After The Recent Wave Of Food Recalls…

The FDA is taking steps to ensure this won’t be a problem (on paper, at least):

Out of sight, out of mind?

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you may have noticed that since food safety testing standards have been lowered, there’s been a major food recall at least once every few weeks this year, due to contaminants that normally would have been noticed before they hit the shelves.

Now, however, the FDA has been compelled by funding cuts to completely suspend quality control testing, so fewer things will be flagged as dangerous.

This is not, of course, great for consumers:

Read in full: US FDA suspends food safety quality checks after staff cuts

Related: Led by RFK Jr., Conservatives Embrace Raw Milk. Regulators Say It’s Dangerous.

Lettuce not worry about that

However, not all food poisoning outbreaks become a source of worry for consumers—because of some of them get a better clean-up job than our food. In this case, an E. coli outbreak was established, noted internally by the FDA, and not reported publicly until it was over, nor did they reveal, even after the fact, which companies or brands were affected:

❝The [E. coli] outbreak spread to 15 states and killed at least one person, though the case was not discussed in the FDA’s internal report. The county health department eventually confirmed 115 cases of E. coli, 13 of which sent people to the hospital.

Federal law does not require the FDA to disclose deadly food-based disease outbreaks, but the agency has customarily released data on all such cases.❞

On a practical level, this means: now’s a good time to practise extra careful food hygiene at home, washing things thoroughly, and being mindful of cross-contamination risks.

Read in full: Report suggests the FDA covered up E. coli outbreak that killed 1 person, spread to 15 states

Related: Frozen/Thawed/Refrozen Meat: How Much Is Safety, And How Much Is Taste?

A little bird tells us this is still dangerous

And by “a little bird”, we mean the American Journal of Public Health, whose report shows how public lack of awareness about bird flu, and/or apathy about same, is a big obstacle to containing the virus and avoiding a larger-scale public health crisis.

And, as for the general American public’s understanding of the risks and mitigation strategies, study results show that things could be worse, but they could definitely be a lot better too:

❝The results suggest many respondents were unaware of simple food safety practices that could reduce the risk of HPAI infection. Over half (53.7%) did not know that pasteurized milk is safer than raw milk, although almost three of four respondents (71.3%) did understand that cooking meat at high temperatures could eliminate harmful bacteria and viruses like H5N1.

Over a quarter (27%) of respondents said they were unwilling to modify their diet to reduce the risk of exposure to the virus, and more than one in four respondents (28.7%) expressed reluctance to take a potential vaccine for H5N1, even if advised by the CDC to do so.❞

Read in full: Americans don’t think bird flu is a threat, study suggests

Related: Here’s the latest you need to know about bird flu

Take care!