for lids and caps. The Office of Food Additive Safety in FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is charged with ensuring that food contact substances are safe. "Safe" is defined in the law as a reasonable certainty that a substance is not harmful under the intended conditions of use. FDA regulates components of food packaging under the laws governing the use of food additives. Requiring High Safety Standards Manufacturers are required to obtain approval from FDA for all packaging components that may migrate to food before they can be marketed unless those components are considered "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS). To obtain approval for a new food contact substance, manufacturers submit detailed information to FDA about the substance and its impurities. This includes safety and chemical information, as well as potential environmental effects. FDA does not approve food contact substances if they have been shown to cause cancer in humans or animals. Though packaging components that are considered generally recognized as safe for use in food or food packaging do not require FDA approval under the law, they are required to meet the same safety standards as other food contact substances. These same standards also are required for other components of packaging that were authorized informally ("prior sanctioned") before FDA gained premarket approval authority over food contact substances in 1958. Evaluating Consumer Exposure Safety assessments ensure that consumers are only exposed to food contact substances at levels far below those that might have any health consequences. As part of the review process, FDA scientists consider the amount of a substance that's expected to migrate into food relative to its safety profile. Agency scientists assess the amount of a substance migrating into food using a variety of data and information, including: Conducting migration testing: FDA scientists have developed tests to assess the migration of compounds from a food contact substance into food. These migration tests mimic the conditions under which food is prepared and stored in contact with packaging materials. Migration tests also model the most severe conditions of use of the material. Assessing cumulative dietary exposure: FDA scientists consider other uses of a food contact substance and/or its components to determine a cumulative dietary exposure. Additionally, when FDA scientists assess consumer exposure they assess exposure to the food contact substance and all of its components that may migrate to food from the proposed use. Reviewing stability data: Data on the relative stability of food contact substances are an important part of FDA's safety review of new packaging and other food contact materials. FDA requests stability data from manufacturers to ensure that breakdown of the food contact substance does not occur under the conditions of use. If it does occur, all breakdown products from the food contact substance must be appropriately identified and quantified. Approval is only granted with appropriate limitations and specifications to ensure that the food contact substance is safely used. Evaluating research: FDA reviews all pertinent safety data. Agency toxicologists perform searches for additional data in the published literature and within FDA's own files. Any and all relevant data are then considered in determining whether the intended use of the food contact substance is safe. If Concerns are Raised Later As with any FDA regulated product, safety assessments of food contact substances are made in the context of the science at the time the decision is made. For this reason, FDA scientists also monitor new information that may relate to the safety of already authorized food contact substances. When the science evolves or new information becomes available that causes FDA to question a previous safety decision, the agency may take one or more of several actions: *contacting the manufacturer and ensuring that corrective action is taken *removing the food contact substance from the market completely or imposing limits to ensure its safe use *requiring that industry develop data or information to address a concern *imposing additional limitations or specifications to ensure safe conditions of use *prohibiting the use of a food contact substance that is no longer considered safe The specific action that FDA takes generally depends on the likely public health risk. Any imminent danger to health is acted upon immediately with a recall or regulatory action. Bisphenol A (BPA) A draft brief published in April 2008 by the National Toxicology Program, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), raised concerns about the safety of products containing Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is a chemical used in plastic containers for certain food and drinks, including baby bottles. The NIH draft brief indicated that some studies in animals suggest that BPA may cause developmental effects in infants and children. FDA has been reviewing emerging literature on BPA on a continuous basis for years. Agency experts believe there is a large body of evidence indicating that FDA-regulated products containing BPA are safe. Current evidence indicates that exposure levels to BPA from food contact materials, including for infants and children, are below those that may cause health effects. But as a science-based agency, FDA continues to consider new research. In light of recent concerns, FDA formed an agency-wide BPA task force in April 2008 to spearhead review of research and new information on BPA for all FDA-regulated products. In June 2008, FDA announced that a subcommittee of FDA's Science Board will hold a public meeting on the safety of BPA in plastics and review the agency task force report. According to FDA, there is no reason to recommend that consumers stop using products that contain BPA while the agency carries out its assessment process. But concerned consumers should know that several alternatives to polycarbonate baby bottles exist, including glass baby bottles. If FDA's review of data leads to a determination that uses of BPA are not safe, FDA will take action to protect the public health. For more information about the public meeting on BPA safety, on September 16, 2008, visit http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-18864.htm. The meeting documents, including the draft assesment of BPA released on August 15, 2008, are available at www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/oc08.html#ScienceBoard This article appears on FDA's Consumer Health Information Web page (www.fda.gov/consumer), which features the latest updates on FDA-regulated products. Sign up for free e-mail subscriptions at www.fda.gov/consumer   top OTTAWA: Some parts of controversial food inspection plan may be cut: Minister 20.aug.08 Canwest News Service Sarah Schmidt http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=5968ab6b-ecfb-488e-b84f-09b8c714f454 OTTAWA -- The Conservative government will not say if all aspects of a controversial plan to transfer key parts of food inspection to industry will move forward after word leaked out about the details. The confidential document obtained last month by Canwest News Service said an official announcement of the plan, drafted by Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and approved by Treasury Board last November, "has been deferred owing to significant communications risks." On Tuesday, at a special summer session of the House of Commons agriculture committee held to probe the plan, Tory MPs said they haven't seen the document and are not sure about the plan's status. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz's office on Tuesday would only confirm some aspects of the plan are a go for now. They include the elimination of a Canadian Food Inspection Agency program that requires companies to get labels approved for meat and processed fruit and vegetables before they hit store shelves. Opposition MPs want Ritz to release the confidential document, and tabled a motion to that effect on Tuesday. In the event the document is released and they are able to review it, they would like experts to testify about the details before Parliament reconvenes in September. An avian influenza preparedness program is also being cut by $25 million over the next three fiscal years. The savings are being reallocated to the government's food safety action plan. The document details how Treasury Board supports a move to shift the role of meat inspectors from a "full-time CFIA meat inspection presence to an oversight role, allowing industry to implement food safety control programs and to manage key risks." Before implementation, the document states the cabinet committee on economic growth and long-term prosperity needs to approve a detailed implementation plan, "including risk mitigation and communication strategies." Funding to producers to test cattle for BSE - mad cow disease - as part of a surveillance program is being cut, the document indicates, a move that is expected the save the agency about $24 million over three years, including $4.8 million this fiscal year.   top FSnet is produced by the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University, and is supported at the Gold Fork level by: Marler Clark. FSnet is supported at the Sterling Fork level by: CropLife Canada, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs , New Zealand Food Safety Authority, Monsanto Canada, and the Ontario Cattlemen's Association. Fsnet is supported at the Silver-plate Fork level by: The National Restaurant Association, Unilever, Sholl Group/Green Giant Fresh, Feedlot Health Management Services, McDonald's, and Syngenta Crop Protection Canada. The Food Safety Network presents a unique opportunity to bring together all those associated with agriculture and food, to enhance the safety of the food supply. To provide financial support to the Food Safety Network, please visit http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/donations.php. For information on collaboration or fee-for-service opportunities, please contact Dr. Doug Powell: dpowell@ksu.edu To subscribe to the html version of FSnet, send mail to: (subscription is free) listserv@listserv.ksu.edu leave subject line blank in the body of the message type: subscribe fsnet-L firstname lastname i.e. subscribe fsnet-L Doug Powell (replace fsnet-L with fsnettext to subscribe to the text version) To unsubscribe to the html version of FSnet, send mail to: listserv@listserv.ksu.edu leave subject line blank in the body of the message type: signoff fsnet-L (replace fsnet-L with fsnettext to unsubscribe from the text version) For more information about the FSnet research program, please contact: Dr. Douglas Powell associate professor dept. diagnostic medicine/pathobiology Kansas State University Manhattan, KS 66506 cell: 785-317-0560 fax: 785-532-4039 dpowell@ksu.edu http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu archived at http://archives.foodsafety.ksu.edu/fsnet-archives.htm