By Frank D. Russo
Senator Dean Florez answered questions by another persistent reporter yesterday about what the recent outbreak of salmonella in California lettuce distributed in over 48 states and Canada means about food safety in California.
Florez wrote A.G. Kawamura, the Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), to express his concerns, and a copy of his letter is reproduced below. Florez is the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Food-borne Illness and introduced legislation in the wake of deadly 2006 E. coli outbreaks linked to California leafy greens which would have mandated an improved inspection process and efficient traceback system. That legislation was shelved by the Assembly Agriculture Committee, which opted to wait and see how industry faired in its attempts to self-regulate, despite the industry’s previous lack of response to repeated outbreaks and calls for action from the federal Food and Drug Administration.
In his letter, Florez questions how the contaminated produce made it to store shelves before the danger was caught if leafy greens are being inspected as promised under the voluntary Leafy Green Marketing Agreement to which the distributor in question, Metz Fresh, is a signatory.
Here is what the reporter, clearly frustrated by the lack of a response to her questions to the CDFA, heard from Florez:
Q. What do you make of this latest recall? It's clearly a different problem, different part of Monterey County, so we're not looking necessarily at the same thing.
Well, I think that what this says is that the system that growers had voluntarily put together is not working. And many of them have said that it is a workable system now--that we caught the salmonella--even though it was distributed in 48 states and Canada. But remember, it was caught at the store level.
And I think the issue was as we debated spinach last year, that they were in essence going to make the product safer, they were going to put a seal on it, and everybody was going to know by the time it hit that shelf that it was absolutely grade A, ready to go for consumers. I think that what we found here--there was no seal, it hit a shelf, it was pulled off the shelf and now we're pulling cartons off.
This is not the system that I think consumers want. Consumers want at the very beginning of this process to have a bag sealed, with a seal of approval that says it is ready to be eaten. Period.
What this is, is simply a catch up system that says--Once we find out something is wrong, we'll catch up, pull it back, and hope that there's no illnesses. In this case, we still don't know if there will be illnesses. Salmonella obviously affects a lot of people.
Q. But isn't this better than nothing? It was the company's own voluntary testing that that they didn't have to do. They didn't have to recall it, so…
Well, I think this is a better situation than the situation we had last year. It is not the right situation, however. We need to catch this before--We need to have the seal of approval prior to, and we …shouldn't have to be pulling product off the shelf. I think at the end of the day what we're saying is that there's a link that's missing here--and that is the seal of approval that was touted. And we just want to make sure that the industry recognizes that--I know they're having an emergency meeting today to talk about this.
Our job in essence is to say there's a better way to do this, there's a mandatory way to do this, and there ought to be something that says the seal of approval means that a bag that's closed is ready to eat. And that isn't the case today with spinach and it's been shown by the outbreak of the salmonella that we just found.
Q. But the Health Department has said that its food emergency response team"--what is that. What does this mean, and are we to trust people because they….
Well, the problem with the Department of Health's approach at this point in time again is that it is also a 'catch up" system. There's no one proactively going out to the fields, spot checking. We are relying on the industries to do their own spot checks. And in this case, it's in the industry's interest to recall those bags because once people began to get sick, it doesn't matter how well this program runs--no one will go back to eating spinach for a very long time.
They're doing it for economic reasons--we get that--but think for health reasons we'd like to have that bag sealed with that seal of approval as they've promised us, and not have to find it on a shelf.
Q. But this is the Department of Health Services that once again--they can't produce somebody to tell me what a food emergency response team is--are we going to trust them to do anything?
I think the reasons that the Department of Health Services is so vague on how to enforce this is because, this is number one, not mandatory--they're relying on a voluntary group of folks to tell them how this ought to be implemented. And this is the whole rationale for having our bills pass this year--is that the Department of Health Services should have very strict guidelines. They should be running the show and not reacting to--because they don't have answers because they're not part and parcel creating the regulations necessary to make this happen.
Q. But they seem fairly incompetent--pretty much any level. Any time we call them they never can produce anyone to tell us anything.
It's because we don't have the proper structure our bills put forward, to have if you will, leafy greens part of our health inspection programs. Right now, they're reacting to and they're probably calling the folks that were responsible for this--in a voluntary way--the growers and asking them--"Can we tell people that it's OK?" That really isn't the way government should be operating.
Q. But just because you do a bill, is this going to all of a sudden make these people competent overnight?
No, but what I think a bill does is it puts in statute real regulations we can hold the Department of Health Services accountable to. Right now we could do is ask the Department: "How did you monitor? How did it go? How did it look?" There's really no really nothing to hold them accountable to, and quite frankly, the voluntary group that produced this salmonella issue just a day ago isn't responsible to anyone either. So, we're back in the same situation where no one is held accountable, everyone promises things will get better, we have a catch up system in the end, and we're just taking chances with consumers.
Not one consumer can say that a bag on a shelf is sealed, they can open it, put it on their plate and eat it. That's not the case today. That's what consumers want and we ought to push for that higher standard.
Here is a copy of Floret's letter to Kawamura.
August 30, 2007
A.G. Kawamura
Secretary
California Dept. of Food & Agriculture
1220 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Secretary Kawamura:
I am writing to express my serious concern regarding the recent distribution of spinach contaminated with salmonella from a California farm. I understand that the contaminated spinach originated from Metz Fresh, which is a signatory to the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement program, which is under the jurisdiction of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Nearly one year has passed since the devastating E. coli outbreak from California grown spinach, and it is clear that California’s food safety measures are lacking, as is evidenced by the fact that we continue to distribute contaminated produce across the United States and Canada. Most troubling is the fact that, according to reports in the Bakersfield Californian, contaminated spinach was placed on shelves and was available for sale to consumers. This raises serious questions regarding the effectiveness of the current food safety program and signals the need for stronger regulation on the part of government.
In light of this incident it is necessary and appropriate for the Committee to better understand the current status of the food safety measures in place under the Leafy Green Marketing agreement. Accordingly, please provide the Committee with the following information:
1) An explanation as to why the contaminated spinach was not identified prior to being distributed to retailers and/or commercial food establishments and, more importantly, why it was not identified prior to being made available for purchase by consumers.
2) Whether the packaging containing the contaminated spinach bears the official seal of the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement. In the event that the packaging does not bear the seal, please provide an explanation as to why, given that the seal is the only manner for consumers to identify whether a grower is a signatory to the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement and was touted as a cornerstone of the agreement.
3) Whether Metz Fresh has been inspected pursuant to the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement. If so, please provide the date of the inspection and the results of the investigation, detailing any violations or shortcomings identified. Please provide any documents generated during the inspection process.
4) What specific actions will be taken by the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement in light of this incident.
5) The current status of the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement inspection and compliance program, including what percentage of processors and growers have been inspected to date, and the results of these inspections.
Given the seriousness of this breakdown in California’s food safety system please provide a response no later than 1 p.m. on Friday, August 31, 2007.
Sincerely,
DEAN FLOREZ
Chair, Senate Select Committee on Food-Borne Illness
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment