Next time we may not be so lucky

Recent spinach recall raises new questions about industry self-regulation of California's leafy green safety.
Batch Data Processor | Wednesday, Sep 12 2007 8:55 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Sep 12 2007 9:01 PM

We got a taste of industry self-regulation last month when Monterey County grower Metz Fresh recalled 8,000 cartons of fresh spinach after a routine test turned up salmonella.

The company didn't conduct the salmonella test because some California law required it. Metz Fresh didn't announce the recall because of a government-mandated consumer-safety protocol. Things happened the way they did because of industry self-regulation -- in this case, because Metz Fresh was complying with the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement, a set of voluntary food safety rules created after the 2006 fresh-spinach outbreak of E. coli.

A success story? Hardly. Rather than halting the conveyor belt after a preliminary test revealed the presence of salmonella, Metz Fresh let it roll while the company lab conducted a second test.

Only when the second test confirmed the presence of salmonella did Metz Fresh issue the recall order. The company tracked down about 90 percent of the spinach it had shipped in the interim, but a week later it was still looking for the missing 800 cases. Fortunately, no illnesses have been reported, although that doesn't necessarily mean no one was sickened.

Metz Fresh officials say the spinach would rot in their warehouses while time-consuming second tests are undertaken. False positives on those initial screenings aren't that uncommon, company officials say, meaning they might have halted production for nothing. But confirmation tests can take as little as 24 hours, independent food-safety scientists say, and certainly an industry this vulnerable to such outbreaks can work to further minimize the down time.

And therein lie some of the benefits of establishing state standards for testing and recall procedures for leafy-green vegetables.

State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, has advocated a stronger state role, but he hasn't been able to get legislation out of the Assembly Agriculture Committee.

That would be the agriculture committee chaired by Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, Florez's political rival and an unrepentant ally of big ag. When the debate comes down to a question of protecting consumers or protecting the farming industry, she and Florez are usually split. Perhaps Parra's longtime mentor, former Congressman Cal Dooley, now a chief lobbyist with the Food Products Association, has something to do with that.

The last time Parra's Ag Committee defeated a Florez consumer-protection bill, back in June, it got ugly. Florez claimed committee members were "willing to wait for another death" from contaminated vegetables before strengthening laws to prevent such outbreaks.

Parra demanded that Florez stop criticizing her entire committee because he can't get his food-safety bills approved. "Don't blame members of this committee," she said. "Blame me."

Florez no doubt does. But what if the next time industry self-regulation fails to catch a potentially deadly bacteria we're not as lucky as we were in the Metz Fresh case?

What if people die, as happened with the E. coli outbreak of 2006? Who shall we blame for that?

Far better we should credit Parra and her Agriculture Committee for eventually seeing the wisdom of state-mandated testing and recall procedures.

http://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/editorials/story/235297.html