Clean Hands Week

Did you know that September 20-26 was Clean Hands Week? The Clean Hands Coalition established International Clean Hands Week in order to raise awareness not only about the importance of hand washing, but also to stress the importance of washing your hands correctly. With all of the food borne illness occuring in the United States, correct hand hygiene is extremely critical in order to prevent infection. Remember these tips when washing so as to ensure maximum results:

1. Wash for at least 20 seconds
2. Scrub in between fingers and under where you have jewelery (ie: bracelets and rings)
3. Lather well, then rinse. When you're done, use a paper towel to turn off the faucet.

Happy hand washing!

FDA Starts Electronic Food Safety Website

On Tuesday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration started the Reportable Food Registry, an electronic portal that food industry officials must use to alert the FDA quickly when they find their products might sicken or kill people or animals. Organizations have now been required to notify the FDA within 24 hours if they find a reasonable probability that an article of food will cause severe health problems or death to a person or an animal. This could be from bacterial contamination, allergen mislabeling or elevated levels of certain chemical components.

As a Chicago research firm reported, food safety made the list for consumer concerns this year after plenty of recalls left Americans sick and worried that the government wasn't doing enough. "By fostering real-time submission to the FDA of information on food safety hazards, the registry enhances FDA's ability to act quickly to prevent foodborne illness," said Michael Taylor, senior advisor to the FDA commissioner. "Working with the food industry, we can swiftly remove contaminated products from commerce and keep them out of consumers' hands."

To read more, click here!

Senate Food Safety Bill Uncertain

As we've previously said, the US House of Representatives passsed their food safety bill last month, but when the Senate will follow suit is still up in the air. Whether the Senate takes up Senator Dick Durbin's food safety legislation this fall depends on whether the Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee finishes health care reform and has time to look at the food safety bill. While the Senate's bill contains some of the same initiatives as the House's, there are also substantial differences and the Senate will take up Durbin's bill rather than the House version.

Both bills contain provisions that would expand FDA's access to records to determine whether firms are complying with food safety laws, strengthen registration requirements so FDA has accurate, up-to-date information on food facilities and require facilities to have preventive control plans that address hazards before they occur. They'd also both direct FDA to identify the most significant food-borne contaminants and issue performance standards, or benchmarks, for whether a food is safe as well as establish produce safety standards and increase the number of inspections.

To read more on the Senate's food safety bill click here.

Philadelphia Takes Steps for Food Safety

Joining a national movement for improved food safety, restaurant inspectors in Philadelphia have abandoned the focus of floors, walls, and ceilings for real public health threats such as undercooked food and chefs' unwashed hands. Their new approach focuses on prevention-- Do people know how contamination is spread and how to prevent it? This is in responce to the 76 million illnesses per year caused by contaminated food (perhaps half of it consumed in restaurants) in the United States. Prevention is really about "the culture of the restaurant," said Ben Chapman, a food-safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University and a contributor to BarfBlog. In other words, "if two workers are from the same restaurant," said Doug Powell,an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, "and one washes his hands, I want one to say to the other: 'Dude, wash your hands!'"

Congrats to Philadelphia for taking a step for food safety!

To read more click here

FDA Bill Update: It Passes!

The Food Safety Enhancement Act narrowly missed the required two-thirds of the vote on Wednesday, but reappeared in the House under a rule allowing it to pass with a simple majority. It passed with a vote of 283-142.

To read more, visit Food Production Daily.

Update on FDA Food Safety Bill

The US House of Representatives is expected to vote today on a bill that will significantly increase funding and authority for the FDA's food safety iniatives. Consumer groups have urged Congress to pass the bill, citing the recent recalls such as cookie dough, ground beef, spinach, etc. Once again, these instances have shown how the FDA lacks both the resources and the authority to keep products safe.

The new legislation would give the FDA the ability to order food recalls as well as require the them to inspect food facilities more often and set production and record-keeping standards to prevent contamination and more easily trace outbreaks. The Congressional Budget Office said that beyond the fees, the FDA would need $2.2 billion over the next five years to carry out its new responsibilities.

To read more visit the Wall Street Journal, and check back for updates!

G-8 Leaders Propose $20 Billion Food Safety Initiative

Leaders of the G8 concluded their meeting with proposing a $20 billion dollar L'Aquila Initiative on Global Food Safety. The proposal aims to invest $20 billion in 3 years to encourage rural development of poor countries in agriculture and food safety departments. The initiative plans to launch new investments and improve the efficiency of aid programs and regional coordination by involving many counties across the globe. The leaders say that this proposal is supposed to be global partnership.

To read more, click here.