FDA's Howard Seltzer proposes New Year food safety resolutions, warning that foodborne illness can be life-threatening for older adults, infants, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems. He urges washing hands with soap for at least 20 seconds and using a second cutting board.
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Advisories
Safe Eats - Meat, Poultry & Seafood - FDA
An FDA guide to handling meat, poultry and seafood safely during pregnancy. Wash hands and surfaces with hot soapy water, sanitize counters with a teaspoon of chlorine bleach per quart of water left on for ten minutes, and keep raw foods away from ready-to-eat ones.
Biological
Holiday food safety tips
The FDA's Howard Seltzer runs through holiday kitchen basics: wash hands for 20 seconds, clean surfaces between foods, skip rinsing raw meat and poultry, keep raw eggs, meat and seafood away from ready-to-eat foods, and check internal temperatures with a thermometer.
Advisories
Fish Hazards and Controls: More Than a Fish Story
The FDA's Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, in its fourth edition since April 2011, tells fishermen and processors how to control parasites, pathogens and natural toxins, among them scombrotoxin, whose histamine builds up when fish are not chilled quickly.
Biological
Get Food Safety Answers on Your Smart Phone
The USDA's virtual food safety representative, Ask Karen, now runs on iOS and Android. Her database answers nearly 1,500 food safety questions around the clock, and users can chat with a live expert weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST or call the Meat and Poultry Hotline.
Advisories
Holiday Food Safety During Pregnancy
CDC holiday food safety advice for pregnant women: wash hands often, cook meat until well done, reheat hot dogs and deli meats until steaming, skip unpasteurized milk and soft cheeses, and avoid eggnog unless it is alcohol-free and made with pasteurized eggs.
Comments
US Senate Passes The Food Safety Modernization Act: Importers Beware!
The Senate passed the Food Safety Modernization Act 73 to 25. Former FDA official Benjamin England warns the bill greatly expands FDA authority over food, and predicts higher prices, slower imports and a heavier compliance burden without a proportional gain in safety.
Politics
The Food Safety Shell Game (PR)
The piece argues Congress's food safety debate skips the root of nationwide salmonella and E. coli outbreaks: the manure of factory farms holding thousands of cattle and millions of birds, and corn-and-soy feeding that makes cattle guts hospitable to pathogenic E. coli.
Advisories
USDA Offers Food Safety Tips for Iowa, Illinois Flooding
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service issued advice for Iowa and Illinois residents hit by flooding: keep thermometers in the refrigerator and freezer, freeze water and gel packs before outages, group food together in the freezer, and store food above the reach of contaminated water.
Law & Regulations
Food Safety Enhancement Act - Update
HR 2749 has passed the House and a similar Senate bill, S 510, is pending. Both would require all-up, all-down traceability, mandatory recalls and electronic records. The piece contends only ScoringAg offers item-level traceback, and compares the bills with the 2002 Bioterrorism Act.
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