FDA unveils new food safety rules to curb outbreaks

WASHINGTONThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of disease outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens.

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The long-overdue rules are aimed at reducing the estimated 3,000 deaths a year in the U.S. from foodborne illness. Just since this summer, listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe are linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths.

The rules proposed by the FDA Friday will require farmers to take precautions against contamination on the farm - making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and animals stay out of fields, for example. Food manufacturers will also have to submit food safety plans to the government.

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"The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act is a common sense law that shifts the food safety focus from reactive to preventive," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said in a written statement. "With the support of industry, consumer groups, and the bipartisan leadership in Congress, we are establishing a science-based, flexible system to better prevent foodborne illness and protect American families."

One in six Americans suffer from a foodborne illness each year, leading to about 130,000 hospitalizations. In fact, there are more than 250 potential foodborne diseases according to the CDC, including infections caused by viruses, bacteria and parasites.

[Carl_Kelland]

Well, it's late, so let's sum up..

2,512,873 people died in the U.S. in 2011. Kathleen Sibelius, who has a degree in "public adminstration" from the University of Kansas, tells us that we should be really worried about the 3,000 people who die every year from food-borne illness. This is greater than the 1,884 who die of hernia, but less than the 3,555 who die by accidental drowning. And of course vastly less than than the number who die of other diseases (2.3 million) or auto accidents (34,677) or falls (26,631) or accidental poisoning (33,554). But Kathleen Sibelius wants to make work for her stupid agency, so we will have to pay higher food prices and salaries for her and her idiotic drones to administer this folly.

Any it will do nothing for public health.

And the morons in the news media are too stupid to see this.

Reference http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06...

[foo8259]

We need to go back to natural "grass-fed beef" instead of the chemically laced grain-fed and processed feed-lot meats readily available at the supermarkets now. Grains are not good for people or animals, and have caused the modern outbreaks of toxic E. coli and antibiotic resistant bacteria. Grass fed cattle, Angus or otherwise, do not carry it. Grass feed meat is higher in healthy Omega 3's and lower in Omega 6 that's also found in unhealthful so called "vegetable oils."

[onefeather2]

Well said...And with all this genetically modified food who knows what it will do, if one does a little research they will find out it is Not good for you. They put fear into people to believe that normal grown food is not good for you. Do people even know how many chemicals are in the food they eat and it is Not listed on labels..And the research, they have not done Long enough research on what happens and the causes. Just read an article about how they are not being honset on what they are saying or telling the facts..Typical greedy, don't care aabout people just money.