This is the fourth in our series of what we consider to be the 17 top food safety stories of 2010.  Number 12 in the countdown: The Peanut Corporation of American Aftermath.
Civil courts in 2010 produced some financial relief for some victims of the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak of 2008-09 that was caused by Peanut Corporation of America. 
But the wait for federal criminal proceedings now continues into a third year.
PCA peanut butter infected 714 people in 46 states between November 2008 and April 2009.    Nine people died.
Shortly after the outbreak, Virginia-based PCA filed for bankruptcy.  The corporation had a $12 million liability policy that the Bankruptcy Court was able to distribute late in the year among about 122 of the most seriously injured claimants.  Some survivors of those who died also shared in the settlement.
Those waiting for criminal sanctions against PCA and its officers, including Stuart Parnell, continued to wait in 2010.  
PCA officers and executives, including Parnell, spent part of the year fighting over how a $1 million insurance policy for errors and omissions should be used.  Parnell said he needed $951,000 to cover his criminal defense debts.  
Others who demanded payments included Samuel Lightsey and Joe Sams, former PCA managers in Blakely, GA, and Mary Wilkerson, a former quality assurance manager.
The bankruptcy trustee argued PCA executives violated a financial trust agreement, meaning at least some of the insurance should be used to pay creditors.  U.S. District Judge Norman Moon set $125,000 aside for creditors and left the remaining $875,000 for the ex-PCA executives to fight over among themselves with final court approval.
While Parnell obtained a top federal criminal defense attorney, no federal shoes dropped.   And late in the year, a possible reason emerged.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigation (OCI) may be in chaos.  At a minimum, it has been leaderless since the apparently forced resignation of Terry Vermillion, the 20-year Secret Service agent who headed OCI for 18 years until quitting on Nov. 23.
Vermillion, who was one of FDA’s highest paid executives, did not do well in a recent General Accounting Office (GAO) study of OCI and its 180 criminal investigators, who seem to be doing a lot less with more.
Then Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley came up with a whistleblower with stories about Vermillion himself, including the charge that he was running OCI over the phone from his personal residences, not the office.
Maybe new leadership at OCI will bring criminal sanctions in 2011 against the man who allegedly knowingly shipped contaminated peanut products.
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Number 11 in the top food safety stories:  Another non-O157 E. Coli Bacteria Turns Up In a Yuma Lettuce Field.

When students from Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and Daemen College in Buffalo started becoming ill in mid-April, it was apparent from the start it was going to be a mean little outbreak.
Then U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that out of a dozen cases, three had already advanced to life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).  College-age students are not usually victims of HUS, which can threaten the kidneys and central nervous system.
A traceback investigation by FDA found Romaine lettuce distributed under the Freshway Foods brand to the three campuses was responsible.  New York State’s lab then found the Romaine Lettuce test positive for E. coli–not the more widely known O157:H7, but the more rare E. coli 0145.
While Freshway Foods conducted recalls of both its Freshway and Imperial Sysco brands of Romaine lettuce in 24 states, attention turned to where the 0145 lettuce was grown.
Food safety attorney Bill Marler was the first to hit the target.  ”Given the time of year, the most likely area for growing Romaine Lettuce is Arizona–likely Yuma,” he said.  ”The investigation is likely hampered by the failure of health departments throughout the United States from actually testing ill persons’ stools for E. coli O145.”
Shortly after that, FDA focused its investigation on a specific Yuma lettuce field, which remains undisclosed.
We will pick up again on more Top Stories tomorrow.

In the third installment in our Top 17 Food Safety Stories of 2010, No. 14 is the success of the FDA’s early detention tool, the Reportable Food Registry:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet issued a report for the second half of the year, but there is enough evidence that the FDA’s Reportable Food Registry is a success.
New tools in the war against foodborne illness don’t occur that often, and there has been plenty of skepticism about how FDA would implement a congressional mandate for an electronic portal for the industry and public health officials to use when they know something might harm the human or animal food supply.
A year ago, Carol Smith DeWaal at the Center for Science in the Public Interest told Food Safety News the portal would “only be useful if the government ties them into some kind of a rapid alert system.  We learned a long time ago that getting information into the government isn’t the same thing as getting information out to the public.”
FDA claims the new portal is providing just those kinds of alerts.  ”The FDA’s new reporting system has already proven itself as an invaluable tool to help prevent contaminated food from reaching the public,” said Michael R. Taylor, the deputy commissioner for foods.
The portal collected more than 100 food safety reports from industry during the first half of the year.   The Reportable Food Registry speeds the identification and investigation of potential hazards in human, animal, and pet food, FDA says.
In the report on the registry’s first six months, FDA said the portal logged 125 primary reports about a food safety concern, and those filings brought about another 1,638 subsequent reports from food suppliers or recipients both domestically and from abroad.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, FDA’s commissioner, credited the portal with early notification regarding contaminated hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), a flavoring ingredient, at a Nevada food processor.  The led to the largest recall of a single ingredient in 2010, involving 177 separate products from almost as many companies.
FDA says another example of the registry coming through as an industry alert involved a recall of multiple products containing unlabeled sulfites.
Taylor says the registry gives FDA the benefit of information being generated by tests for the food industry.  He says the registry is proving to be an effective tool in helping the agency prevent foodborne illness.
Under a 2007 law, industry must report foods or feeds that present a reasonable probability of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.
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Number 13 on the Top 17 story countdown is that recall of 177 Products containing Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) :
When top Homeland and National Security officials appear at an unexpected press conference, the media is interested.  But when FDA Commissioner and top officials from “outbreak control” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call a press conference without advance warning late in the afternoon, it’s also just a little scary.
Early last March, that’s exactly what happened.  Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the FDA commissioner, was there to talk about a flavoring agent called hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP).  Basic Food Flavors, a food processing company in North Las Vegas, supplies much of the HVP used in all sorts of foods — dips, soups, dressing, snacks.
After a report about possible contamination came into its new Reportable Food Registry, FDA launched an investigation of Basic Food Flavors and found Salmonella in the HVP and the company’s processing facility.  While Basic Food was denying it was responsible, the top FDA-CDC officials were holding their press conference in Washington, D.C.
Initially, there were fears that as many as 10,000 products containing HVP might be tainted.   As it turned out, just 177 products containing HVP from Basic Food Flavors were recalled.  Nevertheless, is was the largest ingredient-based recall of 2010.
Generally speaking, ready-to-eat products (such as ready-to-eat bacon) had to be recalled, but products that would be cooked, getting a “kill step” to eliminate pathogens, escaped recall.
Recalls involving ingredients are complicated, because ingredients can be so widely distributed in so many different products.
Much bigger ingredient recalls occurred in 2009, when more than 3,900 products containing Salmonella-tainted peanut butter or peanut paste from the now defunct Peanut Corporation of America had to be removed from the marketplace.
Also in 2009, pistachios from Terre Belle Inc. led to the recall of 664 products that contained them and other contaminated ingredients, mostly powdered milk, from the Plainview Milk Cooperation resulted in the recall 272 products.

Basic Food Flavors is a major–if not THE major–supplier of HVP to the food industry, and the contamination was limited to a 10,000-pound lot, the company stated in a belated announcement of what happened.  
We will pick up again on more Top Stories tomorrow.

An estimated 89 people from 15 states and the District of Columbia have been infected with Salmonella in an outbreak linked to alfalfa sprouts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Thursday.
This was CDC’s first public acknowledgment of its involvement in the outbreak investigation, which is related to 50 Salmonella illnesses already reported in Illinois and associated there with Jimmy John’s sandwich outlets.
“Preliminary results of this investigation indicate a link to eating alfalfa sprouts at a national sandwich chain,” the CDC said.
Earlier this week, sandwich chain exec Jimmy John Liautaud had written to franchisees in Illinois, asking them to remove alfalfa sprouts from menus as a precautionary measure.  He said health authorities had informed him that 25-28 of those recently stricken with Salmonella had reported eating at Jimmy John’s restaurants. The CDC said that in addition to the Illinois cases, there have been single cases confirmed with the outbreak strain (Salmonella serotype  4,[5],12:i:-) in Connecticut, Washington D.C., Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.  Three cases have been confirmed in Wisconsin, nine in Indiana and 14 in Missouri.
Because the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern associated with this particular Salmonella serotype commonly occurs in the United States, the CDC cautioned that some of the cases identified may not actually be related to this outbreak.
Among 81 people for whom information is available, the onset of their illnesses ranged from Nov. 1 to Dec. 14, the CDC reported.  Illnesses that occurred after Dec. 2 might not yet be reported to the CDC, because it takes an average of two to three weeks from when a person becomes ill to when the illness is reported. 
The CDC said the case patients range in age from 1 to 75 years, with a median age of 28. Sixty-eight percent of them are female.  Among those cases in which information was made available to the CDC, 23 percent reported being hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.
CDC said it is collaborating with public health officials in many states and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to identify new cases and to try to trace potentially contaminated products.
Most persons infected with Salmonella, which is responsible for more than a million illnesses a year, develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after infection. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days, and most persons recover without treatment. However, in some persons, the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. Salmonella infection may spread from the intestines to the blood stream, and then to other body sites and can cause death unless the person is treated promptly with antibiotics.  About 378 deaths a year are caused by Salmonella, according to CDC estimates. The elderly, infants, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness from Salmonella infection.
Since 1996, there have been at least 30 reported outbreaks of foodborne illness associated with different types of raw and lightly cooked sprouts, the CDC said. Most of these outbreaks were caused by Salmonella and E. coli.
To reduce the risk of illness, the CDC recommends that children, the elderly, pregnant women, and persons with weakened immune systems avoid eating raw sprouts of any kind (including alfalfa, clover, radish, and mung bean sprouts).
Sprouts should be cooked thoroughly to kill harmful bacteria and reduce the risk of illness.  The CDC suggests that consumers request raw sprouts not be added to their food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Wednesday announced new measures aimed at ensuring the humane treatment and slaughter of all cattle at FSIS-inspected slaughter facilities.

Increased attention was drawn to FSIS’ inconsistent enforcement of the humane handling and slaughter laws last year when Dr. Dean Wyatt, a veteran public health veterinarian at the agency, blew the whistle on his federal regulators for ignoring egregious violations. The Government Accountability Office issued a report that largely backed up the veterinarian’s claims and pointed to some systemic enforcement failures, which impact both animal health and food safety.

“Under this Administration, we have significantly strengthened our ability to enforce the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, but we have more work to do and must continue to look for ways that ensure the safe and humane slaughter of animals,” said Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen.  ”That is why we are taking concrete steps to address outstanding humane handling issues, ranging from enhanced employee training to clearer guidance on existing rules.”

USDA announced that FSIS will pursuing the following new measures:

– Issuing procedures to inspection personnel to clarify that all non-ambulatory mature cattle must be condemned and promptly euthanized to ensure they are humanely handled, regardless of the reason for the animal’s non-ambulatory status. The clarification is intended to ensure that the policy is consistently applied at all federally inspected establishments by resolving any uncertainty on how inspectors should interpret existing rules. This FSIS Notice was issued Wednesday.


– Responding to and soliciting comments on petitions from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Farm Sanctuary.


– Appointing an Ombudsman in the Office of Food Safety, designated specifically for humane handling issues. The ombudsman will provide FSIS employees a channel of communication to voice their concerns when the standard reporting mechanisms do not adequately address outstanding issues.
 

– Requesting the USDA Office of Inspector General audit industry appeals of noncompliance records and other humane handling enforcement actions by FSIS inspection program personnel. This will help determine whether FSIS has adequately handled humane handling violations identified by inspection personnel and challenged by an establishment.  The audit will give the agency a better picture of how well the appeals process works, and if problems are found, FSIS will take action to address them.
 

– Delivering enhanced humane handling training to give inspection personnel more practical, situation-based training.  Additional training modules that prepare inspectors for realistic scenarios they will face in the field will help the agency enforce HMSA regulations more effectively and consistently.

“When Congress passed the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, they provided FSIS with the authority to prevent needless suffering, and we take our responsibility very seriously,” said FSIS Administrator Al Almanza in a USDA statement Wednesday.  ”Consumers need to be confident our inspectors have the direction they need to ensure that humane slaughter is carried out properly.”

The agency has announced similar measures aimed at improving enforcement.  Last March, the USDA announced a final rule to amend federal meat inspection regulations to require a complete ban on the slaughter of non-ambulatory cattle for use in human food.  The agency created 24 new humane handling enforcement positions, including 23 in-plant personnel and a headquarters-based Humane Handling Enforcement Coordinator.  In October, FSIS issued draft guidelines to assist meat and poultry establishments that want to improve operations by using in-plant video monitoring.