WASHINGTON, D.C. – When the public needs to know about unsafe food, the federal government releases announcements about contaminated foods on its website, FoodSafety.gov. The information comes from the two agencies that inspect food, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

FSIS is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and tracks meat, poultry and processed egg products produced in federally inspected plants. FDA, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, issues notices for other food products.

The Food Safety Alerts & Tips widget, seen at right, combines all the food  recalls, market withdrawals and safety alerts from the FDA and FSIS, as well as tips and research.

Food Safety Widget. Flash Player 9 is required.

Healthcare providers often receive their alerts from a recall service, such as the RASMAS. For consumers concerned about the safety of specific food items, below are the main pages where the most recent food safety cases are listed:

• Current Recalls and Alerts from FSIS
• FSIS Recall Case Archive (searchable by year)
• FDA Food Recalls and Safety Alerts

Find out more

You can the latest news on health safety and recall from RASMAS’ Bill Klein on Twitter at twitter.com/RASMASrecall. Or you can follow our headlines via RSS feed.

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FALLS CHURCH – Top headlines in healthcare and patient safety for Tuesday, July 13, compiled by the library research department of Noblis Health Innovation. Click on the underlined item for the actual story:

• Mergers of for-profit and non-profit hospitals raise questions: USA Today reports that recent transactions are also reigniting a long-running debate: Are the deals good for patients, or do they result in an overemphasis on profits that poses a threat to the quality of care?
• Basic practices could help prevent hospital infections: Deadly yet easily preventable bloodstream infections continue to plague American hospitals because facility administrators fail to commit resources and attention to the problem, according to a survey of medical professionals released Monday and reported in The Washington Post.
• Senate gets heat on food safety bill
  A year after House Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly approved legislation to improve food safety, public health advocates are growing frustrated that the Senate has yet to take up the bill.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, the FDA posted an information page on the newest food contamination scare,  the HVP Recall. A bit of the basic information is posted here for consumers. The FDA has also posted the page HVP for industry to inform industry what to do.

At this time, no illnesses are known to be associated with this problem of contamination. Below, a few of the FDA’s frequently asked questions. (more…)

FALLS CHURCH - A roundup of today’s headlines in the field of health safety and recall:

• St. Paul, Minn.-basd Ecolab Inc. is collaborating with San Franciso-based AvidBiotics Corp. to jointly develop a new technology to reduce the presence of the pathogen E. coli O157:H7 in red meat products. The company also said it will work with the Winston-Salem, N.C. based company C Change Surgical LLC to license products that maintain consistent body temperature of patients.
• This February, the American Association of Orthodontists will launch a campaign to encourage mouth guard usage and sports safety with NFL rusher Emmitt Smith.
• St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey recently opened the region’s first dedicated Geriatric Emergency Department. Geriatric Emergency departments  have special protocols; for instance any patient who takes five or more prescription medications daily receives a consult with a pharmacist.
• At the University of Rochester Medical Center Board’s annual meeting, Chairman Ron Zarella presented 2009 Excellence Awards, including two awards related to patient safety. A “Team Excellence” award was presented to the hospital’s Central Line Infection Improvement Project group, which has worked diligently to help eliminate catheter-associated bloodstream infections. This team pored over research and developed a simple, cost-effective checklist of best practices for catheter care. The team includes Mike Apostolakos, M.D., F.C.C.P.; Mary Wicks, R.N., M.P.A., NEA-BC,; Paul Graman, M.D.; Patricia Reagan, Ph.D.; Jan Schriefer, Dr.P.H.; E. Kate Ireland, R.N., M.S.N.; JoAnn Popovich, M.S., R.N., NE-BC; and Nancy Adair, M.S., R.N. The 2009 Board Excellence Award in the Clinician category was presented to Lisa Saubermann, Pharm.D., an associate director of Clinical Pharmacy Services whoplayed a key role in developing and executing drug safety initiatives.

DENVER – Jason Eric Kay, age 38, of Longmont, Colorado, was arrested for misbranding and altering Gatorade labels featuring Tiger Woods, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations said in a release.  Kay will be held overnight in custody.

FDA OCI was notified by PepsiCo North America that the company had received complaints of tampering with Tropical-Mango Flavored Gatorade bottles. The tampered bottles contained unauthorized labels depicting in part, a photograph of professional golfer Tiger Woods and his wife Elin Woods on one side, and the word “unfaithful” on the other side. Bottles were removed by personnel at Safeway and King Soopers stores in Erie, Boulder, Broomfield and Longmont, Colorado.

Other Health Safety and Recall News headlines include:

• Public health physician Bill S. Paul editorialized in The Tennessean that the U.S. needs an overhaul of food safety laws, including the FDA Food Safety Enhancement Act. Paul, who is director of health for the Metro Public Health Department of Nashville/Davidson County, wrote in the paper that the “food we eat in this country comes from many sources, and contamination at one point can have far-reaching and deadly results. We need reliable, transparent, accountable systems to keep us safe.”
• Nestlé USA said Wednesday that two samples of its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough made in a Danville, Va. factory tested positive for E. coli bacteria this week despite rigorous safety measures put in place after a recall of the product last summer, The New York Times reported.
• A new FDA deputy, Michael Taylor, is taking a new, more muscular approach to food regulation, The Washington Post reports. The agency has been cracking down on nutrition claims on processed foods, saying that some food makers have overstated the health benefits of their products.

Health Safety and Recall News headlines are gathered daily by Noblis Health Innovation staff. Follow our RSS feed at http://info.rasmas.noblis.org/?feed=rss

HARRISBURG, Penn. – The closing and failed inspection of the cafeteria inside Pennsylvania’s Capitol building has Auditor General Jack Wagner calling for additional restaurant inspections and new food safety legislation.

Wagner said in a news release that the recent failed inspection and subsequent closing of the Capitol cafeteria further highlight the need for food safety legislation in the Keystone State. Wagner also expressed deep concern that for the past four years he received false assurances that inspections were conducted of the Capitol cafeteria after he raised the issue in an audit he released in November 2005.

Other food safety headlines today:

• USA Today  reported that 10 percent of airport eateries served food-borne illnesses.
• Meanwhile, food poisoning was blamed in a mistaken terrorist situation on board Northwest Airlines flight 253. According to ABC News, the man would not come out of the bathroom. After landing, officials gave an “all clear” after interviewing the Nigerian passenger and determining he was, indeed, ill.
• The Center for Science in the Public Interest noted a significant decrease in the number of food poisoning cases states are reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It found states reported 33 percent fewer fully investigated outbreaks to the CDC in 2007 than in 2002. In 2007, nearly 1,100 outbreaks were reported to CDC, but in only 378 cases identified a food and a pathogen, the mark of a complete investigation.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – This Friday, an independent panel of scientists will evaluate current research on soy infant formula to determine whether exposure to is a risk to human development. The panel will also search for data gaps and research needs.

The panel is convened by the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program of the Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that soy consumption appears to help breast-cancer survivors.

Other health safety headlines for today include:

• National Institutes of Health scientists said today that the incidence (new diagnoses) for all types of cancer combined decreased, on average, almost 1% per year from 1999 to 2006. Cancer deaths (mortality) also fell 1.6% per year from 2001 to 2006. These drops were driven largely by declines in rates for the 3 most common cancers in men—lung, prostate and colorectal cancers—and 2 of the 3 leading cancers in women—breast and colorectal cancer.
• Salt Lake City-based 3M Health Information Systems said that it had released 3M Mobile Dictation Software, which combines a smartphone and a dictation system. The technology makes it possible for physicians to view patient lists, search patient IDs, and display the most current patient information on a 3G smartphone.

YONKERS, N.Y. — A just-released survey by the magazine Consumer Reports of whole broiler chickens from 22 states found that a majority had salmonella and/or campylobacter contamination. The good news? There were major improvements from brands like Perdue.

A noted professor of food law at William Mitchell College of Law says that while there have been improvements, there is much more room for improvement, though consumers will always have to be careful, no matter how safe.

“I don’t think it is realistic to make any meat 100 percent safe,” says Byrne, author of FoodLawBlog.com. That being said, Byrne believes that we have allowed food to become so commercialized that the prices charged do not reflect the costs to society of the production systems in place. “I think commercially produced meats are way underpriced.”

Consumer Reports began measuring store-bought chickens in 1998. This year’s test shows a modest improvement since January 2007, when the magazine found these pathogens in 8 of 10 broilers.

“Consumers still need to be very careful in handling chicken, which is routinely contaminated with disease-causing bacteria,” said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director of Technical Policy at Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, in a press release.

For its latest analysis, Consumer Reports had an outside lab test 382 chickens bought last spring from more than 100 supermarkets, gourmet- and natural-food stores, and mass merchandisers. They found that:

• Campylobacter was in 62 percent of the chickens, salmonella was in 14 percent, and both bacteria were in 9 percent. Only 34 percent of the birds were clear of both pathogens.
• Among the cleanest overall were organic “air-chilled” broilers, a process in which carcasses are refrigerated and may be misted, rather than dunked in cold chlorinated water.
• Perdue was found to be the cleanest of the brand-name chicken: 56 percent were free of both pathogens. This is the first time since Consumer Reports began testing chicken that one major brand has fared significantly better than others across the board.
• Tyson and Foster Farms chickens were found to be the most contaminated; less than 20 percent were free of either pathogens. Store-brand organic chickens had no salmonella at all, but only 43 percent of those birds were also free of campylobacter.
• Among all brands and types of broilers tested, 68 percent of the salmonella and 60 percent of the campylobacter organisms analyzed showed resistance to one ore more antibiotics.

Each year, salmonella and campylobacter from chicken and other food sources infect at least 3.4 million Americans, send 25,500 to hospitals, and kill about 500, according to estimates by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While both salmonella and campylobacter are known to cause intestinal distress, campylobacter can lead to meningitis, arthritis, and Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe neurological condition.

Find out more: For more ways to help ensure that your food is safe, go to www.BuySafeEatWell.org or see the January 2010 issue of Consumer Reports. The chicken report is free online at www.ConsumerReports.org.

NATICK, Mass. – Boston Scientific Corporation said that it has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market its WallFlex Fully Covered Esophageal Stent for the treatment of malignant esophageal obstructions caused by tumors.

The stent is part of the WallFlex Stent family of self-expanding metal stents which will be available for hands-on demonstration at the GASTRO 2009 conference, to be held November 21-25 in London.

Other news includes:

• Cardinal Health and Patient Safety Technologies today announced that they have entered into a five-year distribution agreement to co-market the SurgiCount Safety-Sponge. The sponge has a counting system to help insure that sponges are not left in patients during surgery.
• New York-based Medco Health Solutions, Inc has a new method patient-centric model that includes training pharmacists to counsel patients and coordinate care.
• Teen singer and actress Demi Lovato is the lastest to be featured in the “Got Milk” campaign by the Milk Processor Education Program. The  “Got Milk” campaign is best known for adults, but the addition of Disney actress (and former Barney star) Lovato signals the program is concerned about milk usage in the teen and pre-teen markets.

CINCINNATI — One would presume that the director of a child care center at a leading children’s hospital would be able to keep up with the latest toy recalls.

“We try to stay on top of it as best we can,” says Dawn Denno, director of the Children’s for Children Child Care Center at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “It’s overwhelming. It’s just absolutely overwhelming.”

No matter how vigilant, no matter which products she buys, Denno still has to root out recall surprises. Her recent find? One of those fat wooden paint brushes that resembles a shaving brush. It was manufactured with lead paint. Denno keeps it in a sort of collection of horrors in order to demonstrate that even with precautions and an aware staff, you can miss something.

Local role in consumer recalls

The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is in the unique position of taking care of children and having to deal with the trauma of dangerous toys outside of the hospital. Because of this, Denno has taken a local leadership role to reduce future patients at the hospital. Around Christmas, Denno makes rounds in the community, telling listeners sad stories, including one about a surgery to remove magnets. “Toys with magnets are really fun for children,” says Denno, “but magnets can cause the intestines to adhere.”

While Denno gets federal recall bulletins and checks those bulletins against the toys in the center, she says her first line of defense against anything dangerous is basic safety and first aid training. It’s not enough to just check what’s been recalled, as not all unsafe products are recalled. Plus, cute and clever new “toys” come along every day. “They are now making candy that looks just like Legos,” says Denno. While the clever candy isn’t unsafe for older children, they teach toddlers that it’s O.K. to put a Lego in the mouth.

Just purely relying on the federal government’s standards won’t make you safe. Denno says U.S. toy standards are greater than many Asian countries, but less than Canada and the European Union.

Don’t assume anything

“Most Americans think the government is protecting them,” agrees Dara O’Rourke, a professor in the Department. of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, and formerly a professor at MIT. O’Rourke studies the environmental, social, and health impacts of global supply chains, and was surprised at food and toy standards while buying for his own family, “That set us on this journey to build a database,” said O’Rourke.

The result? The consumer website GoodGuide.com, which ranks the safety of consumer products with a database and facts about cancer risks, reproductive health hazards, endocrine disruption and skin and eye irritation. It continues to amaze O’Rourke how “poor our regulatory systems are on food safety, product safety and toy safety.”

His site goes beyond federal recalls, and includes information about toy and food ingredients that are legal, but of questionable reputation. For consumers or buyers interested in the amount of food coloring in a food, or the lead, mercury and cadmium found in toys, GoodGuide can provide the information by iPhone, so consumers can find out about a brand while they are shopping.

Not all the questions GoodGuide answers are about actual safety, but instead are qualitative, and involve working conditions and company policies on diversity and the environment. Consumers can log in and join the conversation, which does not always involve right or wrong, just choices.

“Some juices,” he says, “have more sugar than a can of Coke.”