Listeria: Safety-based date labels, cheese and the FDA

As I've written before, I spent several years on the USDA's National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria For Foods (NACMCF).  We spent several years writing scientific briefs on a variety of topics. During 2002-2004, I worked on a subcommittee looking at "Criteria for Refrigerated Shelf-life Based on Safety."  For someone who didn't spend 100% of my time on food-safety issues, I was initially surprised that the dates on foods were not at all related to safety.  Dates on that yogurt you are about to eat are based on palatability, FYI.

The document we produced and then published in 2005 in the Journal of Food Protection was predominately a Listeria control document even though we considered four psychrotrophic pathogens: L. monocytogenes, nonproteolytic C. botulinum, Y. enterocolitica, and B. cereus. The hope was that a safety-date on refrigerated foods, when combined with education about proper storage and handling of these foods, could reduce the health risk in the very young, very old, immunocompromised and pregnant women, who are at increased risk for miscarriages and stillbirths after Listeria infection.  Of course, any safety-based date label would have little impact if the food is highly contaminated during production. 

One thing I noticed serving on NACMCF was the hard work and honest efforts of the others on the committee. Even though some members worked for industry, some worked for the government and some had worked for both, they all tried hard to produce a good document. There was no evidence of some conspiracy to harm the public.  Outbreaks of foodborne illness are bad for everybody. Producers looked to government to set standards and then helped determine the best ways to meet those standards.

With that background, I was shocked to read recently in the NY Times about an artisanal cheese producer from Washington state who was defying a recall order from the FDA. Her cheeses were found to be contaminated with Listeria.  She and others are claiming that the FDA is going after the little producers - a David vs Goliath story.  Senators and others are rallying to modify the food safety bill in the Senate that I blogged about last week, in an effort to exempt these types of small producers.  They suggest that the real risk is in the big producers since they make the most foods, but I think they are making a very poor decision.  If you had the choice to buy cheese that was subject to regulation and unlikely to be contaminated or some cheese that wasn't tested for safety, which would you buy?  I agree with William Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer, who said he just doesn't "know how they make the leap from the government trying to do the right thing for public health to ‘they’re food Nazis in the pocket of big agribusiness.’ ”

What if we had that situation in HAI prevention? What if big hospitals had to publicly report CLABSIs and follow Joint Commission standards and small hospitals got a free pass? Wouldn't that be the quickest path for bankruptcy for small hospitals? It would be hard to imagine small hospitals claiming that they only take care of a few patients so a few excess deaths don't matter, but that is exactly what the small food producers are claiming in the NY Times article.

Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus
It seems that we currently live under a logical fallacy, where the government is evil and people claim that the government is bad at everything. Sure, government has its faults and could improve its efficiency, but when we get to a point where we are saying that small food producers shouldn't have to be regulated and thus produce safe food, we have gone too far. I would love to support local producers and serve fresh produce in my home, but I won't do it if they get a free pass on safety.  I hope they can work out a compromise where the FDA and small producers can work together.

NY Times article: Small Cheesemaker Defies F.D.A. Over Recall - November 19, 2010