Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (50 page)

For proponents of raw milk, the issue is not safety; it is values and personal choice. Demand for raw milk is increasing and mail-order sales thrive. Although more than half the states allow raw milk to be sold within their territory, federal rules prohibit shipping of raw milk between states. Mail-order companies can get around this restriction by marketing raw milk as pet food. Raw milk is sold through pet food outlets and also through use of clandestine codes, cash transactions, secret drop-off points, buyers clubs, and cow-sharing programs. Are such programs safe? Although most raw milk does not cause illness, the CDC regularly reports outbreaks caused by pathogens in raw milk. Other values come into play when such pathogens are responsible for the death of a child fed raw milk from a cow share.
¹³
When belief systems are at stake, science-based arguments rarely work. A better strategy might be to legalize raw milk production but regulate its safety. Some raw milk producers voluntarily use HACCP plans. The FDA could require such plans and also require testing for pathogens. But doing so would undoubtedly elicit a level of opposition similar to that confronted by the FDA when it attempted to regulate the safety of raw oysters.

The Raw Oyster Debates
. For more than a decade, the FDA has been trying to prevent deaths caused by
Vibrio vulnificus
bacteria that contaminate raw oysters grown in the Gulf of Mexico. These “flesh-eating” bacteria proliferate in warm months and are especially deadly; they kill half of the thirty or so people who develop infections from them each year. Such people tend to have weakened immune systems or chronic diseases, but often do not realize they are at risk.

In 2001, the oyster industry trade association, the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference (ISSC), promised the FDA that the industry would
substantially reduce
Vibrio
infections in oysters within seven years through a program of voluntary self-regulation and education aimed at high-risk groups. If this program failed to reduce the infection rate, the ISSC agreed that the FDA could require oysters to be treated after harvesting to kill pathogenic
Vibrio
.
¹⁴

Treatment, in this case, means postharvest processing through techniques such as quick freezing, frozen storage, high hydrostatic pressure, mild heat, or low-dose gamma irradiation, any of which reduces
Vibrio vulnificus
to undetectable levels. By most reports, the effect of treatment on the taste and texture of oysters is slight, although raw oyster aficionados argue otherwise. In 2003, California refused to allow Gulf Coast oysters to enter the state unless they had undergone postharvest processing. The result? Sales of oysters remained the same but oyster-related deaths dropped to zero.

In contrast, states that did not require postharvest processing experienced no change in the number of deaths, meaning that the ISSC program had failed. Late in 2009, Michael Taylor, whom we met in
chapters 2
and
7
, reappeared in his newly appointed position as senior advisor to the FDA. In an almost exact reprise of his 1994 speech to the cattle industry about the need to regulate
E. coli
in ground beef, he informed participants at an ISSC meeting that the FDA intended to issue rules requiring postharvest processing of Gulf Coast oysters in summer months.
¹⁵

But less than one month later, the FDA backed off. It said it would postpone the oyster-processing rules indefinitely:

Since making its initial announcement, the FDA has heard from Gulf Coast oyster harvesters, state officials, and elected representatives from across the region about the feasibility of implementing post-harvest processing or other equivalent controls by the summer of 2011. These are legitimate concerns. It is clear to the FDA from our discussions to date that there is a need to further examine both the process and timing for large and small oyster harvesters to gain access to processing facilities or equivalent controls in order to address this important public health goal. Therefore, before proceeding, we will conduct an independent study to assess how post-harvest processing or other equivalent controls can be feasibly implemented in the Gulf Coast in the fastest, safest and most economical way.
¹⁶

Apparently, fifteen or more
preventable
deaths every year are not enough to elicit preventive action by industry or the FDA. Despite years of warning and unmet promises, this industry was able to induce Congress to force the FDA to back down, thereby raising uncomfortable questions
about the new administration’s ability to improve the safety of the nation’s food supply.

During the mid-2000s, the United States experienced an astonishing sequence of foodborne outbreaks, each with unique revelations of safety failures followed by calls for regulation, largely unheeded. Despite lack of recall authority, the FDA and the USDA frequently announced “voluntary” recalls. In July 2009, for example, the FDA announced fifty-six voluntary food recalls or market withdrawals because of health risk or mislabeling. The USDA announced four: pork skins (no inspection) and ground beef and dry milk contaminated with
Salmonella
or
E. coli
O157:H7. Some outbreaks involved hundreds of cases of illness dispersed among many states. These required the CDC to conduct intense investigations, not always successfully.
¹⁷

Table 16
summarizes some of the most prominent incidents from 2006 to 2009. Each of these incidents reveals key flaws in the present food safety system and the need for legislative measures to address these flaws.

2006: Spinach
(E. coli
O157:H7)
. This outbreak was notable for the trouble it caused and its source. Of the 205 people who became ill, about 30 developed hemolytic uremia syndrome, and three died. The source was a widely distributed Dole brand of bagged baby spinach packed by Natural Selection Foods, a company run by Earthbound Farms, a leading supplier of organic vegetables. Because the packing plant washed the spinach thoroughly, the company and growers were shocked to learn that washing was insufficient to remove the pathogen. Growers also were shocked by the subsequent losses of sales, estimated at $100 million. By 2009, spinach sales had not yet returned to pre-outbreak levels.
¹⁸

Investigators traced the spinach to a particular field in the middle of a cattle ranch one mile away from a stream used by the free-range cattle as a crossing. They isolated the outbreak
E. coli
strain from stream water, cattle feces, and the feces of wild boar at the crossing, but found none in the spinach field. Contaminated water from the cattle crossing seemed a likely source, as did wild boar. Investigators sampled wild animals in the area and found the outbreak strain in cattle (34 percent of samples), wild boar (15 percent), water, and soil, but in no other animals. Later, the California Department of Fish and Game found the strain in only one of 184 wild boar. Investigators concluded that “no definitive determination could be
made regarding how
E. coli
O157:H7 pathogens contaminated spinach in this outbreak.”
¹⁹

But how had the bacteria survived washing? The packing plant used state-of-the-art washing procedures under a HACCP plan. Investigations revealed only minor procedural flaws. Although this was the twentieth
E. coli
O157:H7 outbreak from leafy greens in recent years, nobody seemed to have come to grips with how firmly these bacteria adhere to leaf surfaces. They can be incorporated into lettuce or spinach leaves just under the surface and form tightly adhering biofilms.
²⁰

Although the spinach was marketed as conventional, industrial growers immediately blamed the outbreak on manure-based fertilizers used in organic production. In October 2006, I wrote an opinion piece for the
San Jose Mercury News
listing the obvious lessons taught by the outbreak—prevention is essential, voluntary never works, industrial agriculture has its down side—among them, “don’t blame organics this time.”
²¹
A vegetable grower in California soon set me straight. He knew that the spinach was in the second year of the three-year transition required for organic certification. Even so, manure was probably not the source, as no trace of the outbreak strain appeared on the spinach field.

Early in 2007, I visited Earthbound Farms and its packing plant and met with its microbiological consultant. The company had instituted test-and-hold procedures to prevent contaminated produce from coming into or leaving the plant. Such practices should be standard for this industry. California now requires the leafy greens industry to use good manufacturing practices (GMPs), but these are voluntary. The FDA, which had been advising lettuce growers to use GMPs for years, extended its voluntary guidance to spinach.
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In spring 2007, I attended a meeting of California vegetable producers at which Bill Marler, an attorney who represents victims of foodborne illness, challenged growers to “put me out of business.” He warned that voluntary actions would not succeed and nothing short of mandatory federal regulations would be effective, not least because of the high human costs of foodborne illness. One of his spinach clients spent 51 days in the hospital and 18 days on dialysis, with medical bills of $500,000.
²³

Regulations are politically unpopular. They are difficult to implement, generate costs, and are not always applied fairly or consistently. But without accountability and enforcement, nothing stops outbreaks from occurring. Without a congressional mandate to take stronger action, the FDA again in July 2009 issued guidance to the producers of lettuce and spinach, necessarily voluntary and nonbinding.
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TABLE 16
. Selected examples of food recalls and outbreaks of foodborne illness in the United States, 2006-2009

2006: Iceberg Lettuce, Taco Bell (
E. coli
O157:H7)
. This incident exposed the challenges faced by investigators looking for the source of outbreaks caused by restaurant meals. Late in 2006, nine of eleven people in New Jersey who became ill from foodborne
E. coli
said they had eaten at a Taco Bell restaurant. Because meat is cooked—a kill step—investigators focused on foods eaten raw: cilantro, cheese, green onions, yellow onions, tomatoes, and shredded lettuce. These came from a central distributor and were difficult to trace, but Taco Bell reported finding
E. coli
O157:H7 in green onions from a California supplier. It removed the onions from its restaurants and stopped the supply chain.
²⁵

The company also launched a public relations offensive. It bought full-page advertisements, sent out news releases, and conducted nearly a thousand interviews with the media. Its president explained, “Neither the health department nor we know what caused [the outbreak]. Not everybody that got sick ate at Taco Bell.” A manager said, “We’re losing money for no reason. . . . Nobody found anything and nobody proved anything.”
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What food was the source? Federal investigators did their own testing, cleared green onions, and identified the outbreak strain in one sample of yellow onions. The CDC identified foods eaten more frequently by people who had become ill—lettuce, cheddar cheese, and ground beef—and guessed that lettuce was the most likely source. Because multiple Taco Bell outlets were involved, the lettuce must have been contaminated early in the distribution chain. With that uncertain speculation, the CDC investigations concluded.
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Calls for regulation followed. Eric Schlosser wrote, “Aside from industry lobbyists and their Congressional allies, there is little public support for the right to sell contaminated food. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you still have to eat.” A
New York Times
editorial said, “Surely it is time to give government regulators the power and resources they need to ensure the safety of fresh fruits and vegetables.”
²⁸
Representatives introduced food safety bills in Congress. None passed.

2007: Pet Foods (Melamine)
. In March 2007, Menu Foods, a Canadian pet food manufacturer, recalled a record-breaking sixty million cans and pouches sold under ninety-five brand names.
²⁹
Although this incident involved pet, not human, food, it was such a stunning example of safety systems gone awry that I thought it deserved book-length analysis:
Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine
(University of California Press, 2008).

To summarize: Menu Foods obtained two ingredients commonly used
to increase the protein content of pet foods, wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, through a supply chain that began in China. There, manufacturers fraudulently added an industrial chemical, melamine, to wheat flour and sold it as wheat and rice proteins. Melamine is 67 percent nitrogen. Because tests for protein in food actually measure nitrogen, not protein itself, melamine fooled the test and boosted the apparent protein content.