We live, we learn – or maybe we don’t.
Pathogens commonly feature in national and international alert systems like RASFF and the US-FDA recall database, often accounting for the highest number of entries in these systems. And yet, some stand out because of the harm they caused, and often, because they were poorly handled.
In 1906, Upton Sinclair wrote his novel “The Jungle”. In the first edition, it reads “Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to pass a government inspector, who sat in the doorway and felt of the glands in the neck for tuberculosis…This government inspector did not have the manner of a man who was worked to death…and while he was talking with you, you could hardly be so ungrateful as to notice that a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched.”
But let’s start with the Cronobacter case in the US, which took five months between the first sick infant and still three months after the first death of an infant until a full recall was launched, according to the most recent Bloomberg article “Formula for disaster”[1]. By mid-February, FDA had received reports that seven infants had died and the health of many others had been severely affected – all of them fed with the infant formula in question. The FDA also received a whistleblower report but it “got lost in the mail room”. Inspectors had identified shortcomings in the factory that could give rise to contamination with Cronobacter, but no action was taken, relying on the company to fix these issues. It sounds reminiscent of what Upton Sinclair wrote more than 110 years go. Besides the actual situation in the factory that should have been remedied by the management (and wasn’t), clearly, there was a breakdown in communication between food inspectors and FDA, sloppy handling of key documentation, and a lack of action once issues had been identified.
The US-FDA had, on numerous occasions, been heavily criticized for not fulfilling its tasks. Now, Rosa DeLauro furnished a bill to the house of representatives titled “Food Safety Administration Act of 2022” The bill proposes to establish a single agency whose only remit is to keep the food in America safe. While this may seem overdue, especially after FDA Commissioner Robert Califf described the growing number of issues with the agency to congress, it is questionable if the establishment of a new “food-only” agency will remedy all the issues.
FDA and the inspectors are not the only ones that are having issues. In Europe we have seen slow acting inspectors and competent authorities when Listeria-contaminated, rotten sausage was placed on the market, causing the death of at least two people. And again, inspectors and competent authorities were hesitant to act after the first incidents pointed to the sausage factory.
Would creating a food safety agency here make a difference?
Are there examples how food safety can be improved?
The short answer is: yes. We have at least two examples of competent authorities in Europe that lead the way here.
More about this in Part II & III.
[1] Bloomberg Businessweek, August 29, 2022, pp 32-37.
