U.S. takes aim at deadly food illnesses
Safety rules get biggest overhaul in decades as food-borne illnesses kill 3,000 a year
WASHINGTON • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant following deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens.
The long-overdue regulations are aimed at reducing the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from food-borne illness. Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.
The Food and Drug Administration’s proposed rules would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers’ hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.
Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.
In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a 2012 peanut butter outbreak linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.’s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing hands.
Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress on those safety efforts and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.
“The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen,” said Michael Taylor, FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods.
The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost two million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect.