Today with Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), we filed pre-Halloween grassroots petitions signed by more than 37,000 individuals with the FDA. The petitions register opposition to the use of poultry waste as cattle feed out of concerns for human and animal health.

Michael Hansen, Consumers Union's not-so-mad senior scientist put it best

"It seems ghoulish, but it is a perfectly legal and common practice for chicken litter—the material that accumulates on the floor of chicken growing facilities—to be fed to cattle"

A coaltion of concerned groups filed a citizen petition to say: Don't feed poop to cows! FDA's legal deadline for a response is November 11, 2009.

In the meantime sign our petition saying that poultry poop doesn't belong in your food. Click here to sign the petition!

Last week I met a remarkable food activist named Megan Kowalcyk, and because
of her got to visit the White House organic garden. Megan is twelve, and as she describes it, she saw the movie Food, Inc. and thought that the food in her school cafeteria looked a lot like the food in the movie. She thought it could be better, so she organized her friends and talked to her school, and made an action kit on how to improve your school lunch and gave it to kids in four other schools.

Megan doesn't just want food to be more nutritious and taste better, however, she also wants it to be safe. Megan came by her concerns about food safety a very hard way--she was five when her two-year-old brother Kevin ate something, probably a burger tainted with E. coli O157:H7, and within a week was dead. Megan's mother Barbara is a food advocate and is featured in Food, Inc.

Megan met White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass as a result of her work on Child Nutrition reauthorization, and when she let him know she would be in Washington with other families who suffered severely as a result of consuming tainted food, Kass invited her and some of her friends to come see the White House organic garden.

The garden, if you should be wondering, is drop-dead gorgeous. There is a Thomas Jefferson section of heirloom seeds with lima beans that have sensational purple flowers. Lots of broccoli, sweet potatoes coming along.
There is green lettuce and red lettuce. There are yellow cherry tomatoes, and not a sign of late blight. No sign of rabbits either.

Megan was in Washington to ask her Senators to pass S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, before Thanksgiving. Kass also arranged a meeting with White House food safety working group chief Tino Cuellar, and Megan, Barbara, other kids who had eaten tainted food and representatives of consumer organizations (myself included) urged him to ask the White House to put passage of S 510 at the top of the fall agenda. A meal of organic turkey and vegetables, along with the news that the Senate had passed S.510, would be a great way to celebrate the holiday.

Peter Hurley lives a double life. By day he is a Portland, Oregon police officer and lives in Wilsonville with his 3 kids and wife Brandy. He considers himself to be a pretty typical middle class American, and middle if not right leaning politically. He likes common-sense laws. However, when not being a police officer, dad, and husband he has been waging a personal war to reform food safety in this country.

Peter’s son Jacob , an energetic, creative 3-year-old fond of playing with his friends and his sisters, came down with flu-like symptoms in January 2009. Neither Peter nor his wife had any idea at the time that their active toddler was actually sickened by Salmonella in his favorite comfort food – peanut butter crackers.

When his parents noticed blood in Jake’s diarrhea, they took him to the pediatrician. When the lab results came back a few days later, they were stunned to learn their son was infected with Salmonella – and, with two other young children at home, they were even more worried because they had no idea what food had made Jake sick, and whether it might sicken their other children. What they did know, was that 5 or 6 people across the country had died in an outbreak of foodborne illness linked to peanut butter – but the only brand listed as a source was King Nut Peanut Butter, which they didn’t have at home. As Jake’s diarrhea continued, his parents were given the green light by their pediatrician’s office for him to eat his favorite comfort food: Austin Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter. But they were devastated to find out shortly thereafter that they had unknowingly been continuing to feed him the very food that had poisoned him in the first place.

Jake was sick for 11 days in all. His parents were extremely vigilant in cleaning to ensure that Alyssa, Jake’s 7-month-old sister, would not also get sick. Had the infant girl gotten sick, “there is a good chance that we would be one of the families who lost a loved one,” says Peter. Luckily, Jake has recovered with no initial indication of any lingering side effects, but the Hurley family is determined to fight for changes that will better protect our food supply against dangerous contamination.

“It sickens me to no end that a company and its employees could knowingly allow tainted product to go out the door and into the nation’s food supply,” says Peter. “On behalf of all Americans, my whole family and Jake, I ask that our government put our public health and food safety first. We were lucky – it could have been very different for us, and we cannot let that happen to anyone else.”

Peter has testified before Congress, lobbied his US Senators and Congressmen in DC and in Oregon, and forged relationships based on passing a common sense law regardless of political standings. As a testament to Peter’s efforts, Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon spoke about Jacob’s story on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and proposed that the pending food safety bill to be renamed ”Jacob’s Law”.

Peter and Jacob headed to DC one more time. This time focused on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee members. This committee has a bill before them that would reform food safety and help prevent the tragedy that happened to Jacob from happening to others. Please take the time to help us by contacting your U.S. Senator and telling them to support Senate bill S.510, The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.

To learn how you can join Peter in the fight for a safer food system go to www.notinmyfood.org.

Consumers Union is working hard to get an FDA food safety reform bill through the Senate (H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act, passed the House in July). Some in the sustainable agriculture community are worried that increasing FDA's authority over food safety will be harmful to locally grown and low-input farming. CU has long advocated for organic and sustainable issues and believes that a number of changes should be made in the legislation now before the Senate to address concerns of the sustainable agriculture community. We believe these concerns can be addressed, and that we can move forward with a bill that will create seriously needed reforms in how FDA regulates food.

The main goal of the bills in Congress is to ramp up FDA oversight of food processors like Peanut Corporation of America, whose peanut butter made thousands sick and killed nine people last winter. FDA had not inspected PCA for eight years prior to the current crisis. Both the House and Senate bills require FDA to inspect high risk food processors at least once a year.

In addition, the bills also call on FDA to set food safety standards for farms that grow leafy greens, spinach, and other produce that is typically eaten raw, which have also caused illness and death. As these bills are under review, USDA is also currently considering a proposed national Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (LGMA) to regulate leafy greens. CU believes such a LGMA will fail to adequately improve the safety of raw spinach and other salad ingredients, and may well mandate practices that are damaging to the environment and organic farming , because the processing industry will set the standards itself. CU supports FDA regulation of leafy green safety that will be enforced through a transparent, open, public process that takes into account the views of consumers, environmental scientists and activists, and sustainable, small and organic farmers.

Organic, local and other types of sustainable agriculture has huge benefits for the environment as well as quality and safety benefits (through low or no pesticide use) to consumers. Unfortunately, a small or organic farm can be a source of pathogens in food, just like a large farm. The source of the outbreak of E.coli 0157:H7 in spinach in 2006, which killed three people, was a Salinas Valley farm that was in transition to organic. Certain on-farm safety requirements, such as testing irrigation water periodically for E.Coli 0157:H7, and providing bathroom facilities for farm workers, are necessary for farms that grow produce, regardless of farm size, and are currently not required of organic or conventional farms.

As small farm advocates note, one size does not fit all. Because of this, a number of provisions were added to the House food safety bill to insure that FDA's on-farm food safety rules do not conflict with organic standards and sustainable agriculture practices. CU is working to make sure that similar provisions are added to the Senate bill. The Senate bill would also benefit from provisions in the House bill that exempt small producers who sell direct to consumers (and who are thus unlikely to cause large or difficult to locate food safety outbreaks) from traceability and certain other requirements of the legislation. The fee structure established in the House bill-whereby all food processing plants, regardless of size, must pay a $500 registration fee-has also been criticized as inequitable and must be addressed (there is no fee provision in the Senate bill).

With these important changes afoot, CU believes that FDA food safety reform legislation will not hamper the development of sustainable agriculture. We desperately need Congress to pass food safety legislations to make headway against the millions of illnesses, the hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and the 5,000 deaths that CDC estimates result from contaminated food every year.

Last Wednesday, I testified on behalf of Consumers Union before the USDA at a hearing to consider the adoption of a national Leafy Green Vegetables Marketing Agreement (LGVMA), a proposal put forward by the leafy green industry. Consumers Union opposes the use of voluntary marketing agreements to develop safety standards, as this mechanism allows industry both to develop and oversee the implementation of its own safety standards without public input. It is my belief that consumers are rarely benefited when industry polices itself. Because safety standards often add to production costs, the same entity that has a stake in reducing production costs should not be the one setting safety standards and ensuring their implementation.

I have testified at numerous hearings over the last sixteen years for Consumers Union—in front of the California Legislature, FDA, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. This USDA hearing on the LGVMA was very different from all of the previous hearings at which I have testified. Unfortunately, the hearing seemed less like other federal hearings where public input is gathered, and more like a trial of those who disagree with this industry proposal. The hearing included an administrative judge officiating (he actually said little), a six-person USDA panel asking what I felt were not always neutral questions of testifiers, a four-person industry panel with two attorneys bent on poking holes in the testimony and credibility of the individuals and organizations with which they did not agree, and an attorney hired by the small and organic farmers to represent the opposition’s side (who also said little).

I felt the hearing was more than a little lopsided in favor of the leafy greens industry—which is proposing a voluntary, rather than mandatory, approach to produce safety standards. The hearing afforded the industry a platform to showcase the alleged successes of the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (we disagree) and the alleged inclusiveness with which that agreement was adopted (again, we disagree—it was a closed process here in California, rushed through without public input, and continues to be controlled by industry).

I watched as industry attorneys “cross-examined” individuals and organizations that opposed the marketing agreement—some were questioned for over an hour. One industry attorney asked the judge to “strike from the record” a consumer organization’s petition with over 7,000 signatures opposing the LGVMA because it had a few duplicate names (the judge overruled). I, myself, was told by an industry attorney that my reference to a San Francisco Chronicle article in which bad outcomes for small and organic farmers were reported, was “double hearsay.”

This is disappointing and contrary to a truly public process where USDA should be gathering relevant and important information and comments from a wide array of farming practitioners, experts, academics, and governmental and non-governmental groups. Unfortunately, the industry attorneys were given the opportunity to pounce on testifiers who oppose their proposal. We appreciate that industry is thinking about ways to improve leafy green safety and consumer confidence in produce, but we feel strongly that neither a voluntary marketing agreement in which industry develops and oversees its own safety standards largely behind closed doors, nor an unfriendly hearing that seems to favor proponents of the industry plan, are the appropriate ways to achieve these ends.

This weekend, Ippolito International, a signatory of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, announced a new recall of loose spinach, due to salmonella contamination, that was distributed in 12 states and Canada. The recall comes just before a U.S. Department of Agriculture hearing on whether to take the California LGMA national as a model for assuring the safety of leafy greens. Consumers Union thinks this model is not the way to go, and will oppose a national USDA-sponsored LGMA in testimony this week in Monterrey, California.

These days, most people agree we have a food safety problem. An earlier case of contaminated spinach, which broke into the national media three years ago this month, was the first in a series of major national food safety crises, now including peanut butter, pistachios and cookie dough. In the 2006 spinach recall, 200 people were sickened across 26 states, 100 of those were hospitalized and three died. One of the three was two-year-old Kyle Algood of Chubbuck, Idaho. Tragically, his mother made him the smoothie that contained the raw spinach, wanting to give him some healthy food.

So far there have been no illnesses or deaths associated with this latest spinach recall. But the recall underlines the fact that we still have a ways to go before the nation's food supply is as safe as it can and should be.

Click here for the entire CR post

The Huffington Post has a great blog about this and the pending food safety bill. The post focuses on how the food legislation will - and will not - impact small farmers. Here are some highlights:

“research shows both imported and domestic fresh produce have been responsible for large numbers of foodborne illnesses and outbreaks. Compiling data from the CDC and state and local health departments, the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that, between 1990 and 2006, produce was second only to seafood in causing foodborne illness outbreaks and was responsible for 21 percent of the illnesses in their database. Produce was responsible for more outbreaks than meat, poultry, eggs, dairy and bread products. “

It is an unfortunate fact that fruits and vegetables, while enormously good for you, can also make you sick.

“While both farmers and consumers benefit from safer food, no one benefits from a law that puts ridiculous burdens on small farmers. The bill that passed the House does NOT impose fees on farms. They are specifically exempted from the registration fee. Many of the provisions that initially sparked fear among small and organic producers were changed or dropped before the bill passed the House last July.”

But there are ways to address this problem that will work for small and organic agriculture.
Click here to make your food safer

I remember my lunch box, decked out with Rainbow Bright with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a small salad, a little cup with perfectly shaped fruit (what were those cherries made of anyways?!?!) and a dime taped to the top for milk. These days, a lunch box like this can spell disaster.

Peanut butter with Salmonella; leafy greens with E.Coli; berries with Cyclospors...the recall list seems never ending.

Our current food system is broken and has been in need of reform for decades. Millions of people are getting sick from dangerous food every year.

National Exposure

This week, Make Our Food Safe, a coalition of public interest safety groups are taking the message of safe lunches to the streets.

Volunteers and policy experts are uniting on the sidewalks of Washington, DC to hand out lunch bags with a message to the Senate - pass comprehensive FDA food safety legislation this year!

If you are in DC we need volunteers to help hand out bags tomorrow, Thursday, September 10, 2009. We will be at the corner of First and Massachusetts NE, across from Columbus Circle at Union Station (map). We will be ready for volunteers at 7:45 a.m. and will hand out bags until 10 am. Immediately after that, we will deliver the bags to members of Congress, if you just want to come for the delivery, arrive at the same spot at 9:45am. (If raining call Darcy at 202-669-7340.) Any extras will be gladly put to work!

State and Local

Also, in Cleveland, OH; Concord, NH; Winston-Salem, NC, Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA you can join up with a group that is delivering the message to the district Senate offices.

If you want volunteer tomorrow in one of these cities call the number below and ask the organizer for more information including time and where to meet up:

-- Cleveland, OH: 216-533-2211
-- Concord, NH (9:30am): 502-640-4290
-- Winston-Salem, NC: 919-539-6619
-- Austin, TX: 512-651-2911
-- San Francisco, CA: 415-431-6747 (ask for Tim)

Even if your community is not listed above you can make a difference - send a message to your Senator by going to www.NotInMyFood.org.

In the coming weeks, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) is going to be making its way through the committee process and the halls of Congress (think Schoolhouse Rock, circa 1980s). We need to keep the pressure on.

One message that the President did hammer home yesterday morning was that we can't sit back and wait for things to happen for us; we need to go out and make a difference. Well here is your chance to make a difference for cafeterias and dining room tables across America.

Consumers Union Urges California State Assembly to Vote Yes on S.B. 797 Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the California State Assembly will vote on Senate Bill 797, which would ban the use of Bisphenol A (BPA) in food products and packaging designed for children under 3 years old by 2011. BPA is a widely-used chemical found in food and beverage can linings and a building block of polycarbonate plastic used to make a range of products such as sports bottles, food-storage containers, baby bottles, and “sippy” cups.

From CU's press release today:

“California should continue the state’s powerful tradition as a national policy leader and a pioneering watchdog of consumer health and safety, especially when it comes to protecting small children from the dangers of BPA,” said Elisa Odabashian, Director, West Coast Office and State Campaigns, for Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. “We urge the State Assembly to vote yes on S.B. 797 and ban BPA for our youngest and most vulnerable consumers.”

The bill, authored by California Senator Fran Pavley, D-Santa Monica, would ban BPA in products such as baby bottles, sippy cups, infant formula and baby food jars designed for children ages three and younger. The bill passed the Senate but faces stiff opposition in the Assembly due in part to lobbying by the chemical and infant formula industries.

Connecticut and Minnesota along with Suffolk County in New York and the city of Chicago have already banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. In 2008, the Canadian government banned its use in baby bottles.

Almost a decade ago, Consumers Union was one of the first to test BPA in baby bottles, and to warn consumers about its potential dangers. Today, an array of groups, including consumer, health, environmental, medical and scientific, have urged FDA to remove BPA from food and beverage containers, and at the very least, to protect the most vulnerable consumers-young children and pregnant women.

To take action now by emailing a letter or better yet take the time to call your Assemblymember now and tell them to pass S.B. 797

CU Policy Analyst, Ami Gahdi gives an insider view at the process the Food Safety Modernization Act will go through as it comes before the U.S. Senate.

Our food safety laws are in serious need of updating. How do we make that happen? Essentially, by changing and strengthening the law that governs our national food safety system, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C). After multiple hearings to investigate repeated episodes of deadly food contamination, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have taken steps to amend this law – which has not been comprehensively updated since it was first passed in 1938.

In July of this year, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act (FSEA), by a vote of 283-142. This bill asks FDA to take a number of important steps to better safeguard our food supply. For instance, it requires FDA to dramatically increase its current once-a-decade track record of inspecting food facilities. The FSEA will also require companies that find contamination in the food production process to report that contamination to FDA.

But the House bill is not the end of the process. The Senate also has to pass a bill, and then the two bills – which may be quite different from each other – have to be reconciled. Leaders in the House and Senate appoint members from the relevant committees to come together in this temporary conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills. This final measure, which must be approved by both chambers again, is then sent to the President for signature. He can sign it into law or veto it.

With food safety reform, the Senate will likely pass its own version of reform, S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. This bill was introduced earlier this year by Senator Richard Durbin and is being co-sponsored by nine other Senators, from both political parties. It must first be considered by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee which has jurisdiction over such matters. This committee has been chaired by the late Senator Ted Kennedy—a new leader for it will have to be found in the coming weeks.

The HELP Committee, and then the whole Senate, will have to vote on S. 510 and then it will have to be reconciled with the House bill. We don’t expect any delaying tactics by opponents, but we will keep an eye on it. With a lot of hard work, we are optimistic that President Obama will have a strong food safety bill to sign before the end of the year.

Consumers Union will do all it can to help move this important measure through Congress. Too many victims of foodborne illness and their families have waited too long for food safety reform. Both the House and the Senate bills make important updates to our existing laws. Our goal is to see the strongest provisions from each bill make it into the final law. If you share the goal of a safer food system please click here and join us in the fight.

CU's Senior Research Associate, Michael Hansen writes about animal litter (yes, that kind of litter) and bones being fed to chickens and cows.

You know the saying, “you are what they eat”? That’s may be true with a strange cattle feed ingredient—chicken poop. Sound disgusting? It sure is. Back in 1967, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) put out a policy statement that poultry litter (which consists of chicken manure aka poop, feathers, spilled feed, bedding material, dead rodents, etc.) couldn’t be considered safe, and so was banned in cattle feed. In 1980, however, FDA decided this wasn’t a federal issue and so revoked the policy, leaving it up to the states to regulate the use of poultry litter in cattle feed. Since then, however, few states are even monitoring the use of poultry litter as cattle feed.

So, what kind of human health risks could there be from feeding poultry litter to cattle? One risk is mad cow disease. At present, material from cows—meat and bone meal—can be ground up and put in chicken feed. Since poultry litter can contain spilled feed, this means material from cows can be indirectly fed back to cows via poultry litter. Indeed, in 2003, Dr. Lester Crawford, then deputy Commissioner of the FDA, said that “There is a possibility that chickens waste so much feed that the litter can contain up to 30% meat and bone meal.” Since it is estimated that some 1 million tons—or two billion pounds—of poultry litter are fed to cattle every year, that is a lot of cattle material potentially being fed back to cattle. Feeding cattle material back to cattle is risk factor for mad cow disease.

In addition, a number of antibiotics and other drugs are fed to poultry, but which could be toxic to cattle, and so would be found in the poultry litter. Indeed, an arsenic compound is fed as a growth promotant to chickens and could also be found in chicken litter which can be fed to cattle. Arsenic is a cancer causing chemical.

Indeed, if an animal feed factory was known to produce feed that could be contaminated with drugs, antibiotics, arsenic, etc. at unknown levels, FDA would shut that factory down. But if the factory turns out to be a chicken, then the FDA does not regulate it.

Right now, there is a petition, supported by Consumers Union, before the FDA to ban the use of poultry litter in cattle feed. Click here to sign the petition. To find out more information go to foodanimalconcerns.org

Yesterday in on the steps of the California capitol building the babies did their part to make sure that bottles, sippy cups and other containers are BPA free. Now State Assemblymembers need to hear from Californians to vote yes for SB 797.

Canada, Minnesota, Connecticut, the city of Chicago, and NY's Suffolk County have already enacted measures banning BPA or Bisphenol. SB 797 which would ban BPA in all food and beverage products designed for children under three is coming up for a final vote in the legislature in the next couple of days. The chemical, widely used in certain kinds of plastics and epoxy resins—including those commonly found in baby bottles and infant formula can liners—leaches directly into foods and beverages, and then into children’s systems where it can remain for their lives. Research by the Centers for Disease Control showed that 93% of Americans tested had BPA in their bodies. And children typically have higher levels of BPA in them than adults. BPA has been linked in several scientific studies to various diseases, including neurological and reproductive problems, breast and prostate cancer, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

Click here to check out our Flickr page and see some more great photos.

We will post some great video of the rally and speakers tomorrow so stay tuned! In the meantime contact your California State Assemblyman.

Canada banned the use of BPA in baby bottles and restricted its use in infant formula cans. Chicago and New York’s Suffolk County banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. Minnesota banned BPA in baby bottles and cans. Connecticut banned BPA in children’s food containers and all reusable food and drink containers. Congress is considering two bills that ban BPA in all food products. Now is the time for California to act to protect small children from the dangers of BPA.

California Senator Pavley is sponsoring two upcoming events to highlight the importance of passing a BPA ban in California. The first event is a Toxic Baby Bottle Swap to be held in Los Angeles tomorrow on August 19 (see event brochure here [PDF]).

The second event is a press conference and rally held on August 26 starting at 10:00 am on the front lawn of the Capitol in Sacramento, followed by visits to Assembly Members’ offices (see event brochure here [PDF]).

The chemical companies and infant formula industries are out in full force opposing the BPA ban legislation in California, and many members of the Assembly are being lobbied to oppose the bill. Please go to Consumers Union’s website and send your Assembly Member a letter asking for support of SB 797 when it comes up for a vote in the next few weeks.

Preliminary results of the investigation “indicate a strong association (of the E. coli strain) with eating raw prepackaged cookie dough,” though the FDA is still trying to figure out the exact cause of the contamination. In late June, the agency announced that it found a strain of E. coli O157:H7 in a sample of the recalled Nestle cookie dough, but the culture did not match the outbreak strain.

The biggest mystery is that this particular strain of E. coli is usually only found in beef. Scientists and experts are stumped as to how this strain got into cookie dough. The rest of us are just grossed out.

So far, 80 persons from 31 states have been sickened. Of those cases, 70 have been confirmed by advanced DNA testing as having the outbreak strain, 35 have been hospitalized, and 10 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious condition. Nestle has recalled 3.6 million packages of cookie dough along with a long list of related products. (click here for list)

As the Senate prepares to take up legislation to reform food safety and upgrade the FDA, the GM of Nestle talks about their process to find the cause of E. Coli contamination in cookie dough and the cost to business and workers from unsafe food.

"In this economy and these times, that's the last thing we wanted to do is shut our factory down and keep people from working. So it was the right decision from the consumer's sake, but a tough one for the employees," Bakus said.

That "could have" is s why Nestle says they've decided to increase their testing. "On some of the inbound ingredients, we're running 100 tests a day." Bakus said.

But those decisions didn't come cheaply. "We estimate the cost to be around $30-50 million. But, it's not so much the cost that I'm worried about, it's getting the product back on the shelves and regaining consumer confidence." (click here for entire story)

Just a reminder that until strong food safety legislation has passed both chambers of Congress, and a final bill has been signed by the President, food recalls like the Nestle cookie recall are voluntary. The reform proposals in Congress would give the FDA the power to order a recall. The legislation would also order high risk plants to be inspected at least annually compared to the current FDA track record of inspections once every 10 years on average.

To help pass strong food safety reforms click here!

Beef Packers, a California meatpacking firm, is recalling more than 826,000 pounds of ground beef that has been linked to an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service. The outbreak has sickened people in nine Western states.

The recalled beef was processed between June 5 and 23 and sent to retail distribution centers in Arizona, California, Colorado and Utah marked with the establishment number "EST. 31913." It was then repackaged into consumer-size amounts and sold under different retail brand names. Because the repacked meat no longer carries the EST number, the USDA is urging shoppers to check with their retailer to determine whether they may have purchased any of the meat.

The link between the salmonella outbreak and the ground beef was discovered by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which was investigating a series of illnesses in the state.

This particular strain of Salmonella -- Newport -- is resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs, which can increase the risk of hospitalization or possible treatment failure in infected individuals.

Eating food contaminated with Salmonella can cause salmonellosis, one of the most common bacterial foodborne illnesses. Salmonella infections can be life-threatening, especially to those with weak immune systems, such as infants, the elderly, and persons with HIV infection or undergoing chemotherapy. The most common manifestations of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within eight to 72 hours. Additional symptoms may be chills, headache, nausea and vomiting that can last up to seven days.

Our take: This recall again underscores the need for quick passage of the Food Safety Enhancement Act by the Senate. The bill, which is designed to give the FDA more authority and oversight over food producers, was passed by the House last week. We hope -- and expect -- the Senate to do likewise after its summer recess.

Click here for CR post